eVector/Trigyn All Bets on Mobility

Setting comes naturally to Suresh Rajpal. So does winning. "I’ve

gambled with more than what most pockets hold," he says. "So far, I’ve

pulled it off. When your focus is firmly set on the target, you have more than

an even chance of hitting bull’s eye."

Maybe it’s angelic leap of faith. Though Rajpal insists there is little

faith and lots of careful planning and foresight–factors that are shaping

Trigyn Technologies’ move into the fast-emerging m-commerce arena. For the man

who spearheaded Hewlett-Packard’s activities in India for years, evolution has

been part of a career that has spawned start-ups. Rajpal quit H-P to start his

own company, eCapital Solutions, in 1999.

eCapital was later snapped up by Leading Edge Systems for Rs 950 crore,

creating Trigyn Technologies with Rajpal as president and chief executive

officer. Trigyn is focused in the areas of telecom, ebusiness and financial

services and has notched up a turnover of $21 million in its first year of

operations.

The shift to ‘m’

"The new economy enterprise is moving from ‘e’ to ‘m’ and the

key word is mobility. Communication and information are no longer bound by the

PC or conventional laptop. Today’s business is Net-centric and mobile,"

says Rajpal. While the Internet revolution led to the rise and fall of a hoard

of dot-coms, it also created tremendous scope for development of telecom and

web-related software. Whether the Websites survived or not, start-up companies

providing back-end technology emerged stronger after the shuffle.

The shift from H-P to eCapital and the creation of Trigyn has brought a

different set of laurels Rajpal’s way. He has won the Business Excellence

Award instituted by Exim Bank and the Confederation of Indian Industry, and is

now on the jury



for this award which is presented to outstanding performers in Indian industry.
The CII-EXIM Award is considered equivalent to the US, Malcolm Baldridge award

and the EFQM Award for Total Quality in the European region.

Rajpal, who is now looking for newer avenues for expansion, does not want to

stick to the conventional ways of doing business. "The idea is to break

away from the traditional model. Today, everyone wants to get into the Internet

business. But unless these companies define their niche and focus, they will not

be successful," says Rajpal. Increasing deregulation has brought in a flood

of new entrants, each trying to snatch a share of the pie, all adding to the

pressures of competition.

"We are no longer operating in the era of controlled business

environments. Intellectual Property Rights have come of age," he says.

Big-ticket customers

The hunt for a better business model prompted Trigyn Technologies to spin off

eVector as a separate company. Spinning off high-value software as a separate

company is being increasingly sought worldwide as an alternate route to

expansion.

It not only makes the business more focused, but also helps gain in terms of

equity and valuation.

Developed with a view to tap the emerging market for wireless software,

eVector is among the successful products of Trigyn. Rajpal explains that the

reasons for spinning it off as a separate entity were obvious. The whole world

seems to be moving towards mobile devices, and this technology has tremendous

potential. According to Cahners In-Stat, the number of worldwide subscribers for

mobile data services will grow from 174 million at present to 1.3 billion by

2004. And Trigyn, with a successful product in eVector, wants to ride on this

wave.

A number of portals, wireless carriers and end-user organizations are already

among eVector’s customers. The list includes Centennial, New World PCS in Hong

Kong, Charles Stanley and Talkcast Media in the UK. The company has received

funding from Chase Capital Partners, EurIndia, Intel Capital and Reuters. It

plans to use the funds to expand its marketing and sales force and establish

offices across Asia, in Europe and the United States.

And these customers are impressed. "We were struck by the management

team and the features of the eVector platform. They have a great technology team

and already have a number of global customers," says Vinod Ganjoor,

chairman and Chief Executive Officer, EurIndia.

Avtar Saini, Intel’s director for South Asia, adds that Intel has always

invested in companies like eVector, companies that are developing the Internet

economy.

"Access via the mobile is an exciting area of the economy. Putting

powerful digital tools in people’s hands while they are on the move takes us

one step closer to fully realizing the Internet’s promise as a useful and

indispensable part of everyday life," Saini says.

Deepak Shahdadpuri, vice-president, Reuters Greenhouse Fund for Asia says

that they found eVector to be ahead of the market, with a solid global customer

base. "Trigyn has built up a global model with multiple solution centers.

eVector is the only mobile application platform with such a rich feature

set," he says. "The technology team at eVector has created a robust

platform, with a sound technology base for the future, and with a leading-edge

product roadmap."

Aggressive line-up

Trigyn has plans well beyond eVector. "Other products for customer

relationship management, billing, mediation and customer care and for the

cellular infrastructure are under development," Rajpal says. "Some

will be released in a few months. And we already have a customer for each of

these products."

These orders date back to its first quarter, when Trigyn established

relationships with 18 new clients, mostly in the area of e-com and telecom.

During the next few months, the company opened additional sales offices in

Germany, Holland and Finland in Europe, as well as in Hong Kong and Malaysia, to

cater to customers and prospects in the East Asian region. Two of Trigyn’s

clients, signed up in the first quarter, are from China. Trigyn has signed up

with Compaq to distribute eVector as a VAR, for the Asia Pacific region.

The Cayman Islands-registered eVector is the first of several

"product" spinoffs. While this startup’s 35 employees focus on

development and support for the product, the 746 employees of Trigyn work on

services–and on other products.

Rajpal talks of plans to gradually spin off other high-value "convergent

commerce products that are domain-aware." Next in line is Apollo, a billing

software product aimed at the US market, to be spun off late this year with

angel and employee funding.

Rajpal is far from modest about Trigyn’s achievement. "The HR barrier

says that software revenues are proportional to manpower," he says.

"We’ve cracked it–with a product that can command global valuation for

Indian IPR"