Nasscom 2001 was great, but dotcoms were conspicuous by their absence. And while Rediff and Sify rebound on the NASDAQ, TCS will jointly develop a product on MS' much-hyped .net platform.

By Aparna Ramalingam & Ashutosh Sinha 

e-lead

Give Dewang Mehta this much: he sure puts on a great show. By all accounts, that's what Mumbai's nasscom: 2001 turned out to be. Of course, dotcoms were conspicuous by their absence; indeed, it was B2B-back to basics-all the way. The mention of dotcoms, if any, was in the context of internet business. ''Participating in building the pillars of the next generation internet is a huge business opportunity for Indian companies,'' says Bell Labs CEO Arun Netravali. Of course, getting the right people to put this into effect is turning out to be a problem. Warns Vipul Tuli of McKinsey: ''Institutions are just not getting faculty members to teach students.''

The emergence of the Chinese card was the talking point of the seminar, which some observers tried to downplay. With China still playing the catch-up game, Indian companies still have some time to tap more niche areas and offer a wider bouquet of services. That said, one thing is clear: with a large number of states realising that infotech could be a ticket to better times, the internet will spread out to more people. And, yes, as a visit to the VC Clinic revealed, there's still no shortage of dotcom dreams.

e-snips

• Since we record every downturn, it must be mentioned that the two Indian dotcoms on the NASDAQ-Rediff and Sify-have rebounded. Fuelled by its acquisition of thinkindia.com, Rediff's ADR has moved up to $5, from an all-time low of $2.28. And even though Sify posted q3 losses, the ADR has moved up by 85 per cent, to $5.5. Spiffy, considering these are times when Walt Disney is shutting down its loss-making portal Go.com.

• It's off. About eight months after it was first mooted, CRISIL has pulled the switch from its alliance with Sify to develop an e-commerce and service evaluation model for the Indian market. Sify claims that the tie-up was not linked to its relationship with Carnegie Mellon University, which stands. Incidentally, CredibilityFirst (a division of CRISIL) has etched an exclusive tie-up with IndiaConstruction.com to develop an e-commerce rating and evaluation service for the construction industry.

• Info Edge India, the promoter of career portal Naukri.com, has acquired a Delhi-based search firm Quadrangle in an all-stock deal. ''We bought Quadrangle because of its management and people,'' says Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO, Naukri.com. Quadrangle will retain a minority stake-holding.

• TCs has made it to Microsoft's Redmond-based labs to jointly develop a product on the hyped .net platform. TCs will develop MasterCraft, an integrated suite of software tools for developing medium to larger scale multi-tier applications, at its Pune development centre, and will later test it at Microsoft's Redmond labs.

E - M A I L
It's War!

N.A.: Not Available * Combined users of its messaging, e-mail and chat services

The war cry for one is ''lightning fast''; the other claims to be ''No. 1''. Triggered by aggressive advertising campaigns, portals Rediff and Sify are in a battle royal for the title of e-mail no 1. Not far from the limelight, the two global majors, Yahoo! and Hotmail, are gearing themselves for the long slog. Each player wants to occupy the top slot in the e-mail segment: more than 90 per cent of browsers access the internet to check their mail. With almost 40 per cent of surfers' time online taken by e-mail, it is, for now, the most viable marketing and advertising vehicle on the internet.

The race for the top spot has intensified with Rediff's recent announcement that Rediffmail has grown by a whopping 94 per cent, to touch 4.08 million users. That's more than Hotmail's 2.3 million unique users (msn says that's because it has a stiff purging policy, whereby any account unused for 120 days is deleted). Yahoo!-which has a 'lifetime service', implying that the account is not easily disabled-claims it has doubled the user base after launching its Indian venture last year. Finally, there's Sify, which claims to registered a 30-per cent month-on-month growth since November, 2000. Both Rediff and Sify have liberal purging policies.

In other words, while the numbers do matter, the truth is not etched in black and white. But there's no denying that Rediff has notched up a series of firsts in this war. For instance, Rediffmail is available in 11 Indian languages. All the major e-mail providers will follow suit in a short while. Then, Rediff has also taken the lead in adopting WAP technologies-understandable, for e-mail is expected to be big on mobile phones too. But that's just the beginning: all players are clamouring to provide features. Like any other product, in the long term, the user experience will sustain the numbers.

Speed is definitely a factor for the access-hungry Indian surfers. Rediff has been quick to make that its USP. Meanwhile, Yahoo! has set up an e-mail farm in India-its first in Asia-to cater to the growing numbers of subscribers and their needs for speed. On the heels of last year's hacker attack, Hotmail now conducts tests on multiple ISPs and accounts to check the speed of access. Sify has another view. ''Speed is the first thing that comes in the mind while mailing, but it's like saying that to drive a car, you need four wheels and a steering. Our focus is more on product features,'' emphasises Sify's Vice-President Raj Raman.

For now, it's a mad race to add newer and newer features. So if Yahoo! is touting its complete and comprehensive communication package, My Yahoo!, Hotmail has added 'inverticons' to its mail service, whereby users can express emotions via e-mail. Or there's Sify, which has recently added facilities like auto-forwarding and vacation messages. Clearly, the Great E-mail Race has just begun. 

