The Hindu Business Line : One time for all

It's the same time, in this instance 5 minutes past 12, for everybody in the office. That is how real-time technology helps employees of a company coordinate action across continents.

EVERY other minute, the laptop of Arun, an official with a large Customs house agency in Chennai, beeps. The beep alerts him that there is a message on his instant messenger, which has a list of members with whom he communicates real time.

Real-time collaboration technologies, such as instant messaging (IM) or Web conferencing, have been open to abuse by employees — for mindless chats with friends and relatives.

But Arun does not waste his company's time. He uses these technologies to keep in touch with colleagues in his office and across the country. Instant messaging helps him communicate in real time and save telephone costs, he says.Microsoft, which already has MSN Messenger as IM, in India is betting on the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 and Microsoft Office Live Communication Server 2005 — globally accepted Web conferencing service and enterprise instant messagingservers, respectively.

Pankaj Ukey, Office System Product Lead, Microsoft, says Microsoft's real-time collaboration products offer an integrated solution. Theybring down communication costs and improve productivity and efficiency by facilitating closer collaboration between employees, and with customers and partners. The software here breaks down the silos of communication (e-mail, meetings, phone calls and IM) and brings them together into an integrated and intuitive experience, he says. Microsoft Office Live Meeting is a cost-saving alternative to business travel, which provides customers the option of audio, video and Web conferencing. Microsoft expects to save $70 million in this fiscal by using its Microsoft Office Live Meeting to replace one in five business trips, he says.

India has emerged as the preferred IT services and BPO (business process outsourcing) destination and Indian enterprises have employees, partners and customers all over the globe. This has led to an increase in uptake for communication and collaboration solutions as these help organisations connect in real time and reduce travel and telephony costs, he says.

According to Ukey, the Web conferencing market in India is pegged at approximately Rs 40-50 crore and is witnessing over 100 per cent growth year-on-year. Web conferencing solutions are not only relevant to only large enterprises, but also medium businesses, and Microsoft expects to see significant momentum coming in from this segment over the next few months.

Microsoft's Live Meeting is integrated with Microsoft Outlook, enabling interactive online meetings to be initiated and conducted directly from the user's standard calendar application. Live Meeting offers audio conference call controls for audio conference services providers BT, Intercall and MCI. Further, BT, InterCall and MCI audio customers can control the audio conference call directly from Live Meeting, providing the ability to dial-out directly to participants, mute or unmute participants' phone lines, eject participants or lock the meeting, says Ukey.

Greenfield Online, which is into online research, has been using the Live Meeting solution for a year. It has four meetings on each working day with 15 to 20 employees across different time zones attending them. Each meeting used to take two hours. It is now down to 45 minutes each, with the use of Live Meeting, says Dr C.K. Taneja, General Manager, Greenfield Online.

Greenfield Online used to have the top management meeting every quarter. General managers from all the subsidiaries would travel to the US. With real-time collaboration, the need for travel has been eliminated. "I have not travelled to the US for the last 12 months," says Taneja. Consider five people's airfare on business class, hotel stay for 5-7 days at $250 a day, plus incidental expenses, he adds.

Also, the company used to have a sales meeting every quarter, necessitating sales managers travelling across the globe. This meeting is now conducted through Live Meeting, giving the sales team more time to concentrate on their core function, says Dr Taneja.

There is a phenomenal opportunity for instant messaging in India, says Kiran Kulkarni, Managing Director, Geodesic Information Systems. "Companies are seriously thinking of having IM to reduce communication costs," he says. The Mumbai-based company, which offers Mundu Messenger as an `Interoperable Instant Messaging' tool, is positioning its IM not only as a communication and collaboration tool but also as an alternative to the Internet browser, which is the front end for many users.

According to Kulkarni, companies today cannot ignore IM, which can be used as an intranet to communicate within the company and also on the Internet. For instance, the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd uses Mundu IM within the organisation and also for inter-department communication.

The company has 28 clients in sectors such as publishing and media, wireless and financial institutions, he says. According to a Conferencing Services Market 2004 (Asia Pacific), Frost & Sullivan, study provided by Microsoft, in 2003 the Asia-Pacific conferencing services market was valued at $321.28 million. This translates to an increase of 5.4 per cent over 2002. By 2010, the total conferencing services market is expected to be valued at $700.65 million, with a compounded compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.78 per cent.

Picture by Mahesh Harilal

raja@thehindu.co.in

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