WIN(novation)

Meet Srikumar Narayan, chief of Winfoware Technologies. Narayan, an industry
veteran of 19 years, started the company in 2000 just when the dotcom bubble was
fizzling out. Five years later, Winfoware is going great guns-the company
registered a topline of $1 mn at the close of last fiscal, and targets $2 mn by
the end of the current. If this buoyancy continues, Winfoware could well be a $5
mn-organization by the end of the next-a growth rate of 150%.

Bangalore-based Winfoware provides innovative business solutions in the
communications and enterprise space. It offers a comprehensive range of media
and telephony applications for next generation network services based on its
open modular platform. In the RFID space, Winfoware offers complete Asset
Management and Tracking solutions for a variety of verticals. For a startup that
begun with only 10 members, the company has done well to employ over100 people
today with client engagements in the UK and the US, and partners in the Middle
East and Europe. Says Narayan, "Winfoware's differentiator is its ability
to deliver scaleable, cost effective application solutions combining its proven
modular platforms with offshore services, resulting in significant
savings."

Winfoware Intelligent Asset Manager is an automated state-of-the-art solution
which facilitates easy implementation of tools or assets, complete with fully
automated barcode integration. A recent implementation was at Bangalore
University.

Touch Center is a complete converged interaction platform that brings
powerful application capabilities to traditional telephony systems.
"Traditional systems support only voice telephone calls and media handling
capabilities are through non extensible closed interfaces. Touch Center brings
in a paradigm shift by exploiting the power of standard based open computing
platforms," explains Narayan. It also supports interactions such as
messaging-voicemail, fax, email, and web interactions and collaboration.

SmartNet, Winfoware's enterprise workflow platform, is an automated
workflow solution that acts as a catalyst between the organization and the
employees and lets users design, simulate, implement, monitor and measure
workflow for different administrative business processes. Some implementations
are at-Bank of Baroda, BEML, BCB, Nandini Milk Dairy, the Manipal Group,
Mindspeed, Apnaloan, Applied Materials, Zapapp, IAF.

The company is looking at enhancing its products to support popular speech
recognition and text to speech engines. It will also be releasing a VoIP version
to voice-enable Net applications, in addition to PSTN lines. Winfoware also
offers services in areas like software development and quality assurance, and
testing and application engineering.

Narayan's philosophy in life is to constantly innovate, one of the key
factors that drives his vision for the company: "The main driving force
behind Winfoware is to build and grow a profitable and socially responsible
venture that continuously innovates on application of new technologies,
delivering high impact business solutions." Though there are over 20
customers globally, but Narayan prefers to put the number at 12, in terms of his
company's key customers. The client list includes big names like Acer, Canon,
Corporation Bank, ICICI Bank, Motorola, and HP, to name a few.

Winfoware was selected as one of the most innovative companies in India at
the Nasscom annual summit in early February this year. Narayan has initiated the
process to patent Winfoware's products. The Winfoware team is simultaneously
exploring newer markets for growth, in addition to new applications based on
existing applications.

Narayan is one of India's many entrepreneurs who are trying to take India
beyond IT services and establish it as a strong force in product development.
They may not be there as yet, but with determination from the likes of Narayan
and adequate support from the industry, the future does look very bright.

Bhaswati Chakravorty

A Winner All The Way