Spotlight

Software services: the next frontier

Pramati Technologies has been riding on the success of its Java-based products and services for enterprises. Now the company's goal is to tap existing customers that have opted for its products by selling IT services to them. By Mohd Shariff PA

As a product and services based company, Pramati Technologies has come a long way. It was set-up in 1998 focusing on services and product development. It launched its first product, Pramati Server based on the Java platform in early 1999. Since then it has been delivering on the promise of enterprise Java. The company has made significant inroads with wins such as Aditi Technologies, HCL Technologies and Analog Devices as well as ABN Amro and Andhra Bank in the banking sphere.

Hand in hand

Jay Raghavendra Pullur, founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies was keen on working on the Java platform and studied the Indian software market. Although in the beginning he concentrated on product development, he soon realised that there would be voracious demand for software services across the world and companies that delivered innovation in this sector would lead the market.

Pramati launched its first product, Pramati Server. After launching this product on the J2EE platform, the company realised that a product on its own would not generate steady revenues, as the company did not show profits in the first five years of its existence. A foray into services in 2002 aimed to put Pramati on the fast track. The company had a list of services for enterprises such as turnkey product development, product architecture and prototyping, development and release delivery, product testing automation and dedicated offshore centre. ISVs such as Infosys, ICICI InfoTech, Savvion, TIBCO Software and ClickCommerce have played a significant factor in Pramati’s growth giving it a new window of opportunity.

Pullur says, “We transformed our challenges into advantage. As a product company we were competing against the likes of IBM, Oracle and Sun Microsystems. We have carved a niche for ourselves in this market and established a brand with over 150 customers.”

Currently Pramati is growing at CAGR of 65 percent and it hopes to continue to sustain this momentum. The company has grown from four people to 150 providing IT solutions to hundreds of companies. Pramati also provides R& D services in the areas of operating systems and embedded applications.

The second major product from Pramati was Dekoh desktop and its set of diversified applications that was entirely developed in India on the Java platform. The beta version of Dekoh was launched in February 2007. The company plans to launch the commercial version on April 25th, 2007 at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

Jay explains Dekoh is a desktop platform for applications that offer a combined experience of the Web and the desktop. He adds, “It bridges the divide between the desktop and the Web using a browser-based application seamlessly when offline or online.”

The Dekoh platform consists of the Dekoh Desktop and the Dekoh Network. Dekoh Desktop is a small footprint download that can be installed on a user’s desktop. It includes a Web server on which applications written using open standards like JSP, Ajax, DHTML and Flash can be deployed and accessed through a Web browser. Applications deployed on Dekoh Desktop are automatically enabled for Web 2.0 functions such as tagging, sharing, commenting, rating and the like.

Dekoh Network allows controlled sharing of applications or content on the Web. A user can share applications/content on his desktop with a buddy, who can go to userid.dekoh.net and access it. The key thing to note is that the user is not required to upload different kind of content to different Web sites. Instead, the shared content and applications remain on the desktop and are served from there.

Pramati sees an emerging market in this area. Pullur asserts that this is why Adobe is in this market with its Apollo product. Pullur says, “A new trend is emerging called Rich Internet Application (RIA) it provides an end user experience that is similar to client-server applications, with a rich graphical user interface (GUI), responsive performance and highly interactive functionality.”

Dekoh is being offered on an open source license. This is because the company aims to create a community around its platform and also because it does not have the resources or developer mindshare of, say, an Adobe. What it has done is offer social networking aspects to its developer community. As a Dekoh user you can invite other developers in create profile pages and share photos. There are also ‘Web 2.0 features’ such as sharing, tagging and commenting. This may hint at a new trend, of deploying an open source development community around a social networking platform. If properly executed, this could be enticing and empowering for the developer community.

Growth areas

The company is strong in banking and financial services. Pullur says, “Merely delivering a unique product is not enough. It should be delivered at the right time and that is the mantra of Pramati in its growth strategy. Our existing product customers provide us the resources to grow our services business.”

Pramati extends its reach across the world. 50 percent of its business comes from North America, 40 percent from Asia and the balance from the rest of the world. The company considers India as a strategic market. Pullur believes “Pramati Server has become the natural choice for SMBs and ISVs, who need a fully standards-compliant application server platform.”

What’s ahead

Product and service development will remain a key focus area in the near future for Pramati. According to Pullur, services will play key role in the company’s growth but it may not be the only growth aspect.