Can anybody provide me d contact number of advocate angeli arora from suprim
coart,new dehli.Thanks to all.Dr. Niraj arora
-- original message --
Subject: AccessIndia Digest, Vol 23, Issue 6
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 04/03/2008 7:31 pm
Send AccessIndia mailing list submissions to
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of AccessIndia digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: converting docx into other formats? (Abbo Usef)
2. Re: Looking for chandra supriya's contact numbers (arun kumar)
3. Mahema Devadoss, writer-artist, passes away (Rajesh Asudani)
4. Re: Cannot receive list mails (Samuel Rodrigues)
5. Computer training for VI in Pune (Mohammed Asif Iqbal)
6. Re: Computer training for VI in Pune (Divyanshu Ganatra)
7. Tech Dose of the Day: AddThis (vishnu ramchandani)
8. Today's Website (vishnu ramchandani)
9. Glossary of Social Networking Terms (vishnu ramchandani)
10. Re: Computer training for VI in Pune (balasaheb londhe)
11. Problem in Outlook Express. (Anubha Bhargava)
12. Why can't Indians build a great product in India?'
(Pradeep banakar)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 15:38:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Abbo Usef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [AI] converting docx into other formats?
To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
simply regard those who are using office xp or office
2003 when they recieve docx format, what will they do?
simply use the mentioned converter done by microsoft,
the official manufacturer of office.
--- Roopakshi Pathania <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> You do not have to use any converter. Simply, open
> the
> ms word 2007 document and go to files> save as. In
> the
> option save as file, scrole down to select microsoft
> word97-2003.
> --- Mahesh Panicker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> > hi list.
> > as all of you would be aware of, Microsoft office
> > 2007 comes with the new
> > format of docx insted of the usual doc. docx do
> not
> > open in office 07, and
> > one has to use some converters. even K1000 can't
> > detect the new format. as
> > of now, I am using a converter, 'Docx to RTF'.
> > the problem with is that it do not get installed
> > with the system, and one
> > has to open the exe file all the time o convert.
> are
> > there any easier
> > options?
> > I was using office 07, but it is not quite
> > comfortable with jaws 8. so what
> > can I do?
> > looking forward to your suggestions.
> > with best regards.
> >
> > --
> > Mahesh S. Panicker
> > room no. 121;
> > Kaveri-hostel;
> > Jawaharlal Nehru university new delhi 110067
> india.
> > To unsubscribe send a message to
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the
> > subject unsubscribe.
> >
> > To change your subscription to digest mode or make
> > any other changes, please visit the list home page
> > at
> >
> >
>
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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Wael Zakareya
http://blindPlus.wordpress.com
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skype: m0100649426
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google: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 18:38:16 -0800 (PST)
From: arun kumar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [AI] Looking for chandra supriya's contact numbers
To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
hai dear Subramani
Pl take the number of chandra supriya 09948333560.
with regards
kiran kumar
Subramani L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear Folks:
Could anyone pl provide the contact numbers of chandra supriya? I need
to talk to her on an important matter.
Subramani
To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
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---------------------------------
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:03:01 +0530
From: Rajesh Asudani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AI] Mahema Devadoss, writer-artist, passes away
To: "accessindia@accessindia.org.in" <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Mahema Devadoss, writer-artist, passes away
T. Ramakrishnan
- Photo: Special Arrangement
Mahema Devadoss.
CHENNAI: Mahema Devadoss, writer-artist, passed away in the early hours of
Monday at her residence in Santhome here. She was 67. She is survived by her
husband Manohar Devadoss, technocrat-artist-writer, and daughter Sujatha.
Though Mahema became a quadriplegic following a highway accident near
Ulundurpet in Tamil Nadu in December 1972, she did not give up hope, but found
a new
meaning in her life. She and her husband, who started losing vision before the
accident, brought out greeting cards of five or six types at the end of
every year.
While Mr. Devadoss, a specialist in intricate line drawings of landscapes and
monuments, drew the sketches, Mahema, despite being wheelchair-bound, provided
the content for each drawing with a historical perspective of the monument.
