What is your Developer Partner Program all about?
India is an extremely important market for Aepona, as it is one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world. India is renowned globally for world-class software development. There is a large and vibrant community of highly skilled software developers throughout the country. This talent pool is creating new applications and services that enable telecom operators to realize new revenue sources and enhance customer loyalty. Aepona's technology allows these applications to be created in a common, standards-based manner, meaning that they can be deployed across different types of network including fixed and mobile networks or circuit-switched and IP networks, without having to be re-written for each situation. The aim of our Developer Partner Program is to reach out to these developers and provide them with the resources, tools, and support that they need to create compelling new services for our existing and prospective customers.

What are the deals that you have in your kitty right now, and what are all in the pipeline?
In the next two quarters, Airtel will formally announce the partnership. We are also talking to all the other service providers like Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular, and they have shown keen interests.

What about the focus on other parts of Asia?
We are not very active in other SAARC countries. We are concentrating our resources on areas that are growing fast. Since Asia is a huge continent, we like to focus on specific areas.

Would you like to develop applications and then sell it to operators, or you want operators to develop their own applications?
Well, we don't have any preference as such. We would like to go by our customers' demand. The main thing that we sell is the enabling technology, and the capacity of our technology. But we are very happy to be prime contractor for these applications. However, we don't have any preference for being a technology provider or application provider; we can do either one of these two or both, which depends on customers' requirements.

How has your experience been since you started your business in September last year?
It's been very successful and our contract with Airtel was a major milestone for us. But, I think more important for us is that we have Appium technology with us now. This deal is fundamental to our plan for developing application-partnering system.

What are the challenges you have faced while operating in India?
One of the biggest challenges is the sheer size of the Indian market. The scale of operations is huge in terms of the growth, number of people, and the size of the operators we are dealing with. We address these challenges through partnerships. So, we are partnering with Nokia Siemens, and IBM, which is very important for us. IBM is the main systems integrator for us. And, Nokia Siemens is the main network provider and Aepona is the main technology provider for this application gateway.

What are the plans for the applications developed in India? Do you plan to take them to other countries as well?
It is in our interest to promote application development, and then promote their application to other key markets like America and Europe.

What are your R&D plans for India? Do you intend to setup a base in India?
No, we don't have R&D in India. We have R&D in Spain, Sweden, and Ukraine. And, we don't see any change in this in the near future. However, we do plan to have more people in sales, marketing, and technical support. As our business grows here, we will add our resources, focusing on customer support and services.

Your customers are operators. So, do you think it is a viable model to focus just on 15-16 customers? What is the total size of the market for your product in India, and who are your competitors?
We have a global operation with some 700-800 operators globally. So, that's viable. We can't just focus on India; we need to work globally. I can't predict the market size in India as of now, but I think we have a billion dollar global market. Our competitors would be Eriksson and Alcatel on the network capability providers' front.

What are the applications that you are focusing on currently?
Currently our focus is on the enterprise and small business applications, like virtual PBX, which is making your mobile phone an extension of your PBX of your office.

Do you face any regulatory issues in this particular service?
No such issues to my knowledge. It's like installing private PBX and outsourcing your PBX to a virtual service that an operator provides.

Nilabh Jha
nilabhj@cybermedia.co.in

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