HCL storms into access biz, while Wipro makes its B2B splash. It's takeover season at SIFY, even as TCS lifts the veil off its global e-speciality centre.

e-news

• Access dominated the headlines. HCL Insys launched its ISP subsidiary HCL Infinet, and is set to go public by March, 2002. And Data Access India-an affiliate of Richard Li's Pacific Convergence Corp., launched a convergence ISP, now, in Delhi.

• SEBI allows mutual funds to invest in venture capital firms.

• Satyam Education Services of Satyam Infoway (SIFY), proposes to acquire 74 per cent stake in Eduempire.com for $2.26 million (Rs 10 crore), in an all-stock deal. SIFY also announced the acquisition of Forms India, a portal offering free downloads of a database of forms.

• Tata Consultancy Services has launched its global e-business development facility at Santa Cruz Electronics Export Promotion Zone in Mumbai. The 500-strong global facility will undertake high-end engagements in e-business for TCs' global customers.

• India's nine leading pharma companies, under the aegis of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, have decided to jointly set up an on-line pharma exchange. Christened Kohinoorpharma.com, the start-up will market products and services and develop a digital distribution network. The promoters are Alembic, Cipla, Dr Reddy's, Lupin, Nicholas Piramal, Ranbaxy, Sun, Wockhardt, and Zydus Cadila.

• Wipro decided to go NYSE. It also launched 01markets.com, a b2b digital marketplace aimed at the infotech products and services sector.

• UK-based Band-X, an on-line exchange for telecom and Net capacity, will invest up to $10 million in India to launch a trading floor in Mumbai, allowing desi ISPs to buy capacity based on market price.

• Financial site indiainfoline.com has scrapped its plans to start a 24-hour business news channel.

e-alliances

• Cadence Design Systems and Mindtree Consulting have entered into a three-year strategic alliance.

• Rediff has tied-up with Birla AT&T and Tata Cellular to provide content to the latter's cellular subscribers. Reuters and Dishnet Delivery Services are also in a pact for financial content. Brainvisa.com and HDFC Bank are to jointly offer loans on-line. Mediaturf.com has entered into an non-exclusive agreement with Yahoo! India to develop creative marketing programmes and sell advertising on the portal. And, P&G Hygiene and Health-care has tied up with Doctorany where.com, an on-line medical consultancy.

• Star TV is tying up with the Thakrals of Singapore to launch an India-based narrow-band Net services joint venture, with Pacific Internet.

By Aparna Ramalingam & Praveen S. Thampi

Beam me back BT!

In this regular feature, travel back in (Net) time to somewhere in October, 1995.

• Though the Net is still 'a cool thing' in India, machines manage to break their solitude. Collaborative computing enters the scene, with Groupware Lotus Notes connecting desktops. Side by side, Wipro launches Internet Access Router aimed at corporates. Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) ties up with Aptech and Zee Education to promote 'awareness' about the medium, through nodal training points. Mind you, VSNL had 500 Net registered users.

• At the global level, the Net had about 26.4 million registered users as of October, 1995, according to an estimate by Matrix Information and Directory Services. The top ISPs in the US during the period were Netcom Online Communications and Web Communnet, industry.net, and premenos.com.

• Killen and Associates, a business research organisation, predicts that e-commerce levels would 'shoot up' from zero in 1995 to $17 billion in 2005. At the same time, Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy began to offer 'secure' shopping.

• Travel sites go ga ga. Travelogix online (where you could book trips on-line through an affiliate travel agency) and hilton.com (which allowed you to search for hotels by locations worldwide), which were among the prominent sites.

• Internet Multicasting System starts beaming sound files. Now, you could 'actually' listen to what the Net says!

Reshuffle On The Site Street

There were no ifs from Rediff on this one. By quietly exiting the web-site development space, Rediff has stirred up a right royal hornet's nest in this fast-paced segment. Catalysing the stir-up are ad agencies furiously setting up site development affiliates, sparking off an old debate: does this mean curtains for non-advertising firms in web-development? Says Arti Dwarkadas, 34, Business Director, Ogilvy Interactive: ''Consolidation is bound to happen with players streamlining their core efficiencies in e-related business.''

Indian businesses are indeed moving on from their pre-occupation with mere web-presence. Increased interactivity is the key. Rediff obviously felt it was time to move on (''It was useful to build relationships,'' says Ajit Balakrishnan, 51, CEO, Rediff). Others disagree. Says Alok Nanda, 37, the ex-Trikaya Grey guy: ''It's naïve to suggest that the individual hot shops will disappear. That did not happen in the US. The market is vast and there is room for all kinds of players.''

