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BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY IN THE U.S. & INDIA AUGUST - 2010 SILICONINDIA.COM

PUBLISHED SINCE1997

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Bobby Srinivasan,President & CEO

In My Opinion: RajatMohanty, PaladionNetworks VC TALK: Dharmesh Thakker,AdvancedTechnologyVentures Mobile Special


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Publisher

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Editor-in-Chief

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Managing EditorChristoJacob

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Roshna Sankar VimaliSwamy

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AUGUST - 2010

[Technology]

Mobile Space at the Cusp

of RevolutionBy Rajiv Kumar, Rocketalk

Doing IT Services Business

with SMBs and StartupsBy Prathapan Sethu, QBurst

Mobile Productivity in the

EnterpriseBy David DSouza, Moprise

Best Practices in Designing

Mobile ApplicationsBy Y K Maheshwari, Mphasis

[Business]

Back Office Systems Take

Center Stage in Driving

Consumer ExperienceBy Neeraj Vyas, Aricent

[Management]Business Emerges from Behavior

While Behavior from BeliefsBy Juby Thomas

[Technology]

Opportunistic Co

New ParadigmBy Mohan Hebbar,

Symphony Service

[Management]

How Shared Serv

Business Service

Management Hel

Deliver Increased

Your CustomersBy Bill Emmet & At

Williams, BMC Softw

[Entrepreneur 101]

Designing a Winni

Organizational CuBy Gunjan Sinha

[CIO Profile]

Technology Will

Subservient to Bu

By Vimali Swamy

[SI 20 Profile]

[In My Opinion]

Tortoises Do Not Win in

Market PlacesBy Rajat Mohanty,

Paladion Networks

[Infocus]

[VC Chakra]

California Based Zenprise

Raises $9 Million

Mavenir Systems Raises

$13.6 Million

[CEO Spotlight]

Harness the Power of

Collaboration

Unified Communication: Its Time

for Alternative Solutions

[VC Talk]

Investment Trends The

Evolution of Tech in

CleantechBy Dharmesh Thakker, Advanced

Technology Ventures

06

08

12

14

22

34

36

38

40

42

44

46

26

28

30

32

Contents August2010

16 Cover Story

Editorial

Globalization and outsourcing are the important elements ofany business in any country. Both globalisation and out-

sourcing banks much on immigration for its success. But re-cently the immigration row is heating up in the U.S and European

Union. To resolve this dispute in U.S, following the European Unionstrategy by U.S may not hold good and should rightly align with theU.S economical growth.

For instance, recent President Obamas battle to block a con-troversial new immigration law aimed at driving more than

400,000 undocumented workers out of the state of Arizona is rais-ing difference of opinion in the state. It is said that nearly half the

U.S. population wants immigration to slow down. But will the

slow down really help U.S? The answer is the state should knowto separate wheat from the chaff.

The U.S is home to about 1.6 million Indian origin people, mak-ing them the third-largest immigrant group in the country after Mex-

icans and Filipino. Compared to other immigrant groups, the Indianforeign born are much better educated -- nearly three-quarters of In-

dian-born adults have a bachelor's degree or higher. Now Indians adds

to the credits innovating and playing a great role in the U.S. in allfields, whether it be business or research. For instance, recent Guru-

raj Daeshpandes appointment as the Co-Chairman of U.S. PresidentBarack Obamas National Advisory Council on Innovation and En-

trepreneurship and Gunjan Sinha, SiliconIndia Chairman and the Ex-ecutive Chairman of Metricstream representing the Board of U.S -

India Endowment for Science and Technology is a recent testimony

to the fact the contribution of Indian origin people cannot be ignored.It is one of the idiosyncracies of the neo-liberal New World Order

that while there is a free trade in finances, goods, and services, thepolicy on immigration is still not matching the trade policies. While

slamming the door shut in the face of many desperate economicrefugees is fine, it should not be at the cost of devastating the most ed-

ucated, most skilled workers from the same countries, many of whomhave played a crucial role in the economical growth of the U.S.

While a huge immigration row leads to tightening immigration

laws, to the flipside these are the countries that proclaim to other worldto leverage on Globalization. Now its high time to get into action

and re-examine U.S. immigration policies to determine whether they

are moving in the right direction and strike a right balance betweenglobalization and barring the potential people who can drive the U.Seconomical growth.

Please do share your thoughts with us.

Christo JacobManaging Editor

[email protected]

High Time to Re-examine!

By Christo Jacob

Bobby

ulingRoaming Space

R

the

ROAMWARE


4/25

M

ine has been a rela-

tively short journey asan entrepreneur so

far. Its been just over

a decade since we

started our company specializing as aniche information security player. Oneof my key learnings in this short span

has been on the need to evolve businessmodels with time. In my opinion, the

relationship between business models

and time is a less discussed subject inmanagement studies. Fledgling entre-

preneurs could do well by understand-ing the dynamism between the two.

Almost all successful businesses alterthe initial models created during their

startup phases. And whats more inter-

esting is that they keep changing theirmodels even as they succeed with the

existing model, suggesting that firmsshould adopt a very active approach in

pursuing business model changes.Young companies should constantly

ask how do we innovate our businessmodel, which is still contributing rev-

enues and profits, since future effec-

tiveness of this is likely to be

undermined by changes in its ex-ternal environment or competi-

tion?We started out as a focused

information security player and

even today we call ourselves a

focused information securityplayer. Does that mean that weare the same company that we

were 10 years back? On thecontrary, looking back it

will be difficult for me to

s i l i c o nisilicon i n d i a |6|A u g u s t 2 0 1 0

find similarity between what we were

even five years ago and where we are

today. Ten years ago, when we startedour company, we were ahead of the

markets in our part of the world. In-formation security was in very nas-

cent stages then. That gave us theinitial momentum and business suc-

cess as we could take a unique posi-

tioning of security specialists in themarket. But soon many established IT

players entered the domain alongwith a crowd of startups competing

with us, and we quickly r ealized thatto continue our success we will need

to keep changing what we are doingand somehow stay ahead of the mar-

ket. It helped that information secu-

rity was a dynamic and fast evolvingfield and a company that can contin-

uously evolve will get a premium inthe market. Without going into

specifics of what we did, I have triedto generalize the learnings we have

had as a team:

Intuition is an important ally ofentrepreneurs. I have already said

that business models should be vary-ing with time. The most common

view is that it should adapt to envi-

ronmental changes. But environmen-tal changes are often ambiguous and

young companies do not have thereach and resources to monitor such

changes. Also young companies needto be ahead of changes so that they

can compete with more establishedcompanies. In this scenario where

lack of data is coupled with the need

to be predictive, intuition often is theonly thing going for an entrepreneur.

By intuition, I dont mean an eurekamoment or path-breaking idea but

more sedate gut feel on what weshould incrementally change or do

differently for being ahead in market.Such intuition often comes from an

entrepreneurs cognition of environ-mental threats and opportunities

based on whatever limited interac-

tions with market participants arethere as well as from own internal

beliefs and influences.

Trial and error experiments shouldback up the intuition based decisions.

In my experience, its very easy to fallin love with an idea if it is based on

ones own beliefs and concepts. Bas-

ing the change of business model on anarcissist devotion to own idea, with-

out the backing of market data andanalysis, will only decrease the firms

chances of survival. Not only can themarket acceptance be a problem but

also the inertial pressures within the

firm to preserve status quo can defeatany new initiative. We are not talking

of creating a new business model be-

cause the earlier model is a failure andcompany is struggling for survival,wherein any change is accepted inter-

nally as better than the status quo.

Here we are talking of a scenariowhere the business model change is

more proactive to ensure continuedsuccess and hence can face internal in-

ertia in a firm. Again, young compa-nies do not have the luxury of market

research and consumer analysis to get

data for backing the new model. Thisis where the most tried and true meth-

ods of problem solving lies, trial anderror method comes in. Despite its

lack of sophistication, sometimes itsthe most efficient choice as it always

guarantees a learning. I feel there arefive stages for a young firm to carry

out trial and error experiments. It ob-

viously starts with idea formulationwhich may have been from intuition.

