Desi Valli COO, Net4 India

The targeted segments include BPO, call centres, software houses, export houses and other corporate houses that are into heavy international calls. Net4, even though not holding the leadership position, is into providing business Internet access solutions. With more than 700-plus business client base, Net4 is not far away from the current leader.

Do you plan to host government content? 
Net4 became the first private organization to comply with the norms prescribed by CERT – Computer Emergency Response Team which falls under the Ministry of Information. By complying with the policies that are both functional as well as related security, Ne4 is very much capable of hosting government content. In fact, Net4 is addressing many government undertakings already.

Brief us on your data centre services? 
Initially when Net4 planned to start up its data centre services way back in 2001, the Indian market was not mature enough to accept this market in the way international markets have adopted. Hence, Net4 strategically approached this market in the Indian style. Instead of opening up a huge one or two data centres in one of the cities in India, it opened up six mid-sized data centres spread across six metros of India. This strategically taken decision helped Net4 to attract the mid-segment market of India who needs collocation facilities. With state-of-the-art functions and features, these data centres have everything except the size that international data centres were offering.

The reduction in size and proximity to the clients helps Net4 to control its operation cost that enabled Net4 to provide a service at international pricing models. The multi-location data centre facility gave an opportunity to the organization to provide disaster recovery solutions and remote data back-up solutions. This ensured service qualities that are offered by bigger players in the international markets.

Throw some light on Net4’s entry into message exchange server?Maintaining its leadership in mailing and messaging solutions, Net4 recently plunged into Message exchange server by launching Microsoft Exchange based messaging services. Net4 hopes to address the market that would love to opt for MS exchange messaging solutions. However, it would like to lease out the same. The said solution is offered on the most successful application delivery models these days, called SaaS – Software as a Service.

What are your international business plans for Net4? 
Net4 is currently providing services in the Middle East and South Asian countries. With its expectation of the new licences on NLD/ILD services, Net4 has started a 100% subsidiary in the name of Net4 Singapore in Singapore. Singapore will be operated as the international hubbing location for all its services that are targeted at the international market. Net4 will continue to expand its presence in a few other locations like the US, UK and Hong Kong by the year 2010, when the entire range of services that are in the pipeline are introduced.

Give details on wholesale VoIP business in India and overseas? 
The wholesale VoIP business in India is not so great yet. However, the growing need of cost control is forcing many of the service providers in India to consider VoIP as its carriage technology. Even though the same has already been used by many telcos, the concept of wholesale VoIP has not yet been accepted in its true sense in India. International players like IBasis and Teleglobe, through its subsidiary ITXC, are pioneered in the wholesale VoIP exchange business. The same would be transferred into the Indian market too, when more and more Telecom players are going operational. Also, due to some restrictions, telecom licensing policies have also been seen as a hurdle for this business model at this stage.

Give details about the Net4 security space? 
Net4Secure is a recently launched service. Net4 has introduced WebSafe services through which all security loopholes of a website can be analyzed and reported. By this, all possible flaws that could be there in the database, scripts & other programming languages and flaws that were created by external sources could be identified and analyzed for solution. Once in a month, the same service has been provided to a website and the relevant report has been delivered to the clients for further actions to rectify the identified issues. Net4 intends to add more services in this category soon.

How would you like to differentiate yourself from your competitors? 
By bifurcating the telecom segment into IP and non-IP based services, Net4 has decided to focus on IP communication services. This has enabled Net4 to identify its USP. The differentiation has also been made possible by having better controlled operational costs, faster delivery of services by having multiple alliances and also by providing the feel of human touch in its post-sales support.