"She was a spirited person. For writing the text, she would go to libraries,
apart from consulting various books," recalls Mr. Devadoss, who is now almost
blind.
Extremely good at marketing, she managed funds "fantastically," the artist
says, displaying grace in times of personal tragedy. Every year, leading
corporate
houses bought the greeting cards and the proceeds went to charity. Last year,
31,000 cards fetched Rs.2.38 lakh.
In 1970, when Mr. Devadoss went to Oberlin College in Ohio, United States, to
pursue post-graduation in chemistry, Mahema joined him. She worked there as
the Programme Director (Asia House), arranging several programmes such as
Bharatanatyam and south Indian cuisine-related events. "Of course, we had an
Indian bias," Mr. Devadoss said, adding that he and his wife continued to
maintain their touch with the college.
A post-graduate in English, Mahema had brilliant academic credentials. It was
after becoming a mother that she did her post-graduation (1968-1970). She
was a gold medallist. Mr. Devadoss pointed out that his wife, who was driving
the car at the time of the accident, never turned bitter, though a senseless
lorry driver was responsible for her being thrown out of the car.
The couple's daughter Sujatha, married to an American diplomat, lives in
Dubai. Her collegemate at Stella Maris, Joan Rajadas, said that when Sujatha was
a student of the college, the couple attended every event at the institution,
which had a special place for Mahema, herself an illustrious alumna of the
college.
________________________________
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------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:08:29 +0530
From: "Samuel Rodrigues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [AI] Cannot receive list mails
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
That's true, I too had the problem with access india mails, when I was using
yahoo.
----- Original Message -----
From: "firoz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: [AI] Cannot receive list mails
> use gmail for better result
> i think you are using yahoo
> yahoo is giving trouble to many
>
> hope it will work
> firoz
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Amjad Ahmed Fitwala" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
> Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 7:56 sunny
> Subject: [AI] Cannot receive list mails
>
>
>> Dear Friends,
>>
>> Since 1 month, I am unable to receive the emails of access india. I
>> don't
>> know the reason, as I have re-subscribed the list. I can receive few
>> emails messages in a week that means my subscribtion is okay. Please
>> help,
>> I cannot receive access india email messages regularly.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Amjad
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
>> A Smarter Inbox.
>> To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> with the subject unsubscribe.
>>
>> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes,
>> please visit the list home page at
>>
>> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
>
>
> To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with the subject unsubscribe.
>
> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes,
> please visit the list home page at
> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:47:06 +0530
From: "Mohammed Asif Iqbal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AI] Computer training for VI in Pune
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi all,
I got a call from someone in Pune. He is also a visually impaired studying in
b.com third year. He wants to know where he can receive computer training in
Pune.
Can someone provide me Divyanshu Ganatra's contact details?
Also would appreciate Ketan Cothari phone no.
Thanks and regards
Asif
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 12:17:31 +0530
From: "Divyanshu Ganatra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [AI] Computer training for VI in Pune
To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
hi asif
you can contact me on 09325358066, or alternatively on 09890993825.
its been a real long time since, and would love to hear from you.
divyanshu
On 3/4/08, Mohammed Asif Iqbal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I got a call from someone in Pune. He is also a visually impaired studying
> in b.com third year. He wants to know where he can receive computer
> training in Pune.
> Can someone provide me Divyanshu Ganatra's contact details?
> Also would appreciate Ketan Cothari phone no.
> Thanks and regards
> Asif
>
> To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
> the subject unsubscribe.
>
> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
> visit the list home page at
> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
>
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 12:08:45 +0000 (GMT)
From: vishnu ramchandani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AI] Tech Dose of the Day: AddThis
To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
AddThis
Dosed by Media&Entertainment Delivery Group (MphasiS
Software Services)
What is AddThis?
AddThis is a bookmarking and sharing tool available on
the internet. It is a widget that you can embed within
your page to avail of the various bookmarking and
sharing services with the click of a button.