Before falling in love with the idea,

the idea needs to be v

market. It is best done

the idea on limited scalewishing customers or

there is a validation thlikely to appeal to a sign

of target market, onlymoves to next level of b

creation. This is where

how the offering will pitched, and priced

There may be multiple the same idea. Small ex

to be carried out to abusiness model with few

prospects. Only aftemodel that makes most

fied, the company mov

stage of scaling up. Vecompanies tend to go

idea to scaling up stageing out small experime

tion of business modelsIntuition works bes

have the mindset to foll

their beliefs but still retaof skepticism on what

that they are always locontradictory evidence.

and error experiments o

tions and business modhelp in collecting evid

decision is made on chaness model, the thing th

most is time. There shminded focus on scali

where the company cansources at its disposal to

ness model forward. R

the mantra at this stageIt is obvious that the

is iterative. Successful nies will keep evolving

models or tweaking exand execute them faste

catch up. Its not abofaster but also about n

placent with existing may be successful todayout tomorrow. Its not th

wins that you have to lhare that loses once it

placent needs to be a le

in myopinion

By Rajat MohantyThe author is CEO and Co-Founder,Paladion Networks

TortoisesDo Not Win

in Market Places

Fledglingentrepreneurs could do

well by understanding

the dynamism andrelationship betweenbusiness models andtime, which is a lessdiscussed subject inmanagement studies

Often youngcompanies tend to godirectly from idea tothe scaling up stage

without carrying outsmall experiments on

validation of businessmodels, which are

quite essential

Rajat Mohanty


5/25

silicon i nsilicon i n d i a |8|A u g u s t 2 0 1 0

in in

With an aim of equippingevery Indian student with a

laptop, the Human Re-source Development (HRD) ministrys

effort to bring out $30 laptops has in-

vited lot of criticism. Some of the In-dian media channels bring excitement

to the whole scenario by calling it asIndias yet another cheapest invention

after designing the worlds cheapestpassenger car Tata Nano.

On the flipside, the western mediais hesitant to call it as a laptop, It

doesnt appear to be a laptop at all, in-

stead, it seems to be a small (10 inches by 5 inches) storage device with a

bunch of wires emerging from it, re-ports Gizmodo. Whether it is $10, $20

or $30 all of them are doubtful aboutits success.

Until now, the China-based elec-

tronic equipment manufacturer MenQholds the credit for worlds cheapest

laptop EasyPC E790. India is trying to

break credit ts by bringing out the$30 laptop with key features like

touch screen display, built in key-board, 2GB RAM, Wi-Fi connec-

tivity, and USB support, and which

runs on solar power besides con-ventional power sources and supports

multimedia, Web conferencing, andLinux OS.

In 2009, MenQ launched $80 lap-top successfully. But it took one year

for India to unveil a prototype of $30laptop. The availability and distribu-

tion is the major concern of the hour.

Now Intel India has taken a step for-ward and plans to partner with the

union HRD ministry to commerciallyroll out the $30 laptop for students.

India has witnessed similar projectsin the past, but there has been no

progress other than the initial hue

and cry.It should be noted that in 2005,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT) developed a similar prototype

of a $100 laptop, especially for chil-

dren of developing nations. But, at thattime, India rejected the offer, saying it

was too expensive, and decided to de-velop a cheaper alternative of its own.

In 2008, the Indian Institute of Sciencein Bangalore and the Indian Institute

of Technology -Madras worked on the

development of the low-cost laptop asa part of the OLPC project.

There was certainly a distinct lackof enthusiasm on the part of the gov-

ernment agencies in India towards theidea of OLPC and MIT projects. The

$30 laptop initiative should not be a

repetition of OLPC & MIT projects.

India to Make Headway in Educationwith Low Priced Laptops

India-born Gururaj Deshpande, Chair-man of the Bangalore-based Tejas Net-

works, A123,and Akshaya Patra, oncesaid, India is a land of limitless potential,

and he is now proving it just right. Theman who has to his credit taking three

multi-billion-dollar companies public and

once the richest Indian origin man in theworld is now again adding feathers to his

crown. Despande, popularly known asDesh is now appointed as the Co-Chair-

man of U.S. President Barack ObamasNational Advisory Council on Innovation

and Entrepreneurship.

Desh will support Obamas innovationstrategy by helping to develop policies that

foster entrepreneurship, create jobs, anddrive economic growth. He is one of the

26 members of the Council, which countsserial entrepreneurs, university presidents,

investors, and non-profit leaders among its

members and the only Indian co-chairingthe Council, with the other Co-Chairs

being Steve Case, Chairman and CEO ofRevolution and co-founder of AOL, and

Mary Sue Coleman, President of the Uni-versity of Michigan. Commenting on his

new role, Desh says, The U.S. spends ap-proximately $60-70 billion a year on re-

search, and I would be looking at ways to

get more out of that.Deshpande is an entrepreneur and phi-

lanthropist who serves as a member of theMIT Corporation and has contributed

around $20 million to make possibleMITs Deshpande Center for Technologi-

cal Innovation. The Deshpande Founda-

tion is one of the leading philanthropic

foundations in the areas of innovation, en-trepreneurship, and international develop-ment. Through its grants, the foundation

has helped launch innovative companies,assisted non-government organizations de-

velop an international presence, and

launched partnerships witmost remarkable change

world today.Born in Hubli, Karnata

graduated in electrical enthe Indian Institute of

Madras, and went to Can

masters degree and PhD.an academic before a fellow

him into the world of b1981, Deshpande has sta

public three multi-billionnies including A123 Syste

buted well on Nasdaq. Now

for Deshpande will be to equally between each of h

initiatives and his six busstone Capital, Sycamore N

Systems, HiveFire, Tejas Airvana Inc. He is the chair

five and an investor in the

Many Indians based inare involved in innovation

neurship, and the future o pends on this. The key

emerged from the work thagaged in, particularly at the

Institute of Technology (Mneed not only innovate, but

innovative ideas to market

pact by getting thinkers invevant ideas, says Deshpan

The 61 year old Dementoring his son Pawan

Hive Fire to dream big. pande does not need an

fame. Nevertheless, his br

N R Narayana Murthy. Sin

pande and his wife have bseveral non-profit initiativsupport for MIT, IIT, TiE,

Foundation, Public HealthIndia, and the Social En

Sandbox in Hubli. si

Deshpande on Obama PanelSupport Innovation Strategy

Gururaj Deshpande

Villages in Bihar have beenlifted out of darkness with an

uninterrupted, self sufficientpower supply and the credit for this ini-

tiative goes to Gyanesh Pandey, the

promoter of Husk Power Systems(HPS) that transforms piles of dis-

carded rice husk to light up the villages.Partnering with his friends Ratnesh

Yadav, Manoj Sinha, and Charles WRansler, Pandey has established green

power plants in 120 villages across

Bihar and 3 villages in Uttar Pradesh.After research and experiments, the

team decided that the most feasible wayto provide power to the villagers who

depended on agriculture would be togenerate electricity from rice husk.

Through this unique green technology,villages get uninterrupted power for up

to 6-12 hours by setting up a plant,which burns rice husk to generate gas

to run generators.

Becoming an entrepreneur was anevolutionary process. I had a good life

in America. I did not face any problemsthere, but I always had the feeling that

I must do something for our villages. Ido not feel as though I have made any

sacrifice. Today, there is hardly any-

thing I do other than work. It gives methe satisfaction no other job can ever

give, says Pandey who feels thatIndias acute power crisis must be

solved efficiently with renewable re-sources.

After resigning his job in the U.S.,Pandey returned to his home state in

2007, as his idea was to providepower to villagers who depended on

agriculture as their main occupation

in a cost-effective and environmen-tally-friendly manner.

The company is set to make prof-its by the end of this year and plans

to light up villages in other states likeMaharastra, West Bengal, Uttar

Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. Providing

electricity to villages across India isjust the beginning of Pandeys ambi-

tious plan to transform rural India.The company has already taken up

the initiative to educate 200 childrenfrom Tumkuha. si

Do You Get Electricity from Rice Husk? Bihar Does it


6/25

silicon i n d i a |10|A u g u s t 2 0 1 0

The Think Tank Initiative has se-

lected nine Indian think tanks orindependent policy research in-

stitutions to receive $9 million tostrengthen their roles as influential

players in national policymaking. Thisis an initiative by the Canada-based In-

ternational Development ResearchCenter (IDRC), the William and FloraHewlett Foundation, and the Bill &

Melinda Gates Foundation to encour-age those institutions engaging in pol-

icy research focusing on national,social, and economic issues. Each

think tank will receive long-term fund-

ing, enabling them to conduct researchthat is fundamental to the development

of sound policy.The Indian institutions chosen in-

clude Centre for Budget and Gover-nance Accountability (CBGA), Centre

for Policy Research (CPR), Centre for

the Study of Developing Societies(CSDS), Indian Institute of Dalit Stud-

ies (IIDS), Institute of EconomicGrowth (IEG), National Council of

Applied Economic Research(NCAER), Institute of Rural Manage-

ment Anand (IRMA), Public AffairsCentre (PAC), and Centre for Study ofScience, Technology, and Policy

(CSTEP).The Initiative received over 300

proposals from a wide range of LatinAmerican and South Asian think tanks

that focus on broad national, social,

and economic policy issues. Followinga thorough and rigorous review

process, 28 institutions were selectedfrom seven countries in Latin America

- Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador,Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, and

Peru, and five countries in South Asia

- Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan,and Sri Lanka.

