Indians catch the Apps fever

Apps are trendy. And young, talented Indians are developing them galore. 185 billion is the number of app downloads expected from mobile app stores by 2014, since the launch of the first such store in July 2008.

CodeConclave's Siddhartha Banerjee and his wife Bhavna Sharma have created a step by step guide, using video, voice and text, to wearing a sari. "The number of downloads were sufficient for us to recover our investment in the sari app," says Banerjee.

"We want to build a worldclass product out of India," says Althea Systems' Kishore A.K. and V. Sagar. Kishore and two of his friends were laid off by an IT firm during the 2008/09 downturn. Instead of hunting for another job they set up Althea Systems, funding it from the severance package they received.

Spanning 10 cities, Zomato lets you check ratings, reviews, photos, discounts and locations of all restaurants in your city, along with their menus. Zomato on iPhone is also location aware - it recommends you the best restaurants around your current location.

School friends Ramprasad Rajendran and Dheepan Chakravarthi co-founded Hashcube - a social gaming company that makes popular puzzle type games on social networking sites and mobile platforms like the iPhone.

Some established companies from overseas are also augmenting their app workforce in India. The Netherlands-based instant messaging company Nimbuzz, for instance, shifted its headquarters to Gurgaon last year. "It was important to have our product team sitting in India", says Vikas Saxena, CEO, Nimbuzz.

"It is very empowering," says Sharad Sharma, Chairman of the NASSCOM Product Forum, and a former CEO of Yahoo! India R&D, about Indians developing more apps by the day. "Many young people are transitioning from a service mindset - taking up jobs with big software companies - to doing products."