Reametrix's Manian: A messiah in the making?

Over 20 million people have been diagnosed with aids since its discovery 20 years ago. Yet, there is still no cure in sight for the disease. AIDS tests, too, remain expensive-at around Rs 1,500 per pop. This means few people in the developing world can afford to monitor their CD4 count, a key metric in aids tests. But help is at hand. Reametrix, a San Carlos, California-based company founded by serial technopreneur Bala Manian, and funded by the likes of WestBridge Capital, has devised a kit that promises to reduce the cost to as little as Rs 150 per test.

Manian, who has spent three decades in Silicon Valley, says: "This means that we can now transform aids from a disease that quickly kills people (celebs like Rock Hudson and Arthur Ashe died within a year of being diagnosed) to an ailment that can be treated and controlled. Patients across the world can use these low-cost tests every quarter or every month to keep tabs on their health. We hope that in a few years, when we have enough volumes, these tests become as common as the diabetes glucometer... something that people can use to stay in good health rather then as a palliative before death." The new kits have to be kept in dry ice packs, but Reametrix scientists are working on a version that can be carried without this protection. "That's only half the story; we also want to have test centres and equipment in each district so that people don't have to travel far to take the tests," Manian says. Who says there's no hope in hell?

-Rahul Sachitanand

Vinod Dham's Made-in-India Chip

Dham: Just chipping in

This is another feather in India's cap. Nevis Networks, a company promoted by Pentium pioneer Vinod Dham's Newpath Ventures (NPV), has devised LANsecure, which is, arguably, the most complex chip designed entirely by Indian engineers at the firm's Pune engineering centre. "LANsecure was developed with an investment of over $25 million (Rs 112.5 crore) from NPV and Nokia Venture Partners. This chip, which secures enterprise networks against bugs and viruses, is 100 times more powerful than the Pentium chips designed by Vinod when he was at Intel," says Charles Dauber, CEO, Nevis Networks. "IT departments have recognised that securing of enterprise networks has evolved from simply securing the perimeter, to safeguarding data inside the perimeter, on the corporate network itself," Dauber adds. "There's a huge opportunity in high-end chip design that India can tap, since many designers who've worked in the US are now returning home," says Dham.

-Rahul Sachitanand

ISRO's Commercial Business Takes off

ISRO's Murthi: Big target

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is taking baby steps into the $2-billion (Rs 9,000 crore) a year world of commercial satellite launches. It has won a deal to launch Agile, a 400-kg Italian near-earth satellite into space this April-May. Currently, giants such as Arianespace of Europe, and Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Orbital Science & Sea-launch Company of the US corner a majority of the 18-20 such commercial launches a year. "The addressable market for ISRO is about two satellites in the geo-stationary segment and three-to-five satellites in the near-earth orbit segment every year. This will expand when India's GSLV Mk-3 rocket is fully developed and made operational towards the end of the current decade. Our aim is to target a 25 per cent share of the addressable market," says K.R. Sridhara Murthi, Director, Antrix, ISRO's commercial arm.

-Rahul Sachitanand

Q&A
"We're Here For The Innovation"

When Scott Cook found his wife struggling to do the bills and keep a tab on payments, he wrote a piece of software to help her manage the task easily. In 1983, he set up Intuit (short for intuitive) to market his new software, which emphasised 'ease of use'. He later expanded into the enterprise space. A soft-spoken billionaire, Cook, 55, who is Chairman of the company he founded, was in India recently. He met up with Business Today's Venkatesha Babu for a freewheeling chat. Excerpts:

Intuit is one of the few companies that took on Microsoft and survived. How did you do it?

Too many companies focus on the competition, particularly when it's Microsoft, often at the cost of doing what is really important. Our approach has been to be customer-centric. That is what differentiates us from others.

You brought in outside professionals to run the show. Is it hard to give up? And is there a lesson in it for Indian IT companies (most of which are still controlled by their founders)?

It's a hard decision. When you feel you are holding your company back, it's time to let go. I am sure Indian it companies will also realise that in time.

Will you enter the personal finance software market in India?

That's for our India team to decide on. But we primarily want our Indian unit to come up with new products and services for our global customers. We are here for the innovation and not for the cost. We already have customer contact and technical support services happening out of India for our global customers. We expect this to grow significantly as we go forward.

Still Bullish After All These Years
Like every global investor, the Hindujas too don't want to miss out on the India story.

S.P. Hinduja: Kicking off a new era

A Hinduja-Toyota joint venture to manufacture cars in India may sound like a fantasist's castle in the sky considering the Japanese auto giant has an immensely successful operation humming along with the Kirloskars. Yet, much before Toyota Kirloskar Motor was formed, the world's second largest carmaker had got into a huddle with the Hinduja brothers to discuss a JV. That the venture never took off was thanks to the Japanese corporation's insistence on a majority stake, and the Hindujas sticking to their principle of never being passive investors.

More than a decade later, though, the Hindujas are attempting to make up for lost time. Pretty much convinced about the sustainability of the India growth story, the group will soon attempt to add the much-missing size and scale to its Indian operations. Fresh investments are lined up in areas ranging from insurance to healthcare and power to commercial vehicles-perhaps a foray into light commercial vehicles via an overseas acquisition-and auto components. As Gopichand P. Hinduja, President, Hinduja Group, put it last fortnight at a luncheon with the Mumbai media: "In the next four-five years, we want to take our market cap up from $1.8-2 billion (Rs 8,100-9,000 crore) to $10 billion (Rs 45,000 crore)."

It may be still a few months before the Hindujas announce their big bang investments, which would signal perhaps the end of a rather frustrating period-that extended over decades-for the brothers. After all, they made more news for the alleged kickbacks they received for supplying guns than for their Indian operations, which includes a truckmaker (Ashok Leyland), a bank (IndusInd) and an it company (Hinduja TMT), amongst others (the High Court gave the Hindujas a clean chit in mid-2005, although a PIL challenging the same was subsequently admitted in the Supreme Court). This time, though, the strapping-at-70 Chairman Srichand P. Hinduja is ready to kick off a new era. He believes India's time has come, although irritants like inadequate infrastructure and a parallel economy (that could be larger than the real one) continue to exist. Despite that, the Chairman believes "India can attract $1 trillion (Rs 45,00,000 crore) worth of (foreign) investment." The Hindujas' late surge might just dovetail nicely with the India story.

-Brian Carvalho

Rating IPOs: Something Investors Could Do With

The IPO route: It's transparent now

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has, in principle, approved the introduction of optional rating of public issues by credit rating agencies. "This will give additional comfort to investors," says M. Damodaran, Chairman of Sebi. Such ratings will help investors make informed decisions about smaller public issues, which may not be as well researched as some of the larger ones. In 2005, 51 companies tapped the market with issue sizes smaller than Rs 50 crore, compared to nine companies in 2004. Says P.K. Choudhury, Managing Director, ICRA: "Our ratings will give information to the investors." There is no clarity on who will bear the expenses; the companies have been exempted from paying. But the regulator has suggested that the cost of grading IPOs could be met by stock exchanges or out of the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF). The regulator is also keen to rate the brokerages. So far, no modalities have been announced for this. That might well be a recipe for inertia. Meanwhile, we continue to live in hope.

-Mahesh Nayak