'We plan to introduce IP technology at a deeper level in India'

Who are your customers in the enterprise segment, and a little about your
Indian presence?

Yes, we have been in India for 10 years now. Due to confidentiality reasons,
we cannot share the customers' name. IIT Bombay is one of our prestigious
customers. We provide equipment to highly established and well-respected firms
in India. We are very popular in a few sectors including the transportation and
power industry. In China, we have recently provided equipment for the new subway
and nine different airports being built for the Olympics. Beside this, we have
installations in different hospital and hotels.

What are your plans for India?

We see three different directions in which to go. First, we plan to
introduce IP technology at a deeper level. Currently, users can use IP
internationally and within the particular city, but they cannot use it
domestically. If users are allowed to do so in future, there is great growth for
us. All our products are IP-based. We also have large systems that can mange up
to thousands of users. Second, we aim to be partnering with PSU customers. We
also aim to be partnering with SMBs in partnership with HCL.

Are you expecting the IP boom to take place in the next one or two years?

We are not pushing the government, but our partners here and the local
industry will make it happen.

Eitan Livnech, president and CEO, Tadiran Telecom

What is India's position in contributing to your growth?

India is one of the two largest growing markets for us. We have major
presence in twenty countries. Israel, Russia, the US, China, and India are the
top markets for us. India is contributing to the growth in terms of shares as
well as volumes. However, we are not active in Japan, which is a domestic
industry.

As far as our growth in the last 2-3 years is concerned, it varied from
15-25%. So, that's above the growth rate of the economy, which is about a 10% .

What are the new developments in R&D?

We are putting most of our efforts in all-in-one systems. We are also
putting effort in a new technology, which is server-based switch. There are many
glitches in technology in software, but not in hardware.

Tadiran system has the knowledge and is based out of one location. This is a
great advantage for our R&D. We are tied by our telephony technology. We are
moving from PBX to softswitch. The telephony know-how is the pride of Tadiran.
Taking this knowledge to a different development center would require heavy
investment. The core development happens in Israel. There are some applications
that can be developed outside; we have some product software that was developed
in the US. Once we find that our application can use the strength of Indian
software capability, we will have some R&D here. Our partner, HCL Infosystem,
has some R&D capabilities and we can work with them for the Indian market.

What are the key trends for the enterprise market that can be traced
globally?

One of the key trends is bringing telephony to your desktop. Tadiran had a
product called Navigator for this purpose. It allows users to enjoy the benefit
of functionality combined with other office applications. From the user screen,
the user can email and voice mail as part of email application. The user can
also use Outlook directory to call members and record calls that will be saved
as an mpeg file. He can also dial by name. Even if there is a telephone number
in Microsoft Word file, the user can directly dial the number by highlighting it
with the cursor and pressing ctrl+D.

The Indian SMB segment wants the best technology and is not willing to
compromise on quality. It also wants to enjoy the benefits of cost reduction.

Baburajan K

baburajank@cybermedia.co.in