The initial verdict after day one's session is that the scorching pace of growth is sustainable and many fund managers heaved a sigh of relief, having put all their eggs in the software basket. Most of Monday's session dealt with the large promise held out by the growth of e-commerce, which is still in its infancy, to software firms. "The fact of the matter is this industry is going to go from strength to strength. Investors look at software stocks as stallions. Eight out of the 10 biggest wealth creators of 1998 in the stock market has been software firms. The promise held forth by their growth is not a blip. There is no chance whatsoever thatthis business is going to falter, not for many many years to come," said Madhusudan Reddy, general manager, Hughes Software Systems.

According to fund managers, the outcome of the conference will have a big impact on the market as it will influence their investment strategies to a great extent. "With millions of our money put in software stocks, tomorrow's session will be critical in taking a view on stock valuations as it will deal specifically with the business area in which current market favourites are active. Today's session confirms that the long-term potential of the sector is immense. We have just touched the tip of an ice-berg," said a fund manager who did not want to be identified.

Among the fund managers present were Birla Capital's Bharat Shah, Sundaram Newton's N Prasad, Cholamandalam Cazenove's Ajit Chetan and Nilesh Shah of Triumph Securities.Chief executives of all the major software companies like Infosys' Narayana Moorthy and Satyam's Srinivasa Raju were present through the day. Thepresentations made by leaders in international IT industry spoke more about the future challenges, without doubting for once the sustainability of the current growth. The presentation dealt more about how to tackle financing requirements to sustain the growth in GDP terms by adding new software companies into the marketplace.

Tomorrow's session on `moving up the value chain' and `ERP market in India' is considered crucial by fund managers as it will give indications about the ability of Indian companies to overgrow their initial cost advantages as low cost production centers. "Most of the higher valuations given to the stocks of companies like Infosys, Satyam and Tata Infotech is based on their ability to move up the value chain,'' said a fund manager with a leading mutual fund present in the conference.

The speakers on the `move up the value chain' include Infosys managing director, Nandan Nilekeni, CEO of Citicorp Information Technology, Sridhar Iyengar of KPMG Peat Marwick and Vivek Kalra of McKinsey &Co.