Further info:
AddThis is a button that you may place in your blog,
webpage or site, and your site visitors may use it to
add/share details or bookmark your page through a host
of internet softwares like del.ic.ous, Digg, Reddit
etc. AddThis is very easy to install in your webpage,
and it has add-ins already available if you have your
blog on any of the popular blogging sites like
blogger, wordpress etc.
The main advantage is that it makes your page look
neat, and without clutter if you want to have a host
of various bookmarking services to be available on
your web page. AddThis also provides statistics of how
your readers are bookmarking and sharing your content.
Further References
AddThis home :
http://www.addthis.com/
What is AddThis? :
http://www.addthis.com/about.html
Gathering data with AddThis :
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/05/addthis-widget-gathering-lots-of-interesting-data/
Save all your chat conversations. Find them online at
http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 12:10:05 +0000 (GMT)
From: vishnu ramchandani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AI] Today's Website
To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
definr.com
Online dictionaries are a dime-a-dozen, but the usual
problem is their long loading times. Today?s resource,
Definr, seeks to address this issue by providing
?incredibly fast? responses to words that you look up.
The site, which comes with its own Mozilla Firefox
extension, also has a neat ?word of the day? feature
that shouldn?t be missed.
Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Go to
http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php/
------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 12:12:16 +0000 (GMT)
From: vishnu ramchandani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AI] Glossary of Social Networking Terms
To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Glossary of Social Networking Terms
network illustration
Illustration: Harry Campbell
Add: n. The act of gaining a new friend, and social
networking's common currency, as in "Dude, thanks for
the add."
Block: v. To configure your social networking service
to prevent a particular user from contacting you or
viewing your profile.
Check-in: n. In mobile social networking, an
electronic message that alerts your group of friends
that you have arrived at the local pub and are ready
to
party.
Cyberbully: v. To attack, harass, or ridicule a fellow
community member via posted text, video, or other
electronic means.
Defriend: v. The inverse of adding a friend, and the
very epitome of coldness. Same as unfriend.
Faceslam: v. To ignore a Facebook friend request from
someone you don't know and/or wish would just go away.
Facestalk: v. To scan, jealously, the Facebook
profiles and photos of people you know, are going out
with, or are going out with in your dreams.
Friend: v. To request that another user add you as a
friend--sometimes an awkward moment for the social
networker.
MySpace Suicide: n. The act of deleting one's MySpace
account forever.
Nudge: v. On Twitter, to send a message notifying
someone you follow that they're not posting frequently
enough.
Poke: n. On Facebook, a feature that lets other users
know that you're looking at their profile, and
possibly stalking them.
RL: n. Real life--the world of flesh, bone, and
face-to-face meetings that existed before the Web
browser.
Slurping: n. The ability of most social networks to
import your Web-based mail contacts to see if any are
already on the service. Watch out for slurpers that
spam every contact with membership invites.
Twitterrhea: n. A condition resulting in an excess of
Twitter posts. For even more Twitter jargon, see the
Twitter Fan Wiki's glossary.
Chat on a cool, new interface. No download required. Go to
http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php
------------------------------
Message: 10
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 17:43:57 +0530
From: "balasaheb londhe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [AI] Computer training for VI in Pune
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
Hello friend,
You can contact to Tecnical Training Institute,, Survey number 109, Dr.
Helen Keller Road, Hadapsar Pune. Phone: 020-2670986.
Hope, it will be helpful to you.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mohammed Asif Iqbal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 11:47 AM
Subject: [AI] Computer training for VI in Pune
> Hi all,
> I got a call from someone in Pune. He is also a visually impaired
> studying in b.com third year. He wants to know where he can receive
> computer training in Pune.
> Can someone provide me Divyanshu Ganatra's contact details?
> Also would appreciate Ketan Cothari phone no.
> Thanks and regards
> Asif
>
> To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with the subject unsubscribe.
>
> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes,
> please visit the list home page at
> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
------------------------------
Message: 11
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 16:30:36 +0800
From: "Anubha Bhargava" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AI] Problem in Outlook Express.
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hello Friends,
pls do let me know, Is there any way
by which I can SEARCH/FIND or recover mails in Outlook Express which have
become invisible or have been lost/Deleted from the inbox or some particular
folder in OE ?
