Pramati Technologies: Bonding Alliances To Sell Products

There is no doubt that the Indian software industry and software professionals have become the

cynosure of eyes worldwide. However, Indian software products have not been able to make any impact, with hardly any company having products to speak of. Gray Cell, the Silicon Valley-type start-up, is an exception with its product

Unimobile. To rectify the situation, Pramati Technologies was set up with a mission to be the first global leading edge software product developer from India, and earn worldwide respect and recognition for Indian software products.

It had a clear target with its products being pitched at the middleware segment. And the products that Pramati decided to bring out was Enterprise JavaBeans

(EJB) and web application servers, which forms the backbone for developing ebusiness applications. The strategy was perfectly formed–to develop alliances with global market players by licensing its technologies to be embedded or packaged along with their products. The reason for this strategy was it would help the global players to strengthen and consolidate their market share, and give Pramati’s technologies the required mind share and recognition. 

Pramati is targeting the middle-tier application developer community, which is working with Sun’s Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specifications, primarily to build enterprise applications. The company, with its products Studio and Server for J2EE, helps in enabling the application vendors, solution vendors and system integrators to put together a complete ‘n’ tier application. It is also looking at consultancy projects. However, these are based on their own products and Pramati is not looking for generic projects. 

Pramati’s strategy is to fuel the revolution in the software component

marketplace. It plans to make component software pervasive by building component-oriented, web-based platforms on open standards. And as part of its growth strategy, Pramati got its first round of venture financing to the tune of $1.4 million from Citibank NA three months ago. By the end of 2000, Pramati plans to go for a second round of financing. It is also targeting revenue from its own products, worth $1 million. Pramati’s strength has been the US and it is concentrating on that region. It is planning to open an office in California and later in the East Coast of the US as soon as it gets the necessary clearances. 

Definitely, Pramati is another company that has got into an arena where the ‘eagles dare.’ With Pramati expected to make its mark, it would not be long before of the Indian software products also creat and impact on the global IT scene.