There's no doubt that the nature of the business will change. Mere knowledge of html or Java is not enough; clients need a web strategy. Obviously, the site-development firms feel the ad agencies will not be able to deliver on that count. ''Ad agencies are not really equipped. They know print and television, but this is a new area that needs different skills,'' says N. Shekar, 45, President (e-Business), Satyam Infoway. Atul Gupta, 35, CMD, Pugmarks Interweb, tends to agree: ''Agencies have reacted too slowly to this new medium and have lost out on a great opportunity.''

Is that so? The ad industry is trying to bridge this gap by building site-development affiliates. The synergies are obvious. However, they are finding it difficult to find the right people; and thus end up outsourcing. It's early days yet. But a shakeout is in the offing, leaving the small guys out in the cold, picking up the scraps from new, first-generation clients. As for the Big Fight with the ad agencies, it hasn't happened-yet.

-By Shamni Pande

Q&A

BT's Pooja Garg has an on-line chat with Piyush Gupta, CEO, go4i.com

Q. Why go4i.com?

A. The name reinforces our 'simplify life' positioning. We did not want 'India' in the name, because of a surfeit of such web-sites.

Is there a conscious move away from the Hindustan Times brand?

HT brings tremendous value and credibility in our news reporting, but the site has a lot more than the scope of any newspaper. A general-interest portal would, by definition, have to reach out to a much larger audience and, therefore, needs to create a recognisable personality of its own.

What about your content? How much of it is sourced from HT?

The content for news is sourced from ht, though we also have wire feeds. Besides, we have a large in-house, dedicated content-development team. And then we have our partners.

Coming in a little late, did you have to go an extra mile for building the brand?

Being a latecomer was both an advantage as well as a disadvantage. As we came in, the consumers had matured, and our research threw up some pretty insightful stuff, which we were able to leverage.

So, go4i.com's P2P?

Coming from a strong media house it has its inherent advantages in its ability to make the media model work for us. We also have transaction incomes coming in from our subsidiaries. As per our projections, we turn cash positive in the mother company, as well as all our subsidiaries, by fiscal year 2003.

Lords Of The Net

It's simple amusements that often spark off complex commerce. Stretch the talk to kids, who, in the post-Windows era, have practically been born with a mouse in their hands. A recent A.C. Nielsen report says it's mostly children aged 2-11 years who click on banner ads. No wonder an entertainment, education, and commerce industry is slowly being built around this group.

However, the market is still in its infancy. Says Rajinder Singh Kohli, 34, CEO, NetFundu.com: ''The children segment is largely untapped as far as the Net is concerned.'' Agrees Ajay Jaiman, 33, CEO and founder, Pitara.com: ''Kids are hugely undervalued as customers, in India. We are involved in creating an industry around kids.'' Optimistic talk. But reality is not all that lollypoppish. For one, the challenge lies in getting kids to surf-and parents to pander.

Problem is, when it comes to commerce, children often defy conventional market logic. The reasons range from spontaneity in decision-making to the monetary dependency in carrying out a transaction. Moreover, kids' access to the computer is mostly monitored because of fears of 'indecent' sites. Agrees S. Narasimhan, 30, CEO, Appukids.com: ''There is a lot of concern on the parents' side on kids accessing objectionable content.''

Most Indian kids' sites are targeting an age group of 2-12, and are focusing on chat, e-mail, and games. The presumption: toys, games, books, and music will click with the surfers. Sites are also targeting alliances with toy-manufacturers and FMCG companies. For example, Appukids has tied up with a children's shop in Chennai, Jus Kiddin. While Jus Kiddin sponsors prizes for events, Appukids provides them visibility. More crucial are alliances with schools.

Netpreneurs observe that the children's segment can be targeted by the advertisers at a much lower cost than in the physical world. Co-branding, banner ads, endorsements, and sponsorships will provide revenues in the short run. Strategic tie-ups form mid-term tactics. But that's for later. For now, with only advertising revenues in the picture, the kid stuff will be limited to the sites.

-By Aparna Ramalingam

Hot MSN?

It was time to welcome, sans hype, another biggie portal into Indian netspace (we're still waiting for AOL). Microsoft may have timed the launch of msn.co.in with Bill Gates' visit, but msn was hardly top of mind at the end of a hype-driven visit that focused on Microsoft's .net strategy. ''We wanted to keep the surprise element,'' says Sriram Adukoorie, 33, the head of msn India, justifying the timing and offering a weak justification for a beta site up since April, 2000.

