Wireless

November 17, 2005
AYLUS Networks sets global R & D center in India

BANGALORE -- Aylus Networks Inc., a US based company recently announced the setting up of its global R&D center in Bangalore, India. Engineers in the Bangalore center and Massachusetts will work in tandem to build mobility management switch solutions that will enable service providers to deliver mobile broadcast TV / Video and multimedia services across multiple access networks.

Aylus Networks, Inc. founded by Mahesh Ganmukhi, president and CEO, and Shamim Naqvi, CTO has raised US $10million from two premier venture capital firms, Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. The money raised will be utilised for technology development.

Prior to founding Aylus Networks, Ganmukhi was president and CEO of Cereva Networks, Inc., a Marlborough, Massachusetts; USA based company that developed Internet storage systems. Ganmukhi has extensive experience in start-up technology companies.

Dr. Naqvi was the chairman and Co-Founder of Winphoria Networks, a wireless infrastructure company acquired by Motorola Corporation in 2003 for about US $225 million. Previously, he was vice president of Software Research at Bell Labs (Lucent Technologies).

Mobile content is the next technology wave. Some examples of the mobile content are video clips of sports events, news, TV shows and movies. There are three screens available for content to subscribers today - TV, PC and mobile hand held devices. So far the content was available over TV and PC. Now the demand for content on the Third Screen, the screen of a mobile hand held device, is growing rapidly by the mobile subscribers. There is over 1.8 billion mobile phone subscriber’s worldwide today and this number is expected to grow to three billion by 2010. These subscribers would like to have mobile content along with current voice service.

The worldwide market size for service providers in broadcast TV and video over hand held devices is estimated to grow to 250 million subscribers by 2010 to generate over US $27 billion and the market of mobile virtual network operators is pegged to grow to 76 million subscribers to generate US $25 billion.

Mahesh Ganmukhi, president and CEO, Aylus Networks, said: “Bangalore will be the nerve center of product development. The company will hire 25 engineers by the end of this year. The center will focus on product development and will encompass quality assurance and a testing lab. Wireless operators as well as cable operators are looking into providing mobile TV and content over dedicated mobile TV broadcast networks and over 3G networks to hand held devices. At the same time, convergence between wireless, wireline and cable operators is demanding technology that can span across various access networks, for example, 2.5G/3G, Cable networks, DSL networks, Wi-Fi, WiMAX and mobile broadcast TV networks, to provide uniform multimedia services. Aylus Mobility management switch will enable the providers to offer high definition TV, content and multimedia services across all networks.”

Paul Ferri, Matrix Partners, added: “Matrix Partners has achieved one of the industry’s leading records by being insightful in combining the right market opportunity with outstanding entrepreneurs. We believe that Mahesh Ganmukhi and Shamim Naqvi continue this long tradition when matched to the Aylus Networks potential. We are excited about the team that has been assembled.”

Ed Anderson, North Bridge Venture Partners, expressed: “We liked the fact that Aylus Networks is developing a novel switching technology to enable new multimedia services for opening markets. This switch is targeted towards wireless, cable TV and wireline operators.”