-Vinod Mahanta

J O B S  S I T E  S  T A K E  I I
Englishman in NY?

Bead West, young job site. Barely seven months after international job sites tromped into the Indian market, they are all exploring opportunities abroad. Notwithstanding the US tech slowdown, and the first rumblings of a shakeout in the domestic online jobs market, the dozen or so job sites are looking at the global market as a lifeline.

For instance, pan-Asian JobStreet.com estimates that international-cross border placements will account for 15-20 per cent of its revenues in the next financial year. Troubled Jobsahead.com-tightening its belt in search of funding-has set up a one-man sales office in California and claims to have placed 'six-to-eight' software pros in the US. Adds K. Lakshmikanth, Managing Director of prizedjobs.com, which has a 10-person office in London, as well as plans for the US: ''The overseas markets are much more lucrative than the Indian one.'' Why, even first-mover Naukri.com says it will tap Dubai, Singapore, and the US, by sometime next year.

Does this all amount to anything? Well, yes-and no. Sure, the ability to track the international market is an obvious opportunity, and an extension for international offshoots. However, some bitter facts remain: Competition is extremely stiff (there are more than 2,000 job sites in the US). International day-to-day operations will be expensive, as will the search for local expertise. Then, there are macro issues like new rules in labour certification, higher visa costs... and the slowdown in the US. ''You have to be highly profitable in India first,'' warns Sanjeev Bikhchandani of Naukri.com. With fresh funding drying up, job sites would do well to watch out for the domestic shakeout. 

-Aparna Ramalingam

Beam Me Back BT!

Back in internet time, early 1996

• The Indian Telecom Commission decides to ''allow the public sector to provide access to the internet''. VSNL ties up with MCI to enable account-holders to connect with up to 30 news groups. And also moots to pep up interactivity by allowing chat...

• The Pune Stock Exchange goes online with a new screen-based trading system, dubbed Vector System. Each registered broker has been provided with a workstation at his office, which is connected through a network to the mainframe installed in the PSE premises. The cost: Rs 5 crore.

• The controversial Communications Decency Act (CDA) becomes law in the US (later shot down by the US Supreme Court as it violated the First Amendment).

• On the protocol front, the html Editorial Review Board is founded, with a goal to speed up html standardisation. And the w3 Consortium publishes the first draft of Scripting languages in html.

• Dave Hayes founds the pro-spam group Freedom Knights of Usenet. And March 1996 begins with a breakthrough move by Microsoft; Internet Explorer 2.0 sees Web light.

I N T E R V I E W
"Dotcom Services Have An Edge"

Renuka Ramnath, Managing Director, ICICI Venture Funds Mgmt, chats with BT's Vinod Mahanta.

Q In these troubled times, what's ICICI's stand on dotcoms?
A. Well, we appreciate the capital market's view on dotcoms, but will continue to look at proposals carefully. We will not be averse to make investments on a selective basis on ideas that can create value.

And where do you see this value in the ICICI dotcom portfolio?
Dotcoms that offer process savings through aggregation or are extensions of existing offline businesses have a strong value proposition. However, for those based on access to customer databases, there clearly exists a need to shore up revenue streams through alternative routes. Our portfolio comprises a judicious mix of the three categories.

But someone's making mistakes... 
The genesis of today's problems lies in the over-estimation of market size. The shakeout will throw up strong players and also venture capitalists focused on long-term value creation. As of now, dotcoms that facilitate delivery of services appear to have an edge over those that deliver physical products. For products like grocery, clothes, and so on, the reach and easy access of the current retail chain would be a difficult challenge to surmount. Services that are not easily available and not based on touch and feel-infotech-enabled services, training, education, jobs-have shown great growth potential.

E A R T H Q U A K E . C O M
Lessons From Gujarat

The earthquake in Gujarat sent out powerful signals to the Indian dotcom industry. While the horizontal sites were first off the block in breaking the news (fuelled by wire reports, of course), it was local, area-specific sites that attracted attention and queries from the Great Indian Diaspora. Another visible trend was Star News' popular marriage of the internet and TV, though star could hardly be happy with all the attention ndtv.com has secured for itself. ''The internet became a medium of communication by default as other forms of communication were not working,'' says Sandeep Aggarwal, founder, ahmedabad.com.

Three local sites-ahmedabad.com, kutchinfo. com, and panjokutch.com-took the lead in providing on-the-ground news, information-and innovation. For instance, operating out of a damaged 10-storey building, ahmedabad.com bought software online to put up a chat facility. In a tie up with kutchinfo.com, the two sites even managed to co-ordinate relief efforts from nris. Another example: panjokutch.com prepared an online search programme for missing people, and worked with non-government institutes. There are two simple lessons here: the internet gets people involved. And local sites do it better. 

-Vinod Mahanta

Issue Contents  Write to us   Subscriptions   Syndication 

INDIA TODAY |  INDIA TODAY PLUS | COMPUTERS TODAY
TEENS TODAY | NEWS HOME | MUSIC TODAY | ART TODAY | CARE TODAY

© Living Media India Ltd