Second Time Around

India Internet

World ’99, organized by Bangalore-based Microland in association US-based

Penton–which acquired Mecklermedia, the original organizers of Internet

World worldwide-saw 100 exhibitors, spread over 125,000 sq ft, as against

45 participants exhibiting across 55,000 sq ft of area last year. The

number of participants also increased to 1,800 conference delegates and

20,000 business visitors as compared to 1,200 delegates and 8,000 business

visitors last year. There were also 60 conference sessions. The third

day also saw a deluge of general visitors, indicating the all-pervasive

interest in internet technology. The show is considered to be the third

largest outside the US and the largest in South East Asia. The show included

2Mbps live internet enabled backbone for high speed access and internet

cafés. Next year, the show will be held at the same venue on September

27-29. The hall has been booked for four more years–a positive indication

of the way the industry is going to shape up.

An active government...

At the inauguration, Ravindra

Gupta, Secretary, Department of Electronics, said that the ISP policy

has given much encouragement to internet usage in India, with 23 category

A, 58 category B and 80 category C licenses having been granted so far.

Some of the operators are already operational. Another welcome move is

the permission for private operators to open international gateways, five

of which are expected to come up by November and five in March. Cyber

laws, another of his initiatives, is expected to see the light of the

day once the new Parliament convenes after elections. This is expected

to take care of EDI, electronic transaction of documents, digital signature

and cyber crimes and punishment.

In addition to this,

The Department

of Telecommunications has agreed to install fiber optic cables in every

development block for the internet backbone. Currently, 125,000 km of

cables is available. An education and research network has already been

established with World Bank assistance. This will be upgraded to 8Mbps

and 2Mbps, respectively. The Department of Defense has also been involved.

Could be better

The show

included five tracks of conferences and seven keynote addresses. However,

unlike last year’s attraction of Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail fame, this year

was a lack-lustre show with the best alternative in Bo Peabody, the 28-year-old,

co-founder of Tripod, and Ram Shriram, VP, Business Development, Amazon.com.

Despite this, the sessions were well-attended. The five tracks included

Electronic Business, ISP World, Business Applications on the Net, Internet-The

New Medium and Web Developer’s Forum. While the topics were current and

of interest, like Cyber Laws, How to set up your company for e-commerce,

Building Internet Community Centers, some sessions were not as useful

as the topic suggested. There were several changes in the schedule of

the sessions too, though the organizers managed to give the revised session

details.

Crowd puller

The exhibitors

were primarily website developers. However, what was heartening was that

India-specific content was the focus of most, setting to rest doubts about

the success of internet in the country. www.i2inet.com, www.driveindia.com,

Sourcerer, www.webdunia.com, were

some of the sites launched at the show.

The other

buzzword was Business-to-Business applications with several companies

like DBS Internet and Mahadev.com claiming to be developing web solutions

specifically meant for the B-2-B type of requirements on the internet.

Global Trust Bank launched its internet banking services and will allow

trading of its demat scrips. Bharti BT announced a tie-up with Trend Micro

for virus-free mails. Also present at the show were ISPs like VSNL, Satyam

Online, Bharti BT, Wipro Net and Global Electronic Commerce. Bharti BT

also announced off-peak hour rates for browsing while Wipro Net launched

its services for corporates.

Several stalls

used crowd pulling tactics like Mahadev.com, where a magician was the

attraction. Ecode.com had lucky draws...

Your view, Mr...

As one of

the exhibitors said, the show was good from three aspects–the crowd, for

poaching employees from other similar companies and for getting to know

new ideas.

A DQ

Report with inputs from



Abhay Singh, Lata Kuttappan-Chandradeep, Manisha Singh,


S Meera, Shweta Verma and Yograj Varma.