Expert View

November 18, 2004
More content needs to get on to the network: Speedera

Geetanjali Wadhwa & Pradeep Chakraborty

BANGALORE -- Speedera Networks, founded in 1999, is a leading provider of on-demand distributed application and content delivery services. Speedera has ridden the wave of utility computing, providing outsourced services that allow customers to shift their bandwidth, processing and storage requirement to Speedera's global network. Convergence*plus met Abhay Dubey, general manager, International, Speedera Networks India, to find out Speedera's role in India.

With his vast international business experience, Dubey is credited with opening up the European and Asian markets for Speedera services and establishing Speedera's presence there. He returned to India to launch Speedera's India operations. Under his leadership, the company is likely to experience substantial growth in headcount and revenue. His first successes in the Indian market were when he signed up Times of India and Rediff.com as customers in 2000. He recently helped bring in NASA, ESA and Universal Music as Speedera's customers. A consummate developer of relationships, Dubey has forged alliances with HCL Comnet, Sify, Softbank in Japan, BT in the UK, and even as the Indian company is all set to take off, he completed a partnership agreement with VSNL. Excerpts from an interview:

Convergence*plus: Please update us on Speedera's operations.

Abhay Dubey: Speedera's SpeedSuite family of on-demand services cost-effectively solves the performance, scalability, availability and security problems of delivering Web sites. Speedera eliminates much of the capital cost, risk, complexity and administrative overheads of building and running enterprise-scale Web sites.

Speedera opened its India center in Bangalore toward the end of 2003/early 2004. A full-fledged business unit, it now handles various responsibilities that include engineering, operations, marketing and business development. Speedera today boasts many enterprise customers in India, such as NDTV, Rediff, Sony Entertainment, Times of India and Wipro. Our Indian resellers currently include HCL Technologies, Sify and Visual Studio.

CP: How is the content delivery network (CDN) evolving and what successes have you had so far?

AD: We deliver static, dynamic and streaming content on the Web. We are also doing flexible computing. The content delivery network (CDN) has evolved over the last five years since the days of static content. We also create on-demand content for customers. We have 100 points of presence (PoPs). Our global customer count is over 300. We have a core technology that gives us an edge in the marketplace. Based on that, we provide all of the services, such as geolocation, monitoring, etc., around the core content delivery offering. One very good example is NASA where we have successfully delivered images from Mars. We have also delivered the Web site for the European Space Agency. Globally, our customers include AMD, HP, Royal Bank of Scotland, Washington Post, etc. As mentioned earlier, we also deliver considerable online content on the Web. Some of our customers include Avenue A, DoubleClick, etc.

Our distributed delivery network offloads your current site, so you do not have to worry about further building out your site for flash crowds or future growth. You can avoid the costs and headaches of the Web site hardware and software procurement, maintenance and ongoing administration. Instead, you can focus on your core business and on creating a great Web presence that attracts and delights your end-users.

CP: Who are you targeting in India?

AD: The company's primary targets in the Indian market are largely in the areas of Web-centric companies and enterprises with a compelling strategic need for a strong Web presence. Target sectors include Internet retail, media and entertainment, technology firms and delivery of online advertisement. At a higher level, we would like to help usher in the broadband era and facilitate the delivery of broadband services to the Indian market.

CP: What are the specific activities of the India design center?

AD: We entered the country in 2000, and have the largest content development platform addressing this region. This year, we formally established Speedera India. We currently provide 24/7 operations around the clock. In a sense, we have set up a second headquarter here, as we provide all the services that are offered from our headquarters in Santa Clara, USA. We are currently close to 45 people and intend to grow further.

CP: You mentioned facilitating delivery of broadband services to the Indian market. How do you estimate broadband in this country?

AD: We would love to see broadband grow in India, as it has done in Japan. As bandwidth availability increases, that space has to be taken up by customers at reasonable costs. More content needs to get on to the network. There is a need for content monetization, i.e., putting systems around the content, so that can be packaged as well. It would entail things like controlling access to the content, securing the content, streaming, etc. Some portals are doing pay-per-view very well. However, there are certain challenges. More access is currently happening from the office. Next, PC growth is still happening. Finally, the infrastructure needs to be improved.

CP: What role do you see for local content and gaming?

AD: Local content is limited on the Web. However, you do have movies on the Web today, and India produces a multitude of regional movies. Once bandwidth is available, all this will drive the business models and markets. Gaming, for instance, is banned in the US, however different countries are looking at opening it up. There are multi-user games as well, but those require considerable routing and decision-making. We can facilitate all of this. Gaming has to catch on and the market is the late teens group. Eventually, there will be business models built around gaming. The challenge for broadband providers will be to develop good payment models.

CP: How do you estimate multicasting and what needs to be done about that?

AD: We take care of the customer's requirements and delivery on the Internet. We do not do anything on the intranet. As bandwidth increases, the quality of streaming also improves. Hence, service providers who deliver VoD have some caching or content delivery facility in place. In fact, if the infrastructure cannot grow as fast, you need to put in a content delivery network that takes care of scalability issues.

Contact:
Speedera Networks
Tel: +91-80-2575-99222
adubey@speedera.com
www.speedera.com