Your immediate help & guidance in this matter will be deeply appreciated.
Thanking you in anticipation,
with best regards & good luck. Anubha.
TELE : 0532-2400183.
FAX : 0532-2400183, PP FAX : 0532-2405352.
E.mails :
[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
POSTAL ADDRESS : Bhargava Villia,
11/4 Tashkand Marg,
Opp Patrika Press/House,
Civil Lines,
Allahabad-211001 .
------------------------------
Message: 12
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 19:32:19 -0800
From: "Pradeep banakar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AI] Why can't Indians build a great product in India?'
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Why can't Indians build a great product in India?'
March 03, 2008
Their simplicity hits you in the face. So does their brilliance and gumption.
First, their simplicity: You think you are going to meet entrepreneurs who have
built a world class product in India and expect them to be nattily dressed,
polished in their manners and a bit arrogant. When you meet them you are
surprised to find them dressed in sandals and sneakers that mismatch their
clothes,
manners that are down to earth and a modesty shaped by their background.
Now their brilliance and gumption: All three had cosy jobs in one of the
world's most respected software companies with jobs that earned them a bomb. But
the emotion of "building a world-class Indian product by Indians" and the
entrepreneurial bug bit them and they decided to call it a day.
"We essentially wanted to build a huge organisation from scratch and my
ambition was to get cutting-edge technology to India," says one of the three
partners
of Druvaa, a start-up that says it has built a world class data backup software
product that will cost companies one-sixth the price quoted by the number
one company in the data protection domain.
Ramani Kothandaram, Milind Borate and Jaspreet Singh, three former Veritas
employees, have built a product that will help big companies protect their
crucial
data from corruption resulting out of any emergency. "If you compare our
product with the best in the domain then more than 80 per cent of their features
are identical," they say, confident of adding that remaining 20 per cent in
about another six months.
"If Indians can build great products for foreign companies in India then why
can't an Indian build as great a product in India for an Indian company?"
reasons
Milind who has four patents in the storage domain space in his name and
awaiting 11 more patents in the same field.
While Milind has done his MTech in computer science from IIT Bombay, Jaspreet
is a computer science grad from IIT, Guwahati. Interestingly, Ramani has no
background of computer science for he is a BTech from the Agriculture
Engineering College, Jabalpur. He later did his Master's from the Cranfield
University,
UK on an
ODA scholarship
Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore spoke to Druvaa's Ramani Kothandaram and Milind
Borate about their cutting-edge product, how they managed to do it and the
challenges this 'Made in India by an Indian for an Indian company' product will
face. Jaspreet was in New Delhi on business when this interview was conducted.
How do you explain your product to a layperson?
Ramani: We have two products: Druvaa Replicator and Druvaa In Sync.
Let us say that you have a computer. If your computer crashes then you take a
back up of the data on that machine so that you don't lose important data.
When we do this time is not so important. But when the servers of large banks
and BPOs crash they can't lose business by closing their servers. Also, how
fast and till what point-in-time can you restore and recover data on your
original servers is also very important.
Thus, data replicators like Druvaa's helps an organisation continue its
business even if there is a disruption or breakdown of their main servers for
whatever
reasons. For instance, Druvaa's Replicator and In Sync can help computers in
ten different locations mirror or replicate their data in case of any disaster
on a single computer anywhere in the world.
About your start up days and challenges
Milind: The start-up days were the most exciting days. We had a new idea, we
were excited about it and we wanted to do something pathbreaking. Those were
the days when we did not have any feedback so we thought everything that we did
was right.
As we moved along we built the first version, went to customers and tried to
get their feedback on our product. It is then we started to realise the market
realities. Then came the phase when we started to question ourselves -- if we
had the right dreams or not. But the intensity kind of always grew.
When we started going to customers and as they started liking our product it
gave a tremendous boost to our confidence. We realised that we had a very good
product and people wanted to buy it. However, we couldn't market our product
aggressively. Those were the challenging days for us.
As we started convincing our investors about our product and got more
investments we again started believing in ourselves.