The Think Tank Initiative aims tosupport local think tanks to produce

high-quality research that will improvepolicies and, ultimately, contribute to

more equitable and prosperous soci-eties. The $35 million investment inLatin America and South Asia follows

$30 million in grants to 24 think tanksin East and West Africa in 2009.

International donors continue toinvest in policy research undertaken by

western institutions and sometimes for-

get that it is strong local think tanksthat often generate the most effective

policymaking in developing coun-tries, says David Malone, President of

Canadas International DevelopmentResearchCenter.

9 Indian Think Tanks to Get $9 Million

Climbing four notches up, India

has been ranked the ninth mostattractive investment destina-

tion in 2009 with a total foreign directinvestment inflow of $34.61 billion.

India attracted sizeable overseas in-vestment despite the overall drop in

such inflows due to the global finan-

cial crisis, said the World InvestmentReport-2010, which was prepared by

the United Nations Conference onTrade and Development (Unctad).

The report noted, If the situationcontinues to improve, India is likely

to be among the most promising in-

vestor home countries in 2010-2012,as well as the third highest economy

for foreign direct investment in 2010-2012.

Rashmi Banga, a Senior Econo-mist at Unctad says, In 2008, though

India attracted higher foreign direct

investment worth $40.42 billion, its

ranking was lower at 13th. China

nudged further up to second positionat $95 billion from a third place last

year.The U.S. remained the top invest-

ment destination with inflows of $130 billion in 2009, followed by China,

France, Hong Kong, Britain, Russia,

Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, and

Belgium. Total inflows amounted to

$1.11 trillion, against 1.77 trillion in2008. In 2009, Indian firms and funds

also invested a lower amount of$14.89 billion overseas, compared to

$18.4 billion in 2008. But such out-flows are expected to rebound in

2010, sustained by merger and acqui-

sition opportunities associated withIndian and Chinese firms persistent

pursuit of natural resources and mar-kets, the report says.

The report also revealed that fiveIndian companies figured in the list of

top 100 non-financial trans-national

corporations, ranked by their foreignassets overseas. Among them Tata

Steel was ranked 15th, the state-runOil and Natural Gas Corporation in

the 20th position, Hindalco in 29thrank, Tata Motors in 40th position,

and Suzlon in 54th.

in

India Ranked 9th Most Attractive Investment Destination


7/25


$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

Zenprise, a provider of enterprisemobile management and device

management software com-pany, has secured $9 million in new

funding. The round was led by the

Menlo Park based Rembrandt VenturePartners with participation from the

existing investors, including IgnitionPartners, Bay Partners, Mayfield, and

Shasta Ventures. The funding is part ofa fourth round of funding raised a year

ago. To date, the company has raised a

total of $40 million. Zenprise, led byJayaram Bhat, will use the investment

to expand its sales and marketing ef-forts as well as to fuel research and de-

velopment activities.Based in Fremont, California, Zen-

prise offers tools for IT departments to

manage their teams smart-phones. Founded in 2003, Zen-

prise providesservice-management software

that delivers automated diag-

nosis and resolution of prob-lems across the Microsoft

Exchange and BlackBerry en-vironment. Currently, the company

has over 300 customers includingBoeing, Comcast, and Vodafone. The

company has seen 175 percent in-

crease in its revenue during the firstquarter of 2010.

The sheer volume and complexityof employee-owned and corporate-is-

sued smartphones entering the enterprise is driving the demand for

Zenprises MobileManager software.

The use of consumer-friendly smartphones in

large companies has surgedin the past year or so, espe-

cially with the addition of

business and security fea-tures to the iPhone. Venture

capitalists are looking tojump on this trend too, and that is why

they approached Zenprise, eventhough the company was not planning

to raise more money at the time, says

Bhat, CEO, Zenprise.Zenprises extensive list of more

than 300 customers is globally spreadacross different verticals like con-

sumer services, government organi-zations, healthcare, legal, and oil and

gas firms.

California Based Zenprise Raises $9 Million

Pardeep Kohli founded

Mavenir Systems has re-cently secured $13.6 mil-

lion in a fourth round of fundingfrom North Bridge Venture

Partners, Austin Venture, AlloyVentures, Greenspring Associ-

ates, and Cisco. Mavenir has

raised a total of $65 millionsince its inception in 2005. The com-

pany plans to use the funding to attractmore top-tier mobile operators. Their

current customers include MetroPCS, a provider of no-contract wireless serv-

ices, and the Wisconsin-based wireless

company Cellcom.Richardson based Mavenir pro-

vides mobile convergence applicationsand solutions to mobile operators.

Mavenirs convergence solutions canquickly deploy and allow mobile oper-

ators to offer new voice and

messaging services withoutbuilding new infrastructure.

The company enables serv-ice continuity across wired

and wireless networks, al-lowing carrier customers to

get consistent service on

multiple personal devices.With its technologies, a customer can

use a single phone number to receivecalls on both mobile and landline

phones. The company offers solution toroute a customers call through a wire-

less network, office PBX system, or

4G, depending on a customers physi-cal location.

Mavenirs Converged Voice andMessaging solutions provide LTE op-

erators with a fast, cost-effective mi-gration path to IP Multimedia

Subsystem (IMS), which is a key com-

ponent for One Voice.Our growth potential in a $40 bil-

lion mobile infrastructure industry,driven by the entire network transfor-

mation to 4G has played a key role indrawing VC interest towards us, says

Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO,

Mavenir Systems. The company isgaining traction in the Mobile IMS

market and is competing with networkand system integrators and legacy net-

work vendors. But we look at ourcompetitors as potential partners for the

next generation solutions offered by

Mavenir. We can compete as well ascomplement them with some new in-

novative solutions, explains Kohli.With its 165 member team, the com-

pany is aiming high to grab a fair shareof the market. si

Mavenir Systems Raises $13.6 Million

Jayaram Bhat

Pardeep Kohli


8/25


As organizations begin to explore the possi-bilities of federation to realize the full poten-

tial of Unified Communications (UC), one

will see more convergence with public col-laboration tools, social media,and other Web

2.0 applications. In practice, it is rare that onlyone UC suite is used exclusively, even after

an organization has standardized on a single platform such as Microsoft OCS or IBM

Lotus at the s ame time. The enterprise archi-

tecture will more likely include a combinationof authorized applications such as a specific

public IM and Skype, which will remain inuse, no matter what UC platform is deployed.

Users are already driving the change,whether the business likes it or not. Use of

collaboration tools such as Twitter andLinkedIn, alongside enterprise UC platforms

within the workplace now account for a sig-

nificant portion of new business opportunitiesfor many organizations. As take up increases

this trend is expected to expand significantly

and the line between UC and Web 2.0 blur, itis up to the organization to make sure that it is

managed in a secure and controlled way.

Harnessing the power of collaborationwithout compromising on an enterprises

integrity is the key to a successful UC im-plementation. Most companies have more

to fear from accidental data leakage due touncontrolled access to collaboration tools

than malicious theft. Managing the identi-

ties of users, as they traverse multiple col-laboration platforms, is also a key.

Organizations need to take a holistic ap-proach in securing all Internet based com-

munications, regardless of whether theychoose to enable or block their use. Whilst

most UC platforms provide some native se-curity and compliance functionality, it is

not always enough to support industry reg-

ulations and does not prevent users fromcommunicating using other Internet based

collaboration tools.

The change in the communications sector has

been remarkable in the past 5 years. The majorreason for this is convergence of devices, i.e.

unified communication driven by the new

generation of smartphones, Internet tablets,and PCs that allow users to access content and

technology on a common platform. Thoughthis trend has got the consumers excited, it has

also equally put the carriers in a fix. The pri-mary issue is the explosion of data that has

happened in the last few years.

