India needs to turn its attention to PD in a big way despite the dotcom hype. If one really thinks about it, the core of PD is quite close to IT. PD requires massive integration and creation of information, increasingly aided no doubt by IT. Information about product and process technologies, about un-met customer needs and wants and the crucial ability to pay for them, about applicable intellectual property rights (IPRs) and dimensional and other standards, about the conditions in which the product has to function, the problems in its manufacture, distribution, etc., all of which have to be gathered, integrated and finally embodied in the product innovation - in a relentlessly competitive milieu.
Thus PD and IT can both advance synergistically, each drawing on the other's strengths. In fact, internet based PD is a rapidly advancing sub-function in its own right in which India can leverage the advantages of time zone differentials (especially vis-�-vis the US) and the well known one of low personnel cost to concentrate on gaining an edge in PD competence. Japan, for example, is reportedly more inclined nowadays to consume technology rather than to develop it to the changing values of its young people. This may be an opportunity for Indian industry to seize (before China does so).