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What are the prospects for WiMax in India, and what is the projected growth for the market?
India is a global focal point for WiMax technology to mature. Many technologies get developed in India and we are sure that India will be a global hub for WiMax in another couple of years. Any development has to go with product testing and testing conditions have to be versatile to cater to different parts of the world. Where can you find a versatile testing environment as well as intellectual resources available in the same place other than India? If a product is developed and tested to Indian conditions, it will be at par with global development destinations, if not better. Moreover, India is the most price sensitive market when it comes to WiMax and when the product is designed to meet this criteria, product manufacturer can sell anywhere in the world. And, I think, WiMax growth is between $2-5 bn in India before 2011, and more than $15-20 bn globally by 2011.

What is your global expansion strategy?
Our products are already deployed in thirty countries and we have three international support and sales offices in Taipei, Singapore, and Sharjah. We will have our direct presence in Latin America, Central China, South Africa, and Australia by December 2008.

And, your business model for WiMax rollout?
Our business model is very flexible. We suggest our customers to roll out first fixed WiMax and then upgrade to mobile WiMax. We also launched our fixed WiMax products in unlicensed spectrum, paving way for operators and enterprise customers to rollout networks without any regulatory hassles.

Balaji Kulothungan, CEO, PointRed Telecom

What are your investment plans?
We have already invested FY '08 $5 mn on our product development alone this year and we will continue to invest another $5-10 mn in FY '09 for product development and global expansion.

What is your marketing and promotional strategy?
We are the only Indian company focusing on various products based on technologies such as pre-WiMax, Wi-Fi, Wi-Mesh, fixed WiMax, and mobile WiMax, which give flexibility for our customers. We have launched WiMax Demo Kits, which are available at a very special price for our prospective customer. This will enable them to deploy the technology, plan for larger rollouts, and effectively use it. PointRed Products are always designed keeping in mind securing customer investment and quicker RoI.

Your core strength is back integeration. What exactly does it mean?
It means, with our past experience with customers, we have designed products as per actual deployment scenario rather than designing products and thrusting them on customers. This back integration is incorporated with key ingredients such as commercial viability for quicker deployment of wireless broadband and the technical fulfillment of the solution.

Also, our products are cost effective, as we have the best possible combination of R&D in India and manufacturing in Taipei.

Any special plans for FY '08?
Our new R&D facility with a capacity to house 150 engineers is to become functional by January 2008, which will accelerate our growth strategies. Our global expansion strategy will be on the top of the agenda.

Arpita Prem
arpitap@cybermedia.co.in