While the data has increased exponen-tially, the network bandwidth of carriers has

not. Operators have seen their data trafficgrow at a staggering rate. Verizon Wireless

data traffic grew seven-fold in the two years

from 2006 to 2008. Over the last three years,AT&T has seen a 5,000 percent increase in

the data traffic on its network, and has expe-rienced significant network overload as a re-

sult; almost entirely due to increasing broadband use.

The smartphone penetration is merely

20 percent today, but it is slated to increaseto 50-60 percent in the near future, there-

fore causing an increased hazard for oper-

ators due to congestion of bandwidth.Linear thinking of gradually increasing the

network spectrum from 2G to 3G and nowto 4G will not work. Carriers need to look

out for alternative solutions like offloadingthe data onto wi-max and wi-fi. They need

to partner with the gateway providers like

us, Cisco, Juniper, and Stoke who providenetwork convergence and mobile data of-

fload solutions and accelerate the deploy-ment of next generation applications and

services.

Entrepreneurs today have to be slick asthey have to operate within limited capital.

Hence, apart from having a good product, it isimportant that they have the right go-to-

market strategy by picking the right channelsand penetrate the market effectively. si

Harness the Power of Collaboration

Unified Communication: Its Time for

Alternative Solutions

Kailash Ambwani

is the CEO ofFaceTimeCommunications.The companyenables the safeand productive useof UnifiedCommunicationsand Web 2.0.

Anjan Ghosal,

Founder and CEO,Intellinet-Tech. thecompany is aprovider of network

convergence andmobile data offloadsolutions.

CEOspotlight

siliconindia

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9/25


ulingRoaming SpaceRthe

ROAMWARE

COVER STORY

Quick FactsFounded: 2000

President & CEO: Bobby Srinivasan

Headquarters: San Jose, CA

Other Offices: Amman, Brussels,

Bangalore, Dublin, Hong Kong,

Johannesburg, Mumbai, New Delhi and

Singapore

Headcount: 374

Global Customer Base: 464 Mobile

Operator Networks, Banks and

Financial Institutions

Customer Footprint: 154 Countries

Investors: Shelter Capital, Primera

Capital, Doll Capital and Accretive

Vertical: Mobile

Website: www.roamware.com

Action is eloquence and Bobby Srini vasan, President andCEO, Roamware is proving it just right by showcasing

India not only capable of body shop business but also canbe armed to build smart global product company. Srini-

vasan, who left India in 1985 to pursue higher studies,had always dreamt of building a world class product completely out ofIndia that could transform lives of billions globally. It was this passionand sheer belief that helped him align his thoughts during the initial

years of founding Roamware. The mantra worked well, with Roamwareentrenched as the global leader in voice and data roaming solutions anda leading provider of mobile financial services. The companys compre-hensive suite of technologies and services helps operators globally tomake mobile roaming better and easier.

Now Srinivasan has a reason to be pleased with roaming revenuesforecasted to grow to $146 billion by 2011 . Founded in 2001, currentlyRoamwares products are deployed in over 464 mobile operator networksacross 154 countries and its services available to over three billion mobileusers globally. Additionally, Roamwares mobile finance solutions havebeen successfully deployed by major banks and operators around the

world, and serves a wide range of needs across the domains of mobilecommerce, banking, remittances and payments. For nearly a decade, wehave successfully nurtured and grown this business - despite the chal-lenges of global sales, delivery and support across diverse markets, e globalevents including wars, global pandemics like SARS and the financialmeltdown in 2008-2009, says Srinivasan.

By Christo Jacob

B


10/25

He could achieve this only because

he envisioned the business to be globalin nature at its inception.Srinivasan en-

sured that the senior management al-ways had the appropriate DNA required

to challenge the Roamware team in

building world class products. This phi-losophy of the company has cracked the

so called misconception of building yourinitial business within 10 miles from

where one lives. With his chin up, Srini-vasan proudly says Today we are oper-

ating across 154 countries, serving over

460 mobile operator networks aroundthe world.

Bee in the Bonnet

No matter where the customers are lo-cated, mobile operators need to drive

down the costs associated with their

businesses. Current roaming trends haveresulted in decreasing revenues, declin-

ing margins and fierce operator compe-tition. Moreover today telecom

operators could lose up to 10 percent ofroaming revenues because of quality is-

sues. According to a recent industry report, an average of 39 percent of all

mobile calls falls below the industry

minimum standard for voice quality.

Given that roamers represent a profitablecustomer segment, the implications of poor quality of service include lost

roaming revenues and potential churn.New regulations, roaming price reduc-

tions, stiff competition and a sharp rise in

data roaming traffic are some of the keydrivers forcing operators to search for

innovative business solutions to in-crease traffic, drive usage, optimize

costs, and meet their goals.Roamwares strategy from the incep-

tion has been to play the role of the pre-

ferred strategic partner on the roamingbusiness front for mobile operators glob-

ally and this philosophy has been thefundamental reason for the success and

widespread adoption of our solutions in

the world market, says Abraham Pun-noose, VP Global Marketing andBusiness Development ,Roamware .

Old-fashioned, bilateral relation-

ships among Mobile Network Operators(MNOs) are no longer sustainable as

they require massive manpower, signif-icant costs and an inordinate amount of

time. Established MNOs have spent 10-15 years setting up 400 to 500 roaming

agreements in place with contract / rela-

tionship management departments incharge of bilateral roaming relationships.

Its a timescale and a workforce alloca-tion that definitely does not fit at all in

new entrants requirements in terms oftime to market and operational effec-

tiveness. If MNOs continue to follow thetraditional model, it would be a tremen-dous waste of energy in negotiating hun-

dreds of bilateral agreements, energythat instead might be better utilized o

promoting their own core business.Once the roaming relationships are set

up, the dauntingtask for operators is to

leverage these agreements and garner in-cremental market share and consequent

revenues and profit.To address these challenges, one of

the earliest solutions from, Roamwarewas the innovative Roaming Replicator

solution that would reduce go to markettimelines for a full fledged roaming of-

fering in under 12 weeks. Built in a

modular way, the suite of roaming solu-tions reduce the overall complexity, pro-

vide operators with powerful technologysolutions to address business challenges

and enable them to focus on the end-cus-tomer instead of inter-operator relation-

ships. Today, Roamware is the pre-ferred and primary solution provider of

roaming solutions for the majority of tier1 mobile operators inlcuding AT&T, T

Mobile, Orange, Airtel, Maxis, Etisalatand Vodafone globally and this trust is

further reflected in joint hubbing initia-

tives with some of the major mobile op-erator companies across regions.

Our business model is a blend ofsoftware license, transactional revenue,

revenue share and managed services re-

sulting in a robust and predictable rev-enue model with recurring revenueconstituting 30 percent of companys

revenues. By 2012, recurring revenue is

expected to touch 50 percent of overallrevenue. The global footprint and market

penetration ensures that there is no rev-enue concentration in any region or se-

lect customers, effectively eliminatingrisks arising from regional downturn or

loss of key customers, says Richard

Grohol, EVP World-wide Field Opera-tions, Roamware. Today the company

enjoys a leadership position with itscomprehensive bouquet of roaming so-

lutions and other line of key businesslike carrier service, social network com-

merce and mobile financial services.Roamwares group relationships in mobile operator world include Orange,

Vodafone, Telefonica, Airtel, Claro,Orascom, Telia Sonera, Telenor, MTS,

Vimplecom, STC, T Mobile and Eti-salat among several others.

s i l i c o nindsilicon i n d i a |18|A u g u s t 2 0 1 0

Comprehensive Suite of Roaming So-

lutions

Its been nearly decade since Roamwarewas set up, and the company developed

its solutions completely out of Indiausing local talents. Srinivasans vision

was to create a world class product suitethat could meet global standards. The

company had the good fortune to work

in a market where they were surroundedby the Indian GSM operators who were

very focused on value added solutionsand services. The company always

wanted to build products in sync withcustomers business requirements and

we had the privilege of engaging most

of the operators in India and Asia Pacificat that time, clearly a market where the

adoption of value added services andnew services was far more advanced

and aggressive than the U.S Market atthat point in time. Within the roaming

segment, Roamwares product innova-

tion has been instrumental in drivingquiet a few industry standards. Key in-

dustry standards including Open Con-nectivity, Steering of roaming and global

roaming quality are standards that wereintroduced as a result of industry adop-

tion of innovative Roamware products,

says Dr. John Jiang CTO & EVP Prod-uct Management, Roamware

Dr Jiang, further adds the inventionof a Method and System for Cellular

Network Traffic Redirection waswidely embraced by the GSM Associa-

tions mobile industry standards knownas Steering of Roaming, empowering

a mobile roamers home network oper-ators system to direct any of its sub-

scribers to roam on its preferred roaming

partners network when using their mo-bile phones abroad. The network-based

approach that Roamware first created inits Roamware Traffic Redirection sys-

tems permits the mobile network opera-

tors to apportion outbound roamingtraffic to its roaming partners in linewith their business commitments, cus-

tomers service requirements and global

alliance and is agnostic to locations,time zones and mobile handset make.

