Category: Emergic

News.com writes about efforts by Microsoft, AMD and Intel, and then adds:

If you want to spread low-cost access to computing, and ultimately protect intellectual property, maybe it’s time to revisit Larry Ellison’s concept of the network computer. You probably remember that the Oracle executive pushed the notion of small, diskless “appliances” that included a monitor, keyboard, network connection and not much else–especially no place to run pirated software.

The idea was that all of the smarts were pushed down to network computers from server computers running Oracle’s database and communications software. Oracle was to make its profits by selling the server software to hosting companies, Internet service providers, governments and the like.

Ellison even founded a company, Network Computer, Inc., to manufacture and sell the devices. But after reinventing itself as a TV set-top box maker, that venture crashed and burned when it failed to get additional funding back in 2003.

Other companies–including Gateway, Sony and the former Compaq Computer–introduced cheap Net-surfing machines four to five years ago, and all ultimately exited the market as the cost, and profitability, of PC hardware plummeted.

Now, the modern version of the network computer concept comes from Sun Microsystems, which is pushing its Linux-based Java Desktop System as a low-cost way to provide computers to people in China and elsewhere. The company signed a deal last year with China Standard Software to provide JDS to millions of consumers. Sun is also aiming the program at India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other countries.

Devising a low-cost PC isn’t an exercise in altruism. At stake is an opportunity to gain a foothold in what could be the biggest technology market opportunity this century. Ballmer has thrown down the gauntlet. So who’s going to take up the challenge?

We are working to do just that.

I did make a presentation at the Innovation conference organised by Nasscom and BangaloreIT.com – slides with only a few words on each of them. The talk lasted just under 20 minutes. Here is the presentation:
– MS Powerpoint
– PDF

I will be speaking at the BangaloreIT.com-Nasscom event on “IT Innovation in India” on Wednesday (Nov 3). I have a 20-minute slot, in which I am planning to talk about what we are doing to make computing a utility. My session is from 3:15-4:30 pm and is entitled “Innovation in India : Challenges and way ahead”, and the event is at the Taj West End.

I was thinking about a presentation with slides, but I don’t think I will do that. I’ll speak without slides on what we are doing – I think I speak much better that way. Also, it keeps the audience attention focused on the talk rather than the slides.

My basic theme will revolve around the 4 key challenges that exist in creating computing solutions for the next billion users: affordability, desirability, accessibility and manageability. And the solutions (Emergic) that are needed and what we are working on to address these: network computers, the grid, applications and services, and Tech 7-11s.

I hope there will be time for questions and answers. Last year, at the same event, they did not have the interactive session. In these kinds of events, the audience interaction must be a part of the event.

Professor Sadagopan writes:

In the Mobility Event organized by CNBC & Intel in August 2004 at Mumbai, I had made an observation When Maruti 800 can be financed at Rs 2,500 per month why not a PC at Rs 250 per month? Since CNBC broadcast the program many times on TV some of my friends watched it. In fact Dr MM Pant from Delhi even informed me that HCL has an offer for Rs 799 per month PC buying option. Today I am pleasantly surprised that PCS is offering a student PC at Rs 499 per month. More interesting is the fact that Indian Bank is financing it. Of late Public Sector Banks have been keeping a long distance from doing any financing of IT products and services. This launch is particularly interesting, as it will get many students from the poorer sections of the society into PC reach. If only BSNL can offer Rs 99 per month wireless access for 3 hours per day it will be further push towards computer literacy for poor students.

From an earlier post:

Maruti 800 is the largest selling people car with an installed base of 2 Million. Recently Maruti announced a financing scheme Just Rs 2,499 per month. It brings Maruti 800 car to the reach of the common man. Maruti 800 price is around Rs 200,000. PC prices have plummeted to Rs 20,000 or less. Why not Banks or even hardware vendors (through their Finance companies) finance PC purchase by individuals at Rs 249 per month. Our PC sales just crossed 3 Million while China consumes 8 Million PCs per year. Such a scheme will bring computerization benefit to small businesses. Any one listening?

Atanu Dey writes about what we are working to enable as part of Emergic:

The internet is huge. It is bigger than one can imagine. We are fortunate that we have access to the internet. And I feel for those who do not have access to this astounding wealth of information and possible source of wonder, amazement, delight, instruction, and possibly enlightenment.

How do we bring down the barriers that prevent everyone from accessing the internet? Cost of access has to come down significantly from the present levels, and incomes have to go up. In other words, the internet has to become more affordable. Cost of access has two components from the point of view of the user. First, the user premises equipment. Currently, that happens to be the PC. While hardware prices are consistently coming down, they are still beyond the reach of a very large number of people. Besides, software is not all that cheap. Add to that the cost of managing a complex device like the PC, and the total cost of ownership is a pretty sum.

