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[Contn.] 10 For Tomorrow [6] A Cisco For The Home Company: Ionic Microsystems
At first sight, Ionic is just one among the tens of Indian tech hothouses aspiring for a place in the (wireless) sun. Words like Bluetooth, WAP, and embedded solutions jump out at the viewer from the company's website, and the first products developed by Ionic were (in chronological order), an embedded (see, we told ya) solution to record audio on to CD; a network CD creator, and a CD duplicator. It isn't any of those things, though, that earns the company a mention here; it is the company's newest product, a home gateway that interfaces with two de facto tech standards, Bluetooth (wireless) and Home PNA (wired). The product can manage the operation of several wireless devices, allow them, and the personal computers connected to the home network share one internet account, boasts an inbuilt WAP server, and supports Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). And all this is embeddable, which means Ionic's solution, branded eGate and now in the product-testing stage, will form part of home gateway boxes companies like Lucent, 3com, and Motorola are selling. The company has found one customer, Connexant and hopes to attract more on the basis of its ability to offer OEM-specific modifications. ''Customers need specific applications and indeed, many ask for them. That's the only way they can differentiate themselves from the competition,'' says Ionic's CEO, G. Mohan. The focus on home and small offices-Mohan claims the company can make this leap easily-insulates Ionic from the searing hot competition of the corporate networking space dominated by giants like Cisco, Juniper, and Cabletron. Now, it's just a question of finding customers. [7] At The Heart Of It Company: Ittiam Systems
It takes a brave man to quit a job in a tech transnational and set out on his own. It takes a braver man to do it when the whole technology firmament seems to be coming crashing down. Meet Srini Rajam, CEO of Ittiam Systems and former country head of Texas Instruments in India. From an office in Bangalore's central business district, where the smell of paint has just faded, Rajam wants to, well, take over the world and, surprise, has a clear focus for this megalomaniac obsession: ''We want to be the number one DSP company in the world.'' Ittiam isn't focused on the $1 trillion DSP-for-end-equipment (read cable modems, MP3 players, video cameras) market. That is dominated by biggies like Motorola and TI. Nor is it looking at the $5 billion hardware market for the DSP chip, which is the exclusive domain of Analog Devices, Lucent, and a few other companies. Rajam, and Ittiam (IT Rhymes) are, instead, hoping to become a significant player in the $9 billion market for DSP software. There is no dominant player in this market. And DSP chips, which already form the core of most electronic equipment, are likely to retain that pole position for some time. Better still, competitors like Libit Tech, and DSP Communication are focused on specific verticals. Ittiam, in contrast, hopes its diffused play-an emphasis on wireline, wireless, audio and video-will help. Initial response to its offerings, Ittiam claims, has been promising, and Rajam speaks bullishly about revising the $40 million-in-five-years target upwards. [8] The Best Of Both Worlds Company: MosChip
Yesterday's world was completely analogue. Tomorrow's world will be completely digital. But today's world-and it will be a fairly long day-is a mixture of both. Chips built around mixed signal technologies allow processing in both standards, and that is the market MosChip is targeting. If chairman Ram Reddy chose to locate the company in India, despite its competitors (ti, Motorola, and Oxford Semiconductor), customers, and fabricators being located in the US, it was with good reason. Designing mixed signal processors requires expertise in both the digital and analogue domains and while 'digital' experts are easy to come across in this day and age, analogue experts are harder to find. India, however, has no shortage of them; indeed, most of ti's mixed signal chip design is carried out of its design centre in India. The semiconductor industry is broadly divided into three segments: marketing companies, fabrication companies, and R&D companies. MosChip belongs to the last. Typically, the cost of wafer (silicon) accounts for 35 per cent of the semiconductor's cost, while R&D and engineering account for another 45 per cent. MosChip is hoping that its lower R&D costs will provide it with an advantage. Says Bhupinder Ahuja, an analyst at Deutsche Banc Alex Brown who has been tracking the company: ''They are not creating a new market. But they are addressing a specific need, which they understand very well.'' MosChip has already productionised a chip that specifically addresses the printer market. This is a low value chip that sells for approximately $2 a piece, but is expected to sell in huge volumes. And the company's acquisition of Netmoss Technology will add several products to its portfolio. [9] Wireless Wonder Company: Myzus Infotech
It is difficult to identify one of Myzus' products or solutions as a killer app, but the company boasts a clutch of offerings around a platform that is entirely device and content neutral. In simple English that means any end-user device, can connect to any source of content through the Internet. When Roshan D'Silva and Sandeep Srivastava-recent IIT-Mumbai alum-decided to turn their winning entry in a business plan competition into a company, they decided to create an entity that was, more than anything else, resilient. Inspiration came from the Florida Book of Insects, which lists Myzus Persicae, an aphid, as the most resilient of all insects Only, D'Silva and Srivastava must show some that aspired-for resilience now. Marketing isn't exactly easy when the competition comprises Openwave (formed by the merger of Phone.com and software.com in 2000), Nokia, Ericsson, and Siemens. Myzus hopes to end its first full year of operations with revenues of $1.5 million. ''The challenge for us is to engage with a potential customer early so that we can sell him the entire platform,'' says Silva. But smaller companies may find it easier to create and market innovative applications, and analysts point out that killer apps will likely to bring in more revenues than platforms. With both a platform and several applications going for them, though, the duo are hoping to make Myzus mean not just resilience, but scalability. [10] The Veteran Company: Sasken Communications
Sasken is all of 12 years old, but its focus changed serendipitously, from electronic design automation to digital signal processing a few years back. That seems to have worked: in just over two years, the company has acquired 25 patents. It's strategy is also a little different from that of other it companies: Sasken invests around 5 per cent of its turnover in R&D; and last year, 47 per cent of its revenues came from product licensing. Now, CEO Rajiv Mody's eyes are on personal access devices, a market estimated to reach one billion units over the next five years. Sure enough, Sasken is working on building the architecture for low power consuming chips. That caught the attention of chip giant Intel's capital arm, which acquired an undisclosed stake in Sasken. The market for these chips is set to explode: they generate less heat, and hold the promise of longer battery life, both critical in the personal devices segment. Says Sidhartha Das, Director, Intel: ''The company's core strength lies in developing intellectual property rights.'' Better still, the sustainability of Sasken's revenues are hedged by a part-focus on services. 1 2 |
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