Today, Roamwares voice and dataroaming solutions are installed in over

464 mobile operators networks across154 countries and generate incremental

revenues for mobile operators, whilst in-

creasing their operational efficienciesand reduce subscriber churn. The solu-

tions are built on the Roamware ServiceDelivery System (SDS), a carrier-grade

platform based on open standards thatenable seamless integration of multiple

applications which can be seamlesslyadded as blades to the core platform,each blade representing a product. The

robust carrier grade Roamware SDS (Service Delivery System ) is the under-

lying platform and bedrock of allRoamware products and solutions and

enables for our customers a range of ca-

pabilities that reduces timnew services, and const

cant barrier to entry foRoamwares thought lead

with our global executihave been the keys to o

outstanding effort has r

196 patent submissions ,several ground breaking

past few years and 28 ptill date, says Avnish Ch

tive Vice President Engin

Product Suite

Roamwares product po

of over 40 solutions acro

CDMA domains that aRoamware Service De

(SDS). The Roamware seamless deployment an

network applications ana mobile operators core

IT infrastructure.The Ro

the backbone of Roamwand supports the smooth

value-added applicationsembodies a modular, co

layered platform architables applications to ac

performance, while suppintegration with an opermanagement and operat

tems, through open and sprotocols and interface

operator to unify criticalnetwork information for

deployment of intellige

services on 2G, 2.5G anon an easy-to-use appli

ment framework. The papplications to deliver h

through redundant deploware and hardware elem

Applications are equtuitive web-based inte

ministrative operation

information provisionition of business and tec

The Roamware SDS inetwork interface supp

cols such as ISUP, CAvariants, as well as pass

Roamwares strategyfrom the in-

ception has been to play the role of

the preferred st rategic partner onthe roaming business front for mo-

bile operators globally and this phi-losophy is the fundamental

reason for oursuccess and

widespread

adoption of oursolutions in the

world

market.

Within the roaming segment,

Roamwares product innovation hasbeen instrumental in driving quiet a

few industry standards. Key indus-try standards including Open Con-

nectivity, Steering of roaming andglobal roaming

quality arestandards that

were introduced

as a result ofindustry adoption

of innovativeRoamware

products.

e platform is designed for easeof integration into existing infra-

structures. Because of the use ofopen standards such as

SOAP, XML, J2EEand its pluggable

component design,

it can easily integrate

with existing legacysystems andthird party

soware.

Our business model is a blend of

soware license, transactional rev-enue, revenue share and managed

services resulting in arobust and predictab

le revenue model andrecurring revenue

constituting 30

percent of companysrevenues.

Abraham Punnoose, VP Global

Marketing & Business Development

Avnish Chauhan

EVP Engineering

Dr. John Jiang

CTO and EVP Product Management

Richard Grohol

EVP World-wide Field Operations


11/25

silicon indsilicon i n d i a |20|A u g u s t 2 0 1 0

capabilities for sniffing relevant infor-mation exchanged over the signalling

network. These interfaces are avail-able for SS7 and SIGTRAN and facil-

itate seamless compatibility ofRoamwares applications with evolu-

tions in network technologies.

Roamwares suite of services, builton the SDS, addresses a range of busi-

ness challenges including the quick rollout of roaming infrastructure, traffic

management acquisition and retention of

roamers, driving roaming usage , accel-eration of prepaid roaming, seamlessservice experience, quality of service,

market intelligence, cost optimization

among several others. In addition, theglobal availability of converged voice,

messaging and data services fosters sub-scriber loyalty and increases competitive

differentiation. Roamwares suite ofroaming services are Traffic manage-

ment, communication and service expe-

rience, virtual home environment,roaming and local multi-number, roam-

ing and network infrastructure and busi-ness intelligence and quality assurance.

In line with the strategic role that itssees for itself for is mobile operator cus-

tomers, the company has now rolled outa range of carrier solutions to enable anumber of roaming carrier services in

partnership with global voice and datacarrier partners. This would enable

Roamware to optimize roaming callscost and would carry the roaming and

interconnect voice traffic for its cus-

tomers. Dr Jiang says, We are com-mitted to the success of our customers

and operators readiness to allow us tocarry voice traffic is a reflection of the

confidence in our technology, strategicthought leadership and overall business

value we bring to the table.

Leveraging global footprint for Mo-

bile Financial ServicesThe company after building out a global

footprint in roaming space with an esti-mated 65 percent market sharehas cata-

pulted itself to the next level withMobile Financial Services. The move

into mobile banking and m-commercewas a logical extension for Roamware

as it leverages its existing global cus-tomer relationships, business partner-

ships and technology platform.According to Juniper Research, the

Service Provider market revenues will

exceed $5 billion globally by 2013.These revenues are based on the com-

missions and charges acquired from thegross value of money transactions de-

rived from mobile money transfer serv-

ices and remittances. Juniper Researchhighlights a significant opportunity forthe providers and vendors of mobile

money transfer (MMT) services as the

market takes off, beginning as early as2010. Moreover 315 percent of inter-

national money transfers currently han-dled by formal or informal agent

networks will be carried out using a mo-bile handset by 2015; generating $1.2

6.2 billion in service revenue.

Roamware is eyeing to grab this marketthrough strategic partnerships and ac-

quisitions.In line with their plans for the Mo-

bile Financial Services business,Roamware acquired Macalla, a leading

developer of mobile financial services(MFS) solutions and strive to become amarket leader in MFS, specifically ad-

dressing the needs of low income, un-banked communities across the world.

Macallas m-commerce and mobilebanking solutions are successfully de-

ployed by banks and operators around

the world; these solutions includecredit transfer, international remit-

tance, person to person transactions,top-up and bill payment. With

Macallas acquisition, Roamware aimsto build upon its roaming expertise and

its global operator relationships, saysRichard Grohol EVP, Worldwide Field

Operations, Roamware.

Roamwares Macalla Platform en-ables a wide range of innovative mobile

financial services including direct top-up, agent top-up, bill payment, person-

to-person payments, mobile banking,cross border VAS and both national and

international remittances. The platformis designed for ease of integration into

existing infrastructures. Because of theuse of open standards such as SOAP,

XML, J2EE and its pluggable compo-nent design, it can easily integrate with

existing legacy systems and third party

software, says Avnish Chauhan, EVPEngineering, Roamware. Adaptors and

plug-ins are used for major transportmechanisms such as JMS, IIOP, MQ

Series, Tibco, EJB and standard support

for CM, CRM, billing and locationbased services.For instance, Bank of Ireland iden-

tified the need to deploy a prepaid mo-

bile top-up service which takesadvantage of the increased consumer

use of SMS as well as using its existingATM channel. Using Roamwares tech-

nology which enables mobile transac-tions, Bank of Ireland launched a

prepaid mobile phone top up service.

The service, called Text Top Up, wentlive in 2005 and is available to all Bank

of Ireland customers in Ireland on Voda-fone and O2 networks.

The Roamware Macalla Platformenables Bank of Ireland customers to

top-up their own prepaid accounts andothers, including friends and family,directly from their mobile phones. To

do this, customers simply send a freetext message. The transaction is auto-

matically paid for via their Bank ofIreland account.

Registration is extremely easy and

instantaneous via any Bank of IrelandATM. Once registered, a customer can

top-up from his mobile phone anytimeand anywhere in Ireland or overseas.

The top-up call credit is applied auto-matically within a matter of seconds.

The Roamware Macalla Platformenables top-ups and associated

processes in a fully secure and reliable

manner. It also provides connectivitywith the mobile operators SMS de-

livery and prepaid billing systems aswell as the banks payments systems.

