Standing Tall

Summit Information Technologies, headquartered at Delhi's satellite town,
Gurgaon, is a software products and services company to the media industry in
India. Established in 1991, Summit initially started with developing Indian
language-enabling products complemented by its services for the media industry.
Soon, it established itself as a full-spectrum solution and service provider to
the Asian publishing industry. Last year, Nasscom chose the company as one of
the most innovative product companies from the North zone. Unfortunately, Summit
could not make it to the top six.

The Initial Years...

Rakesh Kapoor, founder of Summit Technologies, Devendra Joshi
and Yashpal Bindra, co-founders, were working with a small Indian
software company that was developing Apple Macintosh Software
when Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 in 1990. The trio saw an
opportunity for DTP to move to Windows from Apple Macintosh. This prompted the
three of them to quit their jobs and start Summit in 1990.

The first product from Summit's stables was called Indica,
in the early nineties, supporting the Hindi language. Subsequently, all the
other Indian languages were added to Indica's portfolio and Summit found good
acceptance from the Indian print and publishing industry.

Though Indica was extremely successful as a product, revenues
from Indica alone were not sufficient for sustainable growth. Kapoor and team
then diversified into the systems integration arena and started to
deliver turnkey DTP solutions to customers. Over a period of time, Summit
became a recognized name in the systems integration apace. Revenues that came
from system integration took care of the funding issue. Laments Kapoor,
"Unfortunately, the Indian financial system does not recognize funding
product development as a sound funding proposition and has always kept away from
it."

Back on Track

Around 2000-01, Kapoor and his team decided to put an end to
Summit's system integration and reselling operations and become a full-time
software company. Says Kapoor, "We realized that we had actually deviated
from our core vision of software product development." Summit had also seen
margins in system declining over the years.

Resurrecting itself in the product development space after
half a decade was definitely not an easy task. The team dedicated the first two
to three years in developing world-class products and solutions around them and
creating the reference install base. Having done that successfully, Summit was
now ready to expand to other markets beyond India.

Today Summit has customers in India as well as in Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, and Thailand. The customers today, speak volumes about the kind of
acceptance the products and solutions have received in the industry. Kapoor
expects Summit to grow at 100% in the next two to three years.

Going Ahead

Product development, as opposed to software services, is far
more challenging. The single-largest problem is funds. As its access to larger
markets, which will come from the right combination of adequate funds and
effective marketing skills. Summit, for example, is looking for an access to the
larger markets in Europe and North- America. Says Kapoor, "One needs
management skills, documentation skills in addition to skills in product
development."

Summit has done sufficiently well in the past to thwart all
challenges that came its way. Kapoor and team aims to be a market leader in the
media technology space in Asia in the near future. Today, Summit also develops
language-enablement solutions in several Asian languages such as Arabic, Thai,
and Sinhala. Summit's initial R&D in that area is now paying the
company good dividends and this is likely to bring important customers from the
far East and Middle East markets. Way to go!

Bhaswati Chakravorty