E-biz applications with a desi slant

ONCE UPON a time, half a dozen visually handicapped persons traveling along the Information highway bumped into a huge object blocking their path and tried to find out what it was by touching it.

``It's an Internet portal to buy music CDs and cassettes!'', said one of them.

``No way!,'', said another, ``It's a messaging platform to access information on the move''.

``You're both wrong'', said a third,``The way it feels, this is nothing but a firewall we have bumped into. It protects a huge business-to- business web trading site, I'm sure''.

The oldest member of the group finally decided it was time to set things straight: ``You guys have missed the essence, with your superficial probings'', he said,``Put your ear close to the thing, and listen for its heartbeat. It's all these things you said, on the outside, but it's 'Intel Inside ''

As fairy tales went, this was above par: a sliver of truth - and a dash of wish fulfillment. For two days last week, on the entire floor of a venerable hotel overlooking Mumbai's Gateway of India, the fable came alive - well, almost.

In an event held almost simultaneously with five other such shows worldwide, the world's number one chip maker, hosted a get together where 23 India-based technology companies showcased innovative e-business solutions they had created in recent months, many with first-in-the-world features that had garnered a global clientele even as the Net-based commerce market in this country was still evolving.

The result was what it is fashionable today to call an `e-com ecosystem': a heterogeneous community of industry players working together in an `open computing' environment where customers could change over smoothly from one application to another; from one developer to the next, even while using the same basic infrastructure.

They compete in the market place - even as they collaborate on using standard tools and a modular mix-'n-match architecture.

And if that common framework is what is being called the Intel architecture, the Santa Clara (U.S.)-based won't say no. Even as the Pentiums and the Celerons for which it is best known, roll out periodically along a well understood road map, Intel realises the folly of putting all its chips in one basket.

Hence the subtle reworking of its focus along four paths: client machines, servers, networking products and related services.

To encourage Indian developers to create e commerce solutions underpinned in its architecture,Intel has provided many small companies with privileged access to its chip of the (near) future - the processor jointly developed with Hewlett Packard which will make the transition from 32 to 64 bit systems. Earlier codenamed ``IA 64'' ( for Intel Architecture) and known for some time as ``Merced'', the new chip expected to be commercially released some time in 2001, has had its official `namkaran': it's to be called the Itanium.

But months ahead of its formal unveiling, I was thrilled to see the Itanium ticking away beneath the hoods of high end personal computers last week, at the Intel's E Business Forum in Mumbai - PCs built in India using prototype chips provided by Intel.

Indeed the Pune-based Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd has set up a dedicated Konark Itanium Centre to accelerate the availability and deployment of software solutions using the Itanium. They hope to provide ``migration services'' - enabling large data base servers to change their application smoothly to the new platform.

Next week ( December 18-19) the company is organising jointly with Intel, a ``Porting and Optimisation Workshop'' at its Pune site, to provide hand on training in porting existing 32-bit applications to the new 64-bit platforms. ( You can find them at www.pspl.co.in/konark/).

Is Pune emerging as the Itanium capital of India? One wonders, because so many of the new and emerging IT developers there have hitched their wagon to the Itanium. Less than 4 years old, Opus Software solutions has its headquarters in Pune and its operations in Chennai, Mumbai, New Jersey and Atlanta in the US.

A core team of 200 engineers has created banking and payment solutions for the ATM network of HDFC Bank and UTI Bank; the Internet trading operations of HDFC Securities - and any day now, the entire stock exchange of Luxembourg ( www.opussoft.com). Opus CEO, Mr Ramesh Mengawade, an IIT Kharagpur alumnus who worked with HP and Wipro before starting his own company, told me that the global money transfer operation of Western Union is powered by software written by his colleagues.

With this bedrock of experience the 'lean mean' Pune team, today offers off-the-shelf solutions like ``Pay-e'' - for electronic bill presentment and payment.

Planetasia, the Bangalore-based Internet services arm of Microland, provides another facet of Net services - the creation and hosting of e-biz websites (www.planetasia.com). In recent weeks, they have helped set up a bright e-com operation ``Music World 4 U'',to complement the 8-city network of MusicWorld cassette and CD shops backed by the RPG group.

Music from multiple labels have been integrated to create a useful one-stop online shop ( www.mw4u.com). Another very recent web based operation set up by Planetasia is the new educational tool, Students' Britannica, a special India-only edition of the well known encyclopedic resource (www.stubrit.com).

To keep these sites going, Planetasia runs a large Bangalore- based server farm - an up-and-coming niche service where providers create very large server capacity to host web operations for third party clients.

With the financial markets in the country rapidly e-nabling themselves, a number of innovative Indian solution providers have created niche products to service these operations. The Intel EBF showcased a complete web-based trading system for securities, created by the Bangalore- based Elind Computers ( www.elind- india.com).

``NegoStride'', is a trading system, specifically designed to enable one to negotiate a trade online - ideal for markets like debt. It is flexible enough to allow partial or total anonymity of the user - and hopefully packages like these will help this sector of the financial ``mandi'' graduate smoothly from 'dial' to 'click'.

Another system on display was DotEx Plaza, claimed to be India's first stock-trading hub, offering a plug-and-play way to do internet based trading. A joint venture of the National Stock Exchange and the Bangalore-based i-Flex solutions, DotEx Plaza (www.dotexplaza.com) allows the investor to get multiple options and independent analysis before making a choice, through a selection of brokers and participating banks.

The service is WAP -enabled that is, it incorporates Wireless Application Protocol which allows one to access the facility and do trading from mobile phones and portable computers.

Investing `on the hoof' is also the mandate provided by the Mumbai-based Leading Edge Systems, whose ``eVector'' is an enabler which allows mobile users to connect with WAP gateways and convert their data from the XML (Extended Markup Language) common messaging format to suit a variety of protocols. eVector, in essence, is the buckle which latches on to the service provider's network and helps access a host of corporate applications. (www.trigyn.com)

With rupees, dollars and euros whizzing over your mobile, how secure is the whole business of e-com? Dublin, Ireland-based Mr Kutty Nair, has a mission: With his co-promoter, Mr Rajesh V Shah, he hopes to provide the tools to e-secure your operations.

Their venture, MIEL Security ( www.mielsecurity.com) is the online equivalent of the private detective agency, checking your operation for security glitches and holes, and providing the tools for Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and the certificate that authenticates an online transaction.

Software leaders TCS were present at the Intel EBF, showcasing their development tools like Adex and Mastercraft, which can transform the more common data base-based reports by going ``online'' and providing dramatically displayed live reports.

It provided the finishing flourish to a hallfull of Indian ingenuity - providing to any remaining skeptics, a vivid demonstration of the software and system strengths of an entire nation.

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