The platform includes a suite of web-based applications for call centre and

supervisor staff to ensure the smoothand efficient ongoing operation of the

service. Roamware Macalla worked di-

rectly with Bank of Ireland to deliverthe application together with a complete

range of consultancy, technical integra-tion and on-going support services.

From launch the system proved tobe a very popular service with Bank of

Ireland customers and exhibited an in-

crease in frequency of top-up as well asa higher transaction value. The service

has also proven popular with bank cus-tomers who travel abroad as they can

now top-up their phones as easily as at

home. Today the platform is used bymobile operators, banks and independ-ent service providers internationally in-

cluding VIVA (STC), mPay, Jawwal,

permanent tsb, O2, BMoneyText, Illuminat an

Aiming high

In a market that is largits IT services capabilit

to be on deck of on or

has built a world clascompletely out of India

instrumental in shapiroaming business in o

tries, says Srinivasa

vasan will be coperformance of Roamwgreat companies that Ji

about in Good to Great.

As a co-founder Bobby Srinivasans leadership, passion

and keen insight has been crucial to Roamwares suc-

cess. Due to his extraordinary vision and deep market

acumen, the company grew by over 25 percent in 2009

despite the worst economic downturn in recent history.

Srinivasans career has included senior level service with

SoftPlus (acquired by U.S. Interactive in February

2000), Objectivity, Hewlett Packard, Apollo Comput-

ers, the World Bank and Shearson Lehman Brothers

and this helped him to play the right card for

Roamware. Over the last nine years he has been in-

strumental in transforming the company from a start

up into a global leader in roaming and value added so-

lutions. In fact this earned him lot of applauds in the in-

dustry including Distinguished Honoree medal in

Executive of the Year in North America in the 2010 In-

ternational Business Awards and the Ernst & Young

Entrepreneur of the Year, 2010 Award Finalist for

Northern California The International Business Awards

are the only global, all-encompassing business awards

program honouring great performances in business

For him the early days of aligni ng Roamware were

focused around instilling values and cultural elements

within the enterprise. He credits the success of

Roamware to his leadership team, and the smart move

of building products in India. His continued focus on

achieving the vision has helped Roamware to achieve a

leadership team comprises of a multicultural, experi-

enced and professional team with global experience and

an optimum mix of mobile operator and technology

background. The core leadership team has worked to-

gether for over nine years with several decades of cu-

mulative experience in telecom, banking and enterprise

software, says Bishal Bisht, SVP Finance and HR,

Roamware. The leadership team has been recognized

for professional excellence in several industry forums in-

cluding Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year, Ste-

vie Business Awards and World Brand Congress.

Today the company is riding high receiving several

industry recognitions including the Frost & Sulli-

van Technology Innovation Award, Deloitte Tech-

nology Fast 50 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500

in 2006. In 2007, Roamware won the Red Her-

ring 100 Most Promising Private North Ameri-

can Technology Companies in 2007 and Deloittes

2007 Wireless Fast 50.

There is no looking back for Srinivasan, but

he believes that there are billions of pe ople who

own mobile phone and he aims to transform

each mobile phone a bank account for them,

where they get paid their daily wages and other

things. He says, How do we make that mobile

phone, more than just a mobile phone and that is

what we strive to do. Roamware is building mi-

crofinance applications and believes that it can

change the world of the unbanked and underbanked

and make them economic citizens of the world. I

am aiming at not just make money for the stake

holders but also want tos transform the lives of bil-

lions of po or people. That is what success means to

me and I think that is what we are going to do in

the next five years, says Srinivasan.

The Man Behind the Scene

e core leadership team has

worked together for over nine

years with severaldecades of

cumulativeexperience in

telecom, bankingand enterprise

soware.

Bishal Bisht

SVP Finance and HR


12/25

silicon indisilicon i n d i a |22|A u g u s t 2 0 1 0

seen prices decline from $5/W a coupleof years ago to less t han $2 now, yet the

balance of system (BOS) costs includ-ing labor, racking, inverters are still

hovering around $4-5/W and continueto affect the adoption rate. We find in-

novations such as micro-inverters, DC-

DC optimizers, innovative rackingsystems that can lower the BOS costs

for solar energy, as the critical missinglink to help solar energy achieve grid-

parity. Similarly, wind has the potential

to be 20 percent of our energy supply by2030 and a $100+ billion opportunityannually. Components, control systems,

and predictive analytics that reduce

downtime and can enhance project re-turns, help multiply wind energys foot-

print. More broadly speaking, gridstorage technologies that smooth out the

effect of intermittent renewables on thegrid are another area of strong interest.

As initial deployment of many of these

technologies in the U.S. and Europemitigates commercialization risk, they

can be applied to address the massivemarket opportunity in India and China

as well.Demand Side Management, our

other investment theme, includes bothenergy efficiency and peak load man-agement (like smart grid technologies

and demand response). This is wherewe see tremendous activity lately from

Silicon Valley software and networkingveterans. After all, if youve built your

career building large scale networking

infrastructure at Cisco, enterprise-classapps at Oracle, or complex analytics at

Google, its natural to use your expert-ise in building wide-area and local-area

networks for the smart grid and energyapps for utilities, businesses, and con-

sumers. From an investor standpoint,the relative capital efficiency, potential

to achieve attractive software-like oper-

ating margins, and potential M&A in-terest from the IT majors as an alternate

path to an IPO, align well with the ven-ture model. In this sector, we think the

low hanging fruit is in HVAC and light-ing controls with a specific focus on

commercial and industrial sectors.Lighting and HVAC consume over 50

percent of the $80+ billion in commer-cial energy usage in the U.S., and en-

ergy efficiency via intelligent controls

ranks high on the CFOs list driven byattractive ROI, bottomline savings, and

compliance drivers. Additionally, CIOsare increasingly faced with enhancing

the transactions per Watt in addition totransactions per dollar from their ever-

growing datacenter footprint. Holistic

monitoring, modeling, and control soft-ware solutions hold great promise in re-

ducing energy usage while regulatingheat density and enhancing server per-

formance as well.Other related areas we dabble in in-

clude transportation and engine effi-

ciency (a somewhat contrarian thesis toelectric vehicles) and recycling. There

is an attractive amount of cash in trashas we have discovered all the way

from recycling the 130 million cellphone and portable electronics that are

retired in the U.S. every year and creat-

ing a market in developing countries, totaking landfill gas for energy genera-

tion. How sustainable the underlyingtechnology is remains to be seen, but

these business models and operatingmargins are interesting enough to con-

sider.

New Areas of Opportunity for

Innovation

The wild-card in our mind is the appli-

cation layer for the smart grid. When

core routers and other structure were being ro

wide in the 90s, whguessed that killer apps

around e-commerce, soonline gaming? We are i

of rolling out effective

communications infrastutility grid, aka smart gri

applications that leveragfrom smart meters, plan

sion control systems for

tising platforms for appand energy conservatio programs for consum

sizeable opportunities t

tion ecosystem can addrA classic example in

residential energy efficnity. Over $225 billion in

sumed every year in theand small businesses, an

lion of that can be avo

conservation measures. Ostartups, the last time I

home area energy manbelieve that consumers

right thing to do. Howtion has historically bee

convenience and comfobelieve that homeownerfancy displays from Bes

the local utility to subsistill hard to see consum

energy usage constanttheir behavior to save $2

argue the mean-time-to

is probably in weeks, if novelty wears off. At t

consumers have continhours a day on gaming a

sites and are driven bimage or online avatar

that can crack the code ergy efficiency with con

image or incentivize the

virtual currency can staneedle on residential en

I havent seen that yet, bthat this class of smart ap

section of energy efficiand social media, a clean

Cleantech 1.0 from 2004-

08 was dominated bysolar and bio-fuel start-

ups, founded by semicon-ductor and biotech execs

in many cases. Massive global energymarkets ($6 trillion worldwide energy

spend, $300 billion U.S. electricity mar-kets, $20 billion India solar mission),rising energy costs, favorable regulatory

landscape, and technology maturitywere driving the first generation of start-

ups. By contrast, there seem to be agrowing number of software and net-

working gurus frequenting cleantech

entrepreneur circles and energy effi-ciency startups these days. At Advanced

Technology Ventures, where I focus oncleantech and software startups, we

have had the benefit of witnessing thistrend firsthand, given our involvement

in cleantech since 2004, and believe thismix is healthy for the overall cleantech

sector.

In 2008, at the peak of the cleantechinvestment cycle, about $2.5 billion in

equity was invested in solar energyalone with over 10 venture backed com-

panies raising over $100 million each.

