The Hindu Business Line : SMART Tech probing tie-ups with Indian cos

CANADIAN firm, SMART Technologies Inc, is exploring tie-ups with Indian software firms to develop specific applications for the market here. The company, which sees a great potential for its interactive whiteboards in the Indian market, plans to come out with customised products, Mr David Martin, Chairman and co-CEO, SMART Technologies, has said.

"India is a growing market for us and we see a big potential here," Mr Martin said. SMART Technologies, which introduced its whiteboards in the Indian market through distributor, Visionaire India, has seen a good response over the last couple of years, he said.

Mr Martin, currently on a visit to India, said that he was in talks with several Indian firms, both big and small companies, for possible tie-up to identify specific applications for the Indian market and develop them.

"We expect to have around 10 partnerships before February next" Mr Martin said.

SMART, a privately held firm currently develops software that goes along with its whiteboards from its set-up in Canada. "We are also looking at outsourcing a portion of our in-house software development to the Indian firms," Mr Martin said adding that the company may consider supporting applications in the Indian languages if volumes justified.

Currently, SMART interactive whiteboards support 18 languages worldwide.

In India, the SMART whiteboards are currently used by a host of software firms, higher educational institutes and even governmental agencies to train manpower. The interactive whiteboards come with feature rich software and intuitive functionality.