Henry Hyde-Thomson, renowned UK-based serial technology entrepreneur is introducing three innovative business solutions into the country in association with Softex Group based at Kerala's Technopark. His initiatives include e-MIRA (e-market intelligence research unit), Internet connectivity in Indian Railways using 21.net technology and portable WiFi enabled PC.
"e-MIRA is an emerging concept that enables companies to do mining of their prospective customer database to facilitate telemarketing. Initially the project envisages telemarketing for the US and European markets," Hyde-Thomson said. The realization that 70 percent of a product cost in mass marketing is incurred in marketing has forced the corporate world to think of one-to-one marketing, according to Hyde-Thomson. E-market intelligence is different from conventional market research and will help both industry and the consumers. "e-bay is classic example of the new one-to-one marketing trend," he said.
e-MIRA belongs to the higher end of the BPO value chain and is expected to provide employment to educated, creative people in the country. The first project for Softex is to sell a European product by using e-MIRA techniques in the US followed by Indian products and human resources. Softex expects to employ 200 people by 2003 in this new project and a revenue of Rs 2.5
crore.
Internet connectivity in trains is a concept new to Indian railways whereas it has been implemented in European countries. "We plan to customize the 21.net technology to Indian conditions and help travelers connect to Internet through a WiFi PC," Hyde-Thomson said.
The other initiative is to develop a low-cost portable broadband WiFi PC for the Indian market within 18 months. "We will price the product below Rs 12,000. It will only have scaled downed versions of MS office components and will have user-friendly desk top," he said. This WiFi computer would have wireless phone facility apart from having smart card technology to facilitate transactions. It would be a multimedia PC using GSM/GPRS technology for mobile connectivity. "Intel is developing new chips dedicated to WiFi that will enable widespread use of WiFi PC," according to Hyde-Thomson.
Hyde Thomson was awarded a US patent for `Unified Messaging' (integrated voice/fax/email messaging). This invention gave birth to the Vmail company, which was later on sold to Octel of ICT. He later founded SpeechMachines, the internet based speech recognition systems, which was sold to Mediquist, the world's largest medical transcription company owned by Philips. He is also Chairman of Anglo Digital, the famous venture capitalists of UK and also founded the Atmospheric Solutions LLC manufacturer of ozone remedies.
Cyber News Service