Bio-fuel figures were not far behind atover $900 million in investments. Part

of the reason behind these staggering

figures is the use of expensive equitydollars to fill-in for virtually nonexist-

ent project finance and debt. Using sim- ple math, wed need to see 15-20

multi-billion dollar IPOs in the next fewyears to produce venture-like returns.

Moreover, startups need not only a tech-nology based advantage but also signif-

icant economies of scale (and a few

more billion dollars) to be cost compet-itive with First Solar and Chinese PV

players in the solar area for example, orelse they risk going down the path of

profitless prosperity. In short, a fewwinners will emerge, but until robust

project finance and debt markets

emerge, it will be largely a tough spaceexcept for those that invested very early

in these areas.

Investment Areas

Learning from our portfolio of 11 clean-tech companies, we have refined our

thesis to focus on two key areas: down-stream technologies for accelerated re-

newables deployment, and demand side

management.The billions that have been invested

in core research have prepared severalrenewables for prime time commercial-

ization. At the same time, the need forrenewables is rising by the day, driven

by rising costs and carbon footprint of

fossil fuel sources, and state and poten-tial federal Renewable Portfolio Stan-

dards. Recent events like the Gulf oilspill only exacerbate the problem. How-

ever, widespread commercialization hasbeen inhibited largely by the lack of grid

parity (price competitive with coal)

without subsidies, and intermittency ofmost renewables that requires grid up-

grades. Solar panels, for instance, have

Investment TrendsThe Evolution of

Tech in Cleantech

vc Talk: By Dharmesh ThakkerThe author is VP, Advanced Technology Ventures

Dharmesh Thakker

Holistic monitoring, modeling, and controlsoftware solutions hold great promise in reducingenergy usage and regulate heat density andenhance

It is still hard to seeconsumers watch theirenergy usage constantlyand change theirbehavior to save; theycontinue to spend hoursa day on gaming andsocial media sitesinstead


13/25


14/25

s i l i c o ni n dsilicon i n d i a |26|A u g u s t 2 0 1 0

The mobile space is going

through unprecedentedactivity and innovation.

This momentum remindsme of the explosion in the

Internet space in the late 90s. On one

end of the spectrum, advanced devicesand platforms are being rolled out and

on the other end applications are un-folding at record speeds. Users in ad-

vanced markets such as the U.S, areexperiencing the mobile Internet on

Smartphones and advanced mobile

devices such as the iPad, whereasusers in markets like India and other

emerging markets are getting theirfirst taste of mobile data on their fea-

ture phones and that too at levels waybeyond the expectations of operators.

Technologies such as LTE and 4G aregetting rolled out at the network in-

frastructure level in markets such as

the U.S.Device makers such as Apple,

HTC, Motorola, Samsung and LG areon a path where Smartphones will be-

come the de facto devices in the hands

of users. Today, such devices have al-ready captured 40 percent of all mo-

bile devices sold in advanced marketssuch as the U.S. Users are finally be-

ginning to get comfortable with touchscreen devices. As prices drop with

higher volumes and better technology,

this number is expected to go up toover 75 percent of all devices sold

being Smartphones. These mobile de-vices are typically powered by mobile

operating systems like Android,

iPhone, Maeemo, Symbian^3, RIMand now Bada. Of these, Android

seems to be getting the highest quarterover quarter growth with a number of

OEMs shipping phones or in ad-vanced stages of design.

In markets such as India and

China, affordable, yet feature-richmobile devices have made a big dent

in the market share of establishedplayers. These devices are typically

based on the Mediatek chipset andhave features like WAP browser,

Bluetooth stereo, Qwerty keypads,Dual-SIM, 2 Mega pixel or higher

cameras, video cameras, and even Wi-

Fi, and are able to accept download-able applications. We now see

consumers trading up from theirvoice-only phones to these affordable

feature-rich phones.

These are the same consumersthat end up experiencing the Internet

for the first time on the mobilephones and in turn, downloading ap-

plications that are primarily orientedtowards entertainment or social net-

Mobile Spaceat the Cusp of

Revolution

working. We see a very high number

of users, from smaller towns and cities(B and C cities) that are discovering

the rich world of applications and the

mobile Internet on their featurephones. Users want the anytime, any-

where access in their hands, and oncethey taste this freedom, they are not

willing to give it up. As opposed to thetypical metro audience that wants the

Facebook and Twitter experience,these users are looking for interaction

and near-live entertainment with ei-

ther their friends or like-minded people. Their hunger for information

and entertainment seems apparent asyou look at their usage patterns.

Using mobile applications such as

RockeTalk, the creation and con-sumption of UGC content is very high

since the mobile phone, for the firsttime, allows these users to express

themselves using a medium that is ac-cessible and familiar.

With the explosion of Smartphones

and even feature-rich phones that allowdownloadable applications, app stores

are opening up at the operator level,

ecosystem level like those of Apple andAndroid, the device OEM level and in-

dependent app store players like Getjar.Of course, developers will have a harder

time trying to get their applications pro-visioned with a wide variety of App

Store SDKs but will also enjoy the re-sulting distribution. Discovery of appli-

cations will remain a challenge. Take

the example of the iPhone App Store,where over 200,000 applications exist.

On the Android App Store there areover 50,000 applications. A new appli-

cation, however interesting and engag-

ing, will have a difficult time attractingattention from the user base in this

crowded space. The winner is obvi-ously the consumer that will increas-

ingly have much more choice whenlooking for applications. As a proof

point, there have been over 4.5B applications downloaded from the

Apple App Store alone.The debate of Apps vs browser

based applications has intensified aswell. While native Apps exploit the

underlying device capabilities,

browser based apps thus far have notbeen able to optimize access to the de-

vice capabilities such as the cameraand the address book. However, as

the HTML5 standards evolve, theseissues will get solved and browser

based apps that rival native apps may

actually become a reality. This willcreate a much easier ecosystem for

app developers since this will mitigatethe need for massive porting efforts

currently needed to cater to the hugenumber of mobile devices.

In India, the launch of 3G net-works will open up opportunities for

rich content, collaboration and com-

munication services. Applications that

use rich video, audio and music willmake use of this increased bandwidth

and data speeds, and ingreat user experience.

and augmented realitytions will begin making

the hands of consumering applications that r

tencies will also begin

presence felt. As the bevolve, we wont be t

game players like Zynweb based multi-playe

able on mobile phonesEnterprise applicati

bile are just at the be

curve. As devices imworks get better, the m

will get connected to thterprise systems with

user friendly interfacesuch as Wireless Heal

of innovation as the bevolve.

At the device leve

like NFC (Near Field

tions) will enable secand other secure traentry and exit. Wi-Fi

way into the mid to hisince it allows the netw

to be offloaded to low

networks.GPS on the mobile p

creasingly be part of and this will allow the

apps to offer more commation and services.

Longer battery lif

frontier as devices coup in terms of function

utes of use.In summary, the mo

the cusp of a revolutioarea of the network, acc

device itself and th

ecosystem. For the firsner will be the consu

higher than the operat

Technology: By Rajiv KumarThe author is CEO, Rocketalk

The cost of R&D centers inIndia has continued to

decline over the last twoyears, according to a Zinnovstudy. It says that R&D cen-

ters in India have helpedparent organizations save

$40 billion for the last threeyears and the cost has

declined by 0.9 percent in

Rupee terms, four percentin U.S. Dollar terms in FY

2010. The cost of R&Dcenters in India is $38,199

per person per year.

Location based and augmented realityapplications will begin making their wthe hands of consumers.


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The best practice is to plan shortsprints and agree beforehand with the

customer not to make major changesduring the sprint. Change requests can

be taken up and implemented in subse-quent sprints.

Hire a Different Kind of Developer

If most of your customers are from the

SMB segment, you should considercarefully the kind of developer you

want to hire. Developers hailing from bigger organizations serving Fortune

500 customers may not work well withsmaller customers. Those developers

are more comfortable working in a silo

environment where a business analystdocuments the requirements, an archi-

tect designs the solution, and a QA teamvalidates results.

In an SMB environment, develop-ers should do more than coding. They

will need to directly interact with the

customer. They should be business ana-lysts, solution architects, and usability

experts all rolled into one. They should-nt just write code and expect QA to find

the bugs for them. In short, you shouldbe hiring the kind of people who can in-

teract directly with your customers and

can take full ownership of the problem.They shouldnt be mere technical ex-

perts.

