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Times of India, Business Times/Silicon Notes, Bangalore, India, November 17, 2001 -- A new era is dawning on the Indian IT horizon with several local companies, small but steady ones, trying to make it big in the global IT product space. They share a common agenda: to transform the IT landscape of the country by entering into more profitable and rewarding areas of creating products. Though many ventured into it, a handful have savored success. One of these adventurous, yet successful companies is Hyderabad-based Four Soft Ltd. Offering IT products for the $1.1 trillion global transportation and logistics company, Four Soft is funded by Chairman of Singapore Airlines, Koh Boon Hwee, and Suresh Rajpal, a successful entrepreneur of Trygyn fame.
Interestingly, the common attribute that Hwee, Rajpal and Four Soft's founder Palem Srikanth share is that they all worked for computer giant HP sometime or the other.
In two years of its existence, Four Soft has already rolled out two products and now its 70-member engineering workforce is working on an ambitious IT product, targeting the shipping market. Expected to be delivered in the next four months, 4S e-Supply Shipper, will be competing against solutions from global behemoths like Oracle, SAP, and i2 Technologies.
"We are proud of being a successful IT product company from India. The deployment of 4S e-Supply solutions will lead to reduced inventories and costs, lesser lead times which finally deliver greater customer value," Palem Srikanth, managing director of Four Soft said.
Four Soft's two products, e-Trans and e-Log, enjoy a prestigious client-list, which include Singapore-based S-net, Malaysian trucking company SBE, Sri Lankan transport company, Roton Vander, UK-based WT group, Tradami in the US, and Indian transporter Flyjac among others. Besides these, the products are under implementation at several customer sites in Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East.
The company has marketing bases in Singapore, Malaysia, UK, USA and Australia. It also intends to offer its solutions on an Application Service Provider (ASP) model for the booming transportation industry. "We are working out the modalities for releasing the ASP model for the transportation industry," Srikanth explained.
Four Soft is also planning to step up its US operations by opening more offices in the next four months. It is targeting a turnover of $3 million this year. In line with its product initiatives, the company will grow to 120 engineers by next year from its current 80 professionals.
In fact, India, of late, boasts a handful of IT product companies, which are targeting the global enterprise integration application market. They are Vinod Khosla-prompted Asera Software, Bangalore-based iCode, CRM-solutions company Trivium, competing against heavyweights like SAP, Oracle and i2 Technologies.
That's the beginning of 'David vs Goliath - II'! |
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