The second component of the cost of access to the internet is the connectivity cost. The trend is downward but not fast enough. For India, we need to have a rational broadband policy.

If we could somehow bring down the cost of the access device and the cost of broadband access, we can make the magic of the internet available to a much larger number. The former we can do by moving away from the PC paradigm. For the latter, we can only hope and pray that somehow good sense will triumph over the obstructionist instincts of the Indian policy makers.

Over the past two years or so, I have written about my ideas on affordable computing in emerging markets and creating solutions for the next users (or as Clay Christensen puts it, the non-consumers). Over the past few months, what has become clear to me is that many of the ideas did not go far enough. To making computing a utility, we need to transform every aspect of the value chain. In short, we need to reinvent computing.

Here is my vision for Emergic, our computing solution:

Emergic proposes to bring comprehensive computing services to the next few hundred million users by making computing more affordable and relevant to their lives. The solution involves a centralised server-based computing platform–a gigantic computer of sorts–which hosts a wide range of software applications and content which can be accessed by users remotely over broadband connections using very simple low-cost access devices.

Emergic is built on and around the Internet, integrating computing and communications to make computing available as a utility. Not only does Emergic make computing easy to use (no upgrades, no downtime, no viruses/spyware), it also brings the cost of computing down to that of a cellphone – about Rs 5,000( $100) upfront and Rs 600-750 ($12-15) per month (hardware, software, content, connectivity, and support).

As I see it, to reinvent computing, we need to address six challenges, fulfill five goals and enable seven revolutions:

Six Challenges: Affordability, Desirability, Accessibility, Manageability, Security and Ubiquity in access to computing

Five Goals: Solve the Six Challenges simultaneously, Make CommPuting a Utility, Enable Human-centred Computing, Integrate with Cellphones, Construct the Memex

Seven Revolutions: Grid, Virtual Computers, Ubiquitous Connectivity, Loosely Coupled Software, Two-way Content, Humane Interface, Tech 7-11

By taking a holistic view of the ecosystem and building a chain of integrated innovation, it will be finally possible to fulfill the dream of making computing accessible to every family, student and employee in every corner of the world. Only then will the true promise of the computer as a means to deliver solutions and services for the next users be realised. This is where the future of computing lies. This is why computing needs to be reinvented. This is where the next technology cycle will begin. This is a transformation that will take root first in the worlds emerging markets. This is the Emergic vision.

The time has now come to accelerate the process of building on these ideas and taking them to the marketplace. Currently, in Netcore, we are 40 of us, most of whom are currently working on our messaging and security business. In parallel, we are building new teams to work on all of the areas mentioned above. For this, we are looking for fellow travellers those who are willing to navigate not with maps but with a compass, and can also lead others in this pioneering journey. We are looking for people at all levels and across areas technical development, systems architecture design, interface design and marketing.

We are based in Central Mumbai (Lower Parel) and at present self-funded. If you are interested in joining Netcore and being part of the Emergic team, send me an email giving a brief background about yourself and your interest areas.

We have launched Emergic CleanMail, an Internet-based spam filtering and virus scanning service for enterprises. Some key features:

Triple-level Virus Scanning

Multi-layered Anti-Spam capabilities stops 90-95% of Spam

Spam Analysis Engine with auto-updates and auto-learning

Personal Whitelists and Blacklists allow/block emails from specific IDs/domains

Real-time Blackhole Lists capture data from global spam servers to block spam

Content filtering

Reports on email trends, viruses detected, spam volumes, policy violations

We are offering a 2-week free trial for the service.

We have career opportunities in our Mumbai office in the following areas in our Enterprise Applications group. In case there is interest, please write to Reena Shah or use the feedback form.

Software

You should be able to design and develop components for multi-tier applications utilizing object oriented design methodologies, RDBMS and J2EE architecture.

* Good level of expertise in J2EE
* Worked on leading edge software technologies
* Very good process skills

Sales

You must be confident meeting customers and prospects face-to-face, analyse their existing information systems, gather user requirements and identify necessary product features and specifications. You must have demonstrated experience in prospecting and growing the opportunities list as well as closing sales.

* Start-up experience in a similar role
* Proactively prospecting and qualifying potential new enterprise accounts
* Handling incoming leads
* Meeting quarterly revenue targets
* Pitching new business
* Developing account and segment strategies

CXOtoday.com has a case study about FCB Ulka’s deployment of our Linux-based messaging solution (Emergic MailServ):

The FCB-Ulka group comprising of FCB-Ulka Advertising and Interface Communications (offering marketing and communication consultancy services), has recently switched its messaging solution from Sendmail to Emergic Mailserv – a Linux-based messaging and security solution.

