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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (5325)	7/28/1999 9:35:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 12475

Gray Cell plans second round of VC Funding, to launch Unimobile graycell.com R Subramanyam (ETonline) BANGALORE 27 JULY BANGALORE-based Gray Cell, a Web-based consumer product company is going in for a second round of venture capital funding. Mr T S Rajesh, founder and CEO, Gray Cell Applied Technologies Pvt Ltd, said that talks are on with Goldman Sachs, and Chase Capital, US. “We hope to close this by October,” he said, declining to reveal the amount of funding. Venture capital companies Walden International and Draper along with Mr K B Chandrashekhar, founder and chairman of Exodus Communications Inc, US, together, had recently invested around $1.7 million in Gray Cell. Mr Rajesh said that Gray Cell is also in the process of scouting for a chief executive officer for the Silicon Valley, US based Gray Cell Inc. Gray Cell is launching its product, code-named Unimobile, on Wednesday. Various names are being looked at to brand the product, which will be christened on August 15. Unimobile allows mobile users send messages to any mobile phone across the world, and also get selected Web services on their mobile. The product runs on Unimedia Virtual Network, a Web-based heterogeneous network that plugs into more than 255 mobile telephone operators gateways in 55 countries around the globe. The product sits on the virtual network, and has a customer interface, and a database which stores users settings and choices. Through a whole bunch of engines, services required by users are pushed to their cellular phones. “It is similar to a real audio player, which has content from multiple sources and a customer can get whatever content they want. In addition to content, our product allows customers to send messages to any mobile phone across the world,” said Mr Rajesh. The product, which currently allows basic functionality, will soon offer popular consumer services, such as links to portals like Yahoo, and Hotmail and evolve to do e-commerce, he said. “We are using all the Web-based channels to reach out to as many consumers as possible,” he added. Gray Cell will be targeting both mobile operators and consumers. It has tied with Spice, the mobile operator in Karnataka to offer this service. “The more the operator promotes the product, they can expect more revenues from increased messaging,” he said. Gray Cell intends to focus its marketing efforts in the US, Europe, and Far East, as those market are far more mature for Unimedia kind of product. Plans are on to build its brand and increase its visibility. The company is looking at around one million users worldwide for this product by the end of this year. The three-year old Gray Cell had in 1996 developed a two way Internet and electronic mail paging gateway, which allowed e-mail to be sent to pagers. The product was licensed to Motorola as a service, with Gray Cell owning the technology.

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (5325)	7/28/1999 9:37:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 12475

Nortel to invest $50 m in India Our Bangalore Bureau 27 JULY THE $17.6-billion, Toronto-based Nortel Networks, said here on Tuesday that it plans to step up its focus in the Indian market, through a combination of increased visibility, expansion of channels and manpower. Nortel is investing around $50 million, towards development and marketing activities and sales infrastructure. It will add on new partners to target the government, public sector units and enterprise segments. Mr Reg Bird, president, Nortel Networks - Asia South Pacific operations, told reporters that, “This is a very opportune time for Nortel Networks to increase its commitment to India. The second wave of data and telecom infrastructure projects in the country is just taking off and we will be ideally placed to emerge as the leader in India.” ........ economictimes.com

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (5325)	7/28/1999 9:45:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Tata Elxsi net up 54.2 per cent tataelxsi.com tata.com Our Bangalore Bureau (Economic Times) 27 JULY TATA Elxsi Ltd has reported a 54.20 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 39.66 lakh in the first quarter (Q1) of 1999-2000 as against Rs 25.72 lakh in the previous Q1. The net sales were higher by 100.77 per cent at Rs 23.55 crore in the current Q1 as against Rs 11.73 crore in the previous Q1. The total expenditure was higher at Rs 21.68 crore in current Q1 as against Rs 10.06 crore in previous Q1. The total expenditure was higher due to lower margins realised in the domestic systems integration business and impact of overseas marketing expenditure for expanding software design and development business.