How did you three come together?
Ramani: We are all ex-Veritas employees. Milind had left Veritas before I
joined but still we came to know about each other. In fact Veritas still has a
lot of file systems and lot of products whose development and architecture was
done by Milind. He was a technical director at Veritas. Milind had authored
a book Windows Undocumented. In a way Milind is a who's who in the storage
domain. So it was easy to find and know about Milind.
Jaspreet is our young entrepreneur. We found that Veritas had a product called
Veritas Volume Replicator and there were some challenges for people to use
this product. It had some performance and deployment issues. You needed a
Veritas engineer to deploy the product. Jaspreet and Milind came up with this
whacky idea of developing a similar product that will be easy to use and deploy.
Jaspreet, who is a born entrepreneur, was studying in Germany [
Images]
... I pulled him in because he too is as ambitious as we are and that's how we
all came together.
Milind: For the last 15 years I have been developing software for American
companies out of which I worked for Veritas for seven years. I thought it was
about time I start doing it for an Indian company. I met Ramani who had similar
ambitions. We essentially wanted to build a huge organisation from scratch
and my ambition was to get cutting-edge technology to India. That's how we came
together.
How long will it take for Druvaa to bring the cutting-edge technology to India?
How soon will you be able to convince the advantages of your product to
Indian users?
Milind: We are not in a one or zero kind of a situation. We are trying to build
it in parts. We are not saying we will build the whole product first and
then try to sell it. What we have built till now is a plain replicator in which
data from here goes to the other site. What we want to do next is essentially
continuous data protection.
So instead of having one copy of your data and the replication site we want to
have point-in-time copies so that businesses can go on about their work
seamlessly
even if there is data corruption or damage due to any emergency.
Suppose there is a virus attack on your primary data centre at 12 o'clock. And
you knew about it only after four hours. However, you want all the data as
it existed at 12 o'clock because after that it got corrupted and you want
point-in-time copies of that data. That's the next thing that we want to do and
we are sure we will do it in the next six months.
How much money was brought in to build this product?
Ramani: Initially we funded the project with our own funds and help from
friends and relatives. (According to
Rehan Yar Khan
of the
Indian Angel Network
the IAN has invested Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) in Druvaa). While we never had
any estimation of how much money will be required to build this product we
have spent only Rs 35 lakhs (Rs 3.5 million) till now. We spent another Rs 20
lakhs (Rs 2 million) for establishing the company and getting hardware to
test the product.
What's your role in Druvaa?
Ramani: While Milind is the chief architect and decides on the direction that
the product should take I decide on how the company should grow, which direction
the company should take, the overall strategic decision-making.
Jaspreet is helping us in the business development area; all through he has
been the product manager. He is the interface between Milind and me.
What was your initial reaction when you realised you have developed a world
class product?
Ramani: I was thrilled because for me developing an end-to-end product from
scratch in India and taking on the global bigwigs is what I had always dreamt
of. The moment I realised that we have this first product in hand we took it to
St Gobain and deployed it there. It worked successfully in the test environment.
It was a day when it rained heavily in July 2007 but I still came to the Siddhi
Vinayak temple (the famous Ganesha shrine in Mumbai) to offer my thanks
to God.
Your early lives...
Ramani: I come from a very middle class family. My father was in defence
accounts and so we moved across Indian cities after every one, two years. Before
joining college I had traveled across eight Indian states. Later I did my BTech
in Agriculture Engineering from Jabalpur; then I did my Master's from Cranfield
University, UK. I got an ODA scholarship to do my Master's.
When I came back to India I was a scientist in the Department of Space and a
senior officer in the Cabinet Secretariat. Then I worked with TCS [
Get Quote]
as a group manager. Later I left India and went to Australia and worked with
IBM Australia for 5, 6 years. Then I came back to India and joined Veritas
as managing partner, operations.
Milind: I was born and brought up in Pune. I did my early schooling in a
Marathi medium school. I did my Bachelor's from The Pune Institute of Computer
Technology in 1993. Then I joined IIT Bombay to do my MTech after three years.