Developed by Netcore Solutions Pvt Ltd., the highly customized distributed solution has been deployed at the groups seven locations across six cities in India.

It all started in 1999, when FCB-Ulka, part of the FCB Group and Interpublic Group of Companies, decided to switch from MS Exchange to the Linux-based Sendmail. Deployed by Ashtech Infotech Ltd., the solution worked well over a period, but eventually with a rise in scope and usage, the drawbacks far outweighed the pros.

Ritu Madbhavi, systems director, FCB Ulka Advertising, outlined some of the issues the company encountered, “Administration difficulties such as tedious process of adding and deleting new users, lack of simple interface for basic functions like auto responder and disclaimer arose with Sendmail.”

To add to their woes, despite developing new scripts with the latest versions of Perl, they were incompatible with the older version of Linux.

Obsolesce was another issue the media house had to contend with, as the system was built on Red Hat Linux 5.0, which used fetchmail. Remote access was provided via dialup, but it was limited to only one person being able to access mail at any given time due to a single modem with a telephone line on the server.

Moreover, the mailing architecture was such that one of the locations in Mumbai acted as a hub. So a breakdown of the server in that location ended up affecting the entire companys email structure.

Security too reared its head, as the system was a basic messaging with no firewalls, and the sole security provided for by the routers. Even monitoring of internet access was not possible as the server was equipped with only the basic proxy services.

Explained Madbhavi, FCB-Ulka was now looking for something beyond messaging and we evaluated various solutions. Having run a Linux based mailing solution, the team at FCB-Ulka knew exactly what they wanted in the new mailing system. The requirements were crystallized and the only company that came close to satisfy our needs was Netcore, which in turn implemented its flagship Emergic Mailserv.

The basic functionalities implemented in the messaging area was a standard compliant mail server providing IMAP, POP, SMTP, LDAP services, availability of webmail allowing users to access when they are away from the desktop or when they are traveling.

In the security space, the mail is now handled from a web-based server managed 24×7 by Netcore, an anti-spam that detects junk based on the content, tags them and then blocks it at the ISP, server and user level. Unlike the previous system, which had a limitation of one user only, the new one can handle any number of users. The advance proxy enables the system administrator to block sites based on various criteria such as domain name, content, etc. Also, the authentication based proxy controls the browsing schedule deciding which user is allowed to browse when.

According to Kalpit Jain, CTO of Netcore, The solution that runs only on Linux, has an anti-virus application, armed with a firewall, enhanced with load balancing features apart from bandwith management and monitoring. The mail server has been placed in the DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone)- a server zone, which is accessible to the public as well as to the private network. In other words, it separates the internal network from the outside world.

Commenting about the inherent benefits, Madbhavi cited reliability, flexibility coupled with ease of administration and simplicity. However, acknowledged Madbhavi, Netcore was able to execute a high degree of customization primarily because the solution was built on open source.

Emergic Mailserv has been built with a judicious mix of certain open source components alongwith internally developed software, affirmed Jain.

Spelling the minimum technical requirements, Jain stated that for 25 users a P III with a 64 MB RAM with 20 GB hard disk is needed.

Founded in 1998, Netcore Solutions Pvt Ltd. is an enterprise solutions company, focused on messaging, collaboration, and security software offering a range of enterprise products and hosted services. Among its several corporate customers using this solution are IDBI Bank and Raymonds.

Walter Mossberg recommends Safari (mac) and NetCaptor (Windows), as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has stagnated in recent times. One of the reasons: Tabbed Browsing.

With tabbed browsing, you can keep multiple Web pages open at the same time, on the same screen. Only one page is visible at a time, but the others are identified by a row of tabs, usually at the top of the screen. To switch screens, you just click on one of the tabs. The new page appears instantly, because it has already been downloaded.

Tabbed browsing is the biggest fundamental improvement in the Web browser in years. It’s like quickly navigating among paper folders in a packed file drawer by reading the staggered tabs that protrude from their top edges.

With tabbed browsing, you can open all your most-visited bookmarks or favorites with one click. They could remain open all day, updating in the background. You can view them at any time, and in any order, by just clicking. You can also open any new Web page or link in a fresh tab of its own. Or, if you have groups of related favorites or bookmarks arranged in folders — say, a folder labeled “Red Sox” that contains a dozen favorite sites about the fabled team — you can open them all with a click.

Tabbed browsing is especially great with slow dial-up connections, where waiting for a new page to load can be irritating. But I even love using it with broadband connections.

Mozilla and its variants like Galeon (which is what I use) also allow tabbed browsing.