The Hindu Business Line : Hughes bullish on wireless applications

HUGHES Software Systems Ltd is bullish on the wireless applications market, particularly in convergence related space and sees the emerging domestic broadband market as a potential area for its product portfolio and services.

The Head of Product Development and Associate Vice-President of Hughes Software Systems, Mr Ajay Gupta, told Business Line that the country was gradually moving towards the convergence era.

"Focussing on the customer segment of equipment manufacturers, we expect to address areas such as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), GPRS and 3G systems and signalling related products. These product offerings that go into servers and deployed through independent software vendors and equipment providers are backed by a team of over 300 researchers and product development teams who are supported by a marketing network of about 25 people.

"In areas such as protocol stacks, part of large telecom networks, Hughes has a market share of about 30 to 40 per cent, predominantly in the US and Europe. We bring in a range of products as also draw from our expertise from these markets. The Asia-Pacific market is emerging and poised to grow rapidly over the next few years. However, this is also a difficult and complex market to address, with competition from players in the region," he explained.

Mr Gupta said as multiple devices with video streaming capabilities are rolled out and telecom operators move to the unified licensing regime and offer broadband applications, video streaming is set to get popular. This calls for necessary infrastructure capability from the operators' point of view.

"We are operating in an area with competition from Israeli, US and British firms. Having garnered about 15 to 18 per cent market share in these wireless applications, we expect to consolidate the share to about 25 per cent from products over the next few years. The growth of the convergence market interests us as this opens up opportunity for gateway products, protocol stacks and related services," he explained.