"India will now grow in the mobile VAS segment"

Vishwanath Alluri, CEO and Founder, IMImobile

With the onset of 3G, how you foresee the growth of the VAS market in India?

3G means bandwidth and the 3G network will provide greater data services capabilities in India. The onset of 3G also means, greater portals. Now, users will be accessing various services on operator's portals. This is why the value-added services (VAS) in India will grow, and especially in our domain, which is mobile VAS (mVAS). The opportunity is right for mVAS providers to delve into this domain right now and really start developing services that will help the mobile user community in India.

What about the managed services market?

Networks are changing and devices are changing increasing on a daily basis in India. There is plenty scope for managed services in the regard of content management services amongst others.

IMImobile is a pioneer in the field of managed services. We have four types of managed services models-technology, business and content and application aggregation, amongst others.

In the technology model, IMImobile owns the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) for all of its technology platforms and services. This allows us to assure service levels and technological innovation without depending on third party suppliers.

IMImobile's business model delivers immediate access to the lucrative mobile content and mobile data services market. Having pioneered the managed services model over ten years ago, we have created a revenue share model, which aligns incentives for revenue growth whilst mitigating risks by minimizing upfront capital expenditure. Partnering with us frees up customers to focus on subscriber acquisition, retention and brand management. We share the risks and rewards with our customers.

IMImobile has partnered with over 400 content providers worldwide to deliver the most popular and extensive content selection to customers. Our specialist content teams evaluate and match each content item to its most appropriate and profitable outlets. We take care of all territorial and time limitations and service levels are constantly monitored.

IMImobile recently made news with its tie-up with MTN. Tell us about the genesis on the tie-up and how do you plan to leverage on the same.

MTN decided floated a tender for all equipment and IT vendors in South Africa, in which we participated and eventually won. We will have to develop an unified technology platform in 21 emerging markets of Africa and the Middle East (Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen) in a hub-n-spoke model, which will be centrally monitored in Hyderabad.

The project is a win-win situation for both of us. It gives MTN access to our 350 content providers worldwide and for us, it gives us the chance to reach out to MTN's 103.2 million subscribers across its oeprations in 21 emerging markets in Africa and the Middle East.

Elaborate on the latest trends in the application market today in India.

Today, the application stores has gained much prominence. In its initial phases, operators made a lot of money but the it became more difficult as networks become congested with too much traffic. However, what's there for the developer here? He does not end up making money. I would suggest that developers do not concentrate on making client applications, which are very complicated in nature. If one makes an app for iPhone, it will not work on Nokia phones. And even within these phones, there are so many operating surfaces to battle with.

However, developers should concentrate on building network applications that use the API of operators. I think this space is coming up and will continue to develop in the future.

Madhura K Mukherjee
madhurak@cybermedia.co.in