Expert View

February 3, 2005
Tecnomic aims at becoming leading APac tech distributor

Geetanjali Wadhwa & Pradeep Chakraborty

BANGALORE -- Tecnomic is India's premier technology marketing and component distribution company focusing on communication and programmable logic solutions. It offers a range of connectivity products as well and partners with some of the key players in these areas. It is aiming to become the best technology distributor in the Asia Pacific, and a consistent and reliable provider of leading-edge technology solutions to customers, backed by world-class application support. Convergence*plus recently met up with Suresh Kumar, managing director, Tecnomic, to find out more about the company's activities and plans. Excerpts from an interview:

Convergence plus: Please update us on the activities of Tecnomic.

Suresh Kumar: Tecnomic started 13 years ago. We started the agency business in the pre-Internet days. Slowly, we became a franchised distributor. Initially, we roped in Actel for FPGAs. We built their business in India, worth US $3-4 million. This happened largely due to India's space program. Actel focused 50 percent in the space program and 50 percent in the commercial space. Next, we got the franchise of Level 1 in 1999. Within a year, Intel acquired it. Only two distributors made the transition from Level 1 to Intel. We were one of them. We became Intel's semiconductor distributor, except for desktop processors. As I am a hardware guy, I am very hopeful that something will trigger in India, as in China.

CP: So, who are you customers currently?

SK: Today, we are a preferred supplier for many operators. We also cater to design houses (SDCs) or ISVs. They develop several applications that are used by mobile operators. We are an established VAR for wireless, which accounts for 60-70 percent of our revenue. We have supplied the hardware for Airtel's ringback tone. It is our largest customer. BPL Mobile, IDEA and Hutch are also our customers. We are focusing on contact center solutions for SMEs as well.

We are also selling CTI (computer telephony integration) boards and boxes to them, as well as contact center solutions. We are VARs and provide excellent technical support. We are participating with some big players in the Middle East and the ASEAN region.

CP: How long have you been in the CTI business?

SK: The CTI activity is about a year old. We have 45 engineers, of whom 10 are working in the CTI area. We will be entering CTI related training activity very shortly. We work with all operators and other players in the ecosystem like MBT, Telesoft, etc.

CP: How will Intel's host media processor benefit customers?

SK: We are currently distributors for Intel's host media processor. It allows customers to go pay-per-view, by making use of advanced level codecs. It is a highly scalable solution and is considered the next wave in CTI/IP-based communications. We generated US $10 million in revenue in 2003.

CP: How have you been taking care of your funding activities?

SK: We have deep pockets as well as presence abroad in Singapore. Comcraft, a large Indian venture capital firm from the house of Chandarias is the largest private equity group in the world. It owns 40 percent of Tecnomic. Its regional headquarter is in Singapore.

Tecnomic Singapore, established in 2000, is the backend company for handling all logistics and facilitating all of our transactions. We are aiming to get a listing in Singapore during the next five years. Currently, the idea is to grow to a significant extent and get listed. To achieve that, we will distribute components from other locations as well. We will also take the competitive advantage of India, by taking the Indian companies abroad and help them market in the neighboring countries.

CP: What are you doing in the area of design activities? What else are you currently doing?

SK: We are associated with Dexcel Electronic Design as well, which was started in 2000. It currently offers design services, such as embedded software and board design for some Indian and overseas customers. We are also picking up a lot of customers for FPGAs.

We have invested in another company called Tech Unified. It is in the application development space, such as financial, banking, business applications and information security. It is quite active in the Middle East and recently picked up a contract worth US $1 million.

Coming back to our distribution business, besides Intel, we remain the distributors for IDT, as well as for Actel, Seiko and TTI -- it is the sixth largest distributor in the world and the largest for passive components. We are a truly value-added distributor and participate in application development and proof-of-concept.

We have a reference design for a single-board computer for handheld and billing applications as well. We will be targeting this at the customers in retail chains, kiosks, as well as develop some dedicated machines for people like the LIC. It is like a PoS solution.

CP: Please elaborate on the CTI training activity that you have planned.

SK: We definitely want to do CTI training and testing. To achieve this, we will be setting up a CTI lab in New Delhi during Q1-05. It will help further our sales. Besides, those who want to test their CTI products can do so here.

CP: Since you are into the mobile applications space, what are you currently focusing on?

SK: As mentioned, we are into ringback tones. Besides, we are into location-based services, prefered and welcome roamer etc. Now, traditional operators, such as BSNL, are getting into SMSC, welcome roamer, etc. We are currently in the evaluation phase for the SMSC testing application. We have received the actual order for the welcome roamer application.

CP: What else is in the pipeline?

SK: We will become a distributor for Intel's ATCA platform shortly. In gateways, we have media and signalling gateways. These come in the IP side and are deployable across the board. Next, there is Achieva Components, a listed company in Singapore. Achieva India is a joint venture between our group and Comcraft. It is a distributor for Elpida, Osram, Infineon and California Micro Devices.