The Hindu Business Line : Sabeer Bhatia eyes 40 pc pie of conferencing space

Sabeer Bhatia's Instant Collaboration Software Technologies (InstaColl) aims to have 30-40 per cent market share in collaboration space in three years.

"We currently have around 5 per cent market share but are ramping up fast," said Mr Sabeer Bhatia, Chairman and Chief Evangelist, InstaColl, a collaboration software firm.

Mr Bhatia is better known as co-founder of popular Web-based e-mail service Hotmail. Collaboration (or conferencing) software is an alternative to e-mail, helping executives on the move and large project groups to exchange information in real-time over the Internet.

Unique selling proposition

The global collaboration software scene is calling attention to itself with stiff competition between a handful of players. Acknowledging competition from dominant WebEx and the quickly ramping up Microsoft, Mr Bhatia said the USP of InstaColl was in its capability to save data onto the desktop. The other softwares do not have this feature, he said.

Instacoll has 20 corporate customers and around 50,000 end users. According to Gartner, the Web conferencing and team collaboration software market is expected to reach $1.1 billion by 2008. The domestic market size is at Rs 120 crore.

InstaColl is also working on a digital rights management product, a desktop-based software for companies dealing with Intellectual Property issues. Mr Bhatia also said he was in talks with Indian telecom companies for VoiFi, the India-centric software that offers entertainment and gaming over communications infrastructure.

He also announced that failed travel portal Arzoo would be re-launched in three months. It will now include complete integration of cellphones. "There is a spurt in people travelling in India," said Mr Bhatia.

He is the largest investor behind the recently launched Blogeverywhere.com, a toolbar that sits on the Web browser (such as IE or Firefox) that lets people comment on Web sites. The toolbar also enhances Hotmail by downloading e-mails onto the local cache when the Internet connection is idle. The Pune-based Kpit Cummins Infosystems helped develop this toolbar. It will continue to build next generation products for the Internet with Mr Bhatia, according to a release issued by the company.

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