Microsoft thinks it doesn't need to worry about being late in Indian netspace. Indeed, its free web-based e-mail, Hotmail.com, is vastly popular in the country, with 2 million registered users. In fact, according to Alexa Research, Hotmail accounts for 84 per cent of the Indian traffic to various MSN sites, which tops the list of sites viewed by users in India. Another latecomer biggie, Yahoo.com, makes it to the second spot. Says Dhruv Sharma, CEO, 123India.com: ''For a company of their size, all times are right times. If they didn't launch it then, it is more a function of focus.''

Clearly, msn has to leverage the Hotmail plank. ''We have links in the Inbox to the msn site. So, if you are a registered user from India, you get directed to the msn India site,'' says Adukoorie. With msn entering a multi-horse race to be among the top two or three portals in India, Hotmail will help in securing advertisements, albeit from a small pie. And if the site doesn't look too hot, msn India follows the global template laid down for the 33 countries msn is present in. msn India has made some variations-like an opinion poll-and has tied up with a host of usual suspects for local content. The challenge now lies in shifting users to msn, and not just Hotmail.

But then, as the Big Bill himself clarified, Microsoft's priority is going to be the dotnet, not the dotco, dotin.

-By Pooja Garg

A Dotcom Here 
A Dotcom There...

The high ground of dotcom networking, India Internet World, was subdued, reflecting an industry seeking to sound business-like in very uncertain times.

There's something oddly reassuring about attending a conference at New Delhi's Pragati Maidan. Not just IIW, but any conference. We're not very good at organising these things, you see.

But that's not what we're talking about here. Compared to the previous exposition, the stalls were bigger and better (kudos to the exhibition design industry!)... the music louder; the hand-outs heavier; the PYT contingent larger; the number of quizzes infinite. The number of exhibitors went up from 108 to 173 this year. All the biggies showed up (apart from rediff.com, which Kellogg internet guru Mohanbir Sawhney famously said would be up for sale in roughly two years time).

Oh yes, the crowds showed up too. Everyone had fun. While it's difficult to get the actuals, most stalls attracted brisk business (though Indian conference-goers have a well-known penchant for freebies and short skirts). The jobs sites, in particular, shone in branding exercises and seemed to attract the highest number of visitors. Adds Jack Ma, the CEO of b2b site alibaba.com: ''We don't have any plans for India as yet, but the response we got from everyone is heartening.''

Another telling comment flows in from Shivaranjan Gulvady, General Manager, Zenith Computers: ''This year, there seems to be a perceptible fall in interest among the visitors.''

Well, no quizmaster asked this one: where is the Indian internet industry heading to? Frankly speaking, no one seemed really interested. Despite an almost 60 per cent increase in the number of visitors, speakers made presentations to vacant seats (the privileged ones got company employees to add to the headcount). For those who chose to listen, the difference in the mood was evident: from a primer in the tremendous possibilities of the internet last year, the message has shifted to path-to-profitability this year. In other words, 'Show Me The Money'.

There was also a marked absence of international visitors, which reflected India's status in the internet industry, as well as the general state of disquiet. With a two-year history behind it, Microland made a concerted effort to make IIW a serious, quality affair, rather than celebrating the spread of the internet. That probably explains the low turnout and the absence of excited, frenzied, geeky guys who thronged the halls in the past couple of years. Sums up K.S. Ganesan, CTO, Networking Services, Bangalore Labs: ''In the initial two years, IIW was more educative in focus. Now, the perspective is more on business.''

And what about ideas? The marketing guys talked about branding being the key. The content guys waxed eloquent about content being the key. A gaunt John Sculley said the customer was the key. (''We now live in an era where the consumer dictates to the producer what he wants.'') Mother in tow, Mohanbir Sawhney points towards b2b: ''It's like a drama, but nobody knows whether it would be ending in a comedy or a tragedy.'' Sawhney-the star attraction at the IIW-pointed to e-services and collaborative commerce being the Next Big Things. And then, on the other extreme, you had Alex Lightman, the fast-talking CEO of Charmed Technology: ''India should venture into the pornography and gambling industries on the internet.''

Finally, there were the standard words of wisdom. Maury Zeff, Yahoo-Asia's Director of Production, mirrored the general warning: ''What is sexy stuff today may end up being forgotten in the next nine months. As the market grows, viable models that can change with the times will sustain.'' Try telling that to the marketing manager of a large portal, who, when last seen on the afternoon of Day 3, was bemoaning when and how his Rs 40-lakh investment in IIW would yield returns. Here then is a prediction for next year's IIW: It will be really, really interesting.

-Ashutosh Sinha, Aparna ramalingam, Pooja garg, & Vinod mahanta

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