That's where the transition happened. I came across students from across
India who could not speak Hindi or Marathi.
In Pune it was not necessary to speak English. The first two months when I
started to learn the Queen's language were a bit difficult. I passed out in 1998
and joined Veritas where I worked for about seven years. After that I started a
services company Coriolis Technologies.
My grandfather was a farmer and my father studied till Class X in his village.
My father then came to Pune and struggled a lot to continue with his education
there. I have imbibed my father's spirit to struggle and do something that was
not previously done.
My mother has been running a school for the past 30 years that caters to the
lower income group (he consciously avoids using "sophisticated and snobbish"
sounding words like 'underprivileged') who do not have enough money to go to a
good school. I have got the patience and tenacity of my mother. It was my
father's spirit to struggle and succeed that I have inculcated since childhood.
What sparked your motivation to start on your own?
Ramani: I wanted to take on the best in the world.
If you see even today there is no Indian software product that sells across the
world very well. There are some products like Ramco's ERP product, some
financial products developed by Infosys [
Get Quote]
and TCS. But there is no product like the ones developed by Microsoft, Oracle
or SAP. Though most of these products are today owned by American companies
they were developed by a majority of Indians working for these American
companies.
Even in Symantec and Veritas the products with cutting-edge technology have
been developed by Indians. This made me think that if Indians can build great
products for foreign companies in India then why can't an Indian build as great
a product in India for an Indian company?
How promising is your product?
This is a very interesting question to answer. When we developed this product
we were very confident of hitting the one-million dollar mark pretty soon.
But that's how all the start-up owners think. But when reality hits its
different.
Although we have not yet made our first sale we are expecting to sell it to an
Indian BPO company in Pune soon. Though it's not a very large BPO we think
that it is a good entry for Druvaa in the BPO space. We would like to address a
lot of other verticals but the BPO industry will do to begin with.
How can you sell your product at one-sixth the cost of that of your competitor?
Ramani: It is like this. People use any software product not because it is
ideal for them but because everybody else is using it.
For instance if I tell you that there is something better than Microsoft Word
then you may not be interested because a) you are so familiar with Word that
you may not find it useful to learn how to use a new product and b) if you send
that file across then the person at the other end should also have the
same software installed to run it.
So people use particular software for a lack of choice. When we developed our
product keeping in mind the actual user requirement in India we realised that
it doesn't need all the sophisticated features that users hardly use. For they
not only make the product complicated but also increase the cost for the
user.
The size of our entire software is only about 10 MB. It's so well-engineered
that we can even e-mail across it to our clients.
Also to deploy any replication software you need a skilled engineer who works
on a time-bound pay to deploy that software. Our replicator software can be
installed and deployed in an hour's time. The main purpose of our product is to
replicate data in case of a crisis.
Our product is user-driven and feature-specific. Also maintenance of our
product is very simple. Addressing these issues has helped us develop a low cost
software product that can give a tough time to our competitors.
Do you think you have a world-class product and it is only a matter of time
before it is accepted across the world?
Milind: If you compare our product with the best in the domain then more than
80 per cent of their features are identical. At the same time our product
has advantages in performance, usability and simplicity. But our product
doesn't have other complicated features like n is to n replication (this
technology
facilitates n number of computers under threat replicate data to n number of
computers located anywhere in the world; in simple words this technology is
a scale up of Druvaa's one is to one replicator).
However, that is in our roadmap and once we include this feature into our
product I think we will be the best.
It is only a matter of resources. We shall be able to achieve n is to n
replication in another six months and then you could call our product the
world's
best. We are four of us working on this feature now and we plan to hire four
more engineers to develop the n is to n replicator product. You don't need
a huge team to build a world-class product; only a few technology geniuses can
do it.
How soon will you ship your product to foreign companies?
Ramani: Sukanto Ganguly from the US, who is on our board of directors, will
help us take our product to the US market soon. Also, my boss at IBM Australia,
Sharon Dempsey, has started her own company Certainty Soft. She plans to sell
Druvaa products in the Australian market. So things, as we see, look bright
to us at Druvaa.
------------------------------
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