Reduce Total Cost of Ownership

Very often solutions providers make the

mistake of trying to reduce the immedi-

ate cost of their solution, but not thelong term total cost of ownership. This

may work in the short term, but if youwant to earn the trust of your client and

do continuous business with them, youshould be willing to make short term

sacrifices. Most clients are themselveshappy to make short-term sacrifices in

return for long term savings.

For instance, you may be able to re-duce the immediate development costs

if you purchase a commercial, insteadof free open source, database. However,

if you add up the license costs and thefuture costs of upgrading licenses and

buying more licenses as the systemgrows, the long term cost of ownership

could be higher for a commercial data-

base. You have to educate your client onthe pros and cons of commercial versus

free open source and help them take adecision. Not that free and open source

is always better and cheaper. On thecontrary, there are many situations

where commercial software provides

lower cost of ownership over the longterm.

Embrace the Cloud

For SMBs and startups it might makesense to avoid investing in capital items

like servers and firewalls. Running their

own datacenter, however small, is anexpensive proposition as they could end

up hiring a full-time person for runningit reliably. An attractive alternative is to

sign-up with a cloud computing serviceprovider like Amazon, which offers a

pay-as-you-go model. The advantagesinclude zero upfront capital investment

and the ability to scale as the business

grows. Most cloud computing providershave datacenters in multiple geographic

zones; you can setup backup servers inother zones to ensure high-availability

of mission critical systems. There arealso data backup services available on

the cloud, where you can reliably

backup data.

Provide Mobile Access

Most small and medium business own-

ers and employees do not spend theirworking hours in front of a computer.

Many of them are on the field, traveling

between locations or mThis means that provid

that can be accessed odesktop browser is not

tive. Since most businesa smartphone, it is now p

vide them with realtime

reports so that they can qcisions, even while on

means that your solutimust be based on Applic

ming Interfaces (APIs)accessed in a secure

browsers, smartphones an

Choose Open Systems

One of the decisions tbuilding an integrate

buy or build subsyste plenty of Software

(SaaS) choices in the For example, there are

tions that provide pro

ment, document timesheets, expense

counting, and payrLeveraging them can o

the system developmehow do you choose the

tem? The most import

tion is that these Saamust provide program

through APIs. Your jthe different applicatio

other and create an inteexperience for your

there should be a way

plication data in a poso that in case you d

discontinue the use oSaaS application, you

all the data. You shoulclient locked into a p

vendor.

Conclusion

SMBs and startups aclients, but that is where

The practices describeprovide you with a road

successfully and profwith this fast growing s

SMBs and Startups

SMBs and startups are theengines of growth in ad-

vanced economies. The

Fortune 500 companieswill continue to dominate

IT spends, but because IT has becomemuch more affordable, its adoption is

now happening at a faster rate amongSMBs. If you are a small to medium

IT services provider yourself, you

will find it difficult to break into theFortune 500 club as they are domi-

nated by bigger and established ven-

dors. So focusing on the SMB marketmakes sense and this sector has itsown advantages. The sales cycle to

close a deal with a Fortune 500 com-

pany is typically long. In comparison,SMBs and startups make quick deci-

sions as there is less bureaucracy.However, successfully doing a proj-

ect with SMBs and startups and mak-ing a profit on it is a challenge. SMBs

count their beans and seek value. Sohow do you engage with them prof-

itably? Below are some tips on how

you can successfully conduct IT serv-ices business with SMBs.

Do Smaller Projects

Every one likes to win big projectsand close big deals. With SMBs,

however, you should look for smaller

and longer engagements than biggerand shorter engagements. Do not try

to do a large fixed-cost project withthem. An SMB may want to IT-enable

their entire operations at one go. Typ-

ically business owners want to geteverything done within 6-9 months

and then go into maintenance mode.In practice, this wont work. It is pru-

dent to break the big project intosmaller ones. Finish each project, de-

ploy it, get the business use it, get t he

payment, and then go for the nextone.

Develop the Solution IterativelyAdopt agile development methodolo-gies (see http://agilemanifesto.org/)

for delivering projects. Develop soft-

ware iteratively with each iteration orsprint lasting for 2 to 3 weeks. Dur-

ing the initial days of a sprint, providemocks to the client so they know

what to expect. While executing theproject, keep in touch with the client

on a daily basis. Do not sign-off a re-quirements document, go away and

develop software in an isolated envi-

ronment without client involvement.Deliver working software at the

end of each iteration. Let the end-users use the application and provide

feedback. Never force your solutionon the client. You may be the IT ex-

pert, but they are the domain experts.

Listen to them and take their view-points seriously.

Manage Changes

Change management methodologiesused in large enterprises will not work

in the SMB - startup world. Even if

you have worked out a detailed con-tract and have scoped the project to

the minutest detail, changes are in-evitable. In the small world, you have

to be comfortable with rapid changes.You wouldnt want to nickel-and-

dime every small change request, butsmall changes quickly add up landing

you in red.

So how do you handle changes?One of the principles in the agile man-

ifesto is collaboration over contract.This principle is very important in the

context of small businesses. If the userrequests a minor change do not show

them the contract or the signed-off re-

quirements document and make themgo through complicated change re-

quest processes.However, you need to protect your

interests too, so its about convinc-ing the customer of the time and

cost implications of a change. Its

also a good practice to recordchanges, even if you decide not to

charge the customer. The important

thing is to be flexible, do not raise ahue-and-cry over every change re-quest. At the same time, make the

customer realize that changes cost

time-and-money.

Doing IT Services Business with

You have to be comfort-able with rapid changes.You wouldnt want tonickel-and-dime everysmall change request,but small changesquickly add up landingyou in red

Technology: By Prathapan SethuThe author is CEO and Co-Founder, QBurst


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Adoption of the personal computer by

businesses has been credited with 30to 60 percent growth in U.S. per-

sonal productivity in the 1990s.Microsofts Excel, Word, and Pow-

erPoint have changed the way people work acrossthe globe. Businesses quickly saw the value of these

tools and integrated them into everyones desktop.The knowledge worker came to the forefront; intel-

lectual property, not manufactured goods became

the unit of output. Keeping the machine working re-quired huge investments in IT people, hardware,

software, and later, services and connectivity. Theseinvestments and the resulting output fueled the

growth of the U.S. economy.Today, the PC is being augmented by more mo-

bile form factors such as advanced applicationphones and slates. However, the capabilities of mo-

bile devices are rapidly advancing and daily com-puting tasks will move off the PC and onto themobile. Mobile usage in the enterprise will be broad

based and no longer aligned with vertical roles likefield service or salesmen.

Docking stations willprovide the big

screen and

keyboardsrequired

f o rdoc-

u m e n tcrea t ion

but mobile de-vices in their

pure form will allow

us to remain engaged

throughout the day with 80 percent of the work. Our

corporate IT practices will evolve to capture the mo-bile opportunity for their broad workforce. Issues

such as device selection, application selection, andmanagement are different versus the PC. How will

people use these devices to improve productivity inthe work place? What applications will people use

to move their businesses forward? What resourceswill corporations deploy to gain the benefits of mo-

bile computing? These are all questions a business

must answer if it wants to remain competitive.Before we can understand these questions, we

need to define some basics. Mobile phones, in thiscontext, dont refer to a common wireless voice

phone but rather the new generation of applicationphones. App phones are differentiated from ordi-

nary mobile phones and smartphones because theyare first and foremost mobile computers. Older gen-

eration smartphones provided wireless voice com-munication and fixed function mobile services like

basic email and games. Apps were written and de-

veloped by programmers at the factory and em-bedded into the phone. A class of downloadable

applications could be written but often used esotericAPIs offered a cumbersome user interface and had

significant performance or functional limitations.

The modern app phones include CPUs, operatingsystems, user interfaces, and screens that are as rich,

expressive, and detailed as any available on todayspersonal computers. Todays app phone developers

more easily create complex applications using so-phisticated tools, user interfaces, libraries, and APIs

that are often more functional than their PC equiv-

alents. Whereas inexpensive desktop computationwas the must have feature for the PC generation of

computing, the app phone generation gains mobil-ity, instant availability, and universal connectivity

as its killer features. To deliver these benefits, theapp phone has made a clean break with the PC ar-

chitecture and value stream meaning the pricing

models, hardware, software, user interaction, and

w

Documents

Silicon India Aug 10 Issue