Category Archives: Overviews

Company Profile: Monkiri – Webpage clipping service

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Pune-based Monkiri is a browser plugin (IE & FF) that enables a web user clip portions of a webpage, comment on it, and post it to a blog hosted on Monkiri.

Literally Monkiri means the Japanese art of paper cutting. Monkiri lets one read and write blogs about any item published on a website. At this time, this facility can only be used to post to a blog hosted on Monkiri.

[edit] Features

With the help of the Monkiri button a user can snap required portion of the item on the webpage and blog it. The user can then give a comprehensive review of the same and add on his comments. The ‘View Entries’ feature from Monkiri menu enables other interested users to visit the blogged item and comment on the same. In this way everyone visiting that page can review the comments giving one a potentially large audience. Over a period of time users can build up an online journal of articles of interest. In other words, Monkiri makes blogging and sharing a simple affair.

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Final Thoughts

Monkiri is entering a very crowded space which has had established players for many years. <s>Also, restricting users to only post the clippings on Monkiri hosted blogs (as opposed to the users’ own blogs) is a serious limitation</s> (Update: Monkiri now supports posting to blogger/wordpress). In my mind, Monkiri joins FlockPod in the list of Pune-based companies that are doing something in the “commenting on other websites” space, but who need to figure out exactly what the value proposition is.

(!)Yureekah – the Google of Online Advertising

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(!)Yureekah is a Pune+New York based company which is aiming to become the Google of online advertising information. They feel that information about ad campaigns, competitive analysis, lead generation, which used to be the domain of highly-paid experts, should be accessible to anybody at the click of the mouse.

Here’s their pitch:

Today millions of ads run on millions of portals hourly. Imagine a world where you could identify where all your competitors are advertising, and use that information to decide how to advertise in the portals that best fit your brand — irrespective of geography, language, and time zone.

This service is now live (although it is still in “alpha”). According to co-founder and CEO, Devaraj Southworth:

“We set out with a singular mission; to organize the world’s online advertising information and make it universally accessible and useful through a single, automated portal – and in the process eliminate the enormous inefficiencies that currently exist. (!)Yureekah is free to all users, enabling agencies and advertisers to reduce costs, but also levels the playing field for small business owners and individual advertisers by offering the same access and ability. We believe that our suite of products will change the way in which traditional online advertising operates. Our objective is to develop a collaborative online platform for all online advertising needs and intend to replicate the success of Google’s AdWord in the Display space.”

(!)Yureekah was started by the serial entrepreneurs behind iThink Labs and 30Seven Design. How did it get started?

At 3:00 am EST, 12:30 pm IST March 5, 2007 my cell phone rings. “Hello” I squeak into the receiver. Immediately I recognize the excited voice of my business partner Vishal over 3000 miles away. “Devaraj, are you sleeping?” “Uh, I was,” I replied. “Listen, we have to figure out a way to streamline the manual processes involved with online competitive research,” Vishal said. “This minute?” I questioned, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “Yes, we may lose a $1 mm media pitch if we don’t provide a global competitor analysis to our client by next week,” Vishal exclaimed. This was clearly a business problem, but also an opportunity that deserved attention. There was no way we could provide real time competitor analysis globally within one week. If we, as a boutique agency, were facing these issues then certainly larger agencies, direct advertisers, and small businesses owners were feeling the same pains. That’s how it all started, a simple conversation between two guys at 3 am which fundamentally altered our frame of reference, how we approached our existing businesses, and our lives.

Source.

See full profile of (!)Yureekah at the PuneTech wiki for more details of target customers of (!)Yureekah, and the people behind it.

Remote Data Exchange – SMS and GPS based products

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Remote Data Exchange (RDX) is an interesting Pune-based company that builds a number of products based either on GPS devices, or based on idea of using SMS for achieving things remotely. They have recently released a product called Jai Kisan which is essentially a setup that allows farmers to remotely manage their motor pump sets.

Jai Kisan hardware photoThe Jai Kisan Hardware

Jai Kisan schematic diagramHow the Jai Kisan system works

This system has the following features:

  • Allows you to start or stop the motor pump set from anywhere
  • Works with any kind of GSM/CDMA Mobile handset
  • Gives you feedback about whether the motor actually started or not
  • Tells you if power is present on the field or not
  • Automatic charging of mobile handset
  • Ultra low cost, INR 1250/- only

This is just one of the products they have up their sleeve. There are a number of other little products based on these technologies. For example, there is the sms-based car security system which:

  • Allows you to figure out the the location of your car from your mobile at any time by giving your car a missed call
  • Turn ON or OFF Car Engine from your Mobile. (I wonder whether I can use it to remotely turn on the AC!)
  • Car immobilization via SMS message
  • Intrusion SMS message alert – if the door is opened in your absense.
  • ARM/DISARM the security system via SMS message
  • Lowest recurring cost per month: based mainly on simple sms messages (and in some cases missed calls!)

There is a similar sms-based system for home security too. And a Bike security system (which doesn’t appear to be sms-based.) And a vehicle tracking system (which is integrated with Google/Yahoo/MSN/NASA maps. Useful for car fleets (think BPO pick-up / drop-off.)

Then they get into “Big Brother” management techniques. The person tracking system which is a small GPS device that can be given to an employee, and will then send detailed reports about the whereabouts of the employee to the supervisor. A similar thing can also be achieved by simply giving the employee a GSM mobile phone. Apparently to be given to employees who have a tendency to lie about whether they actually visited a customer or not.

See the full punetech profile for more such mini-products from RDX. Like the sms-updatable LED displays. And GPS based clocks (always exact time.) And GPS based Passenger Information System. This is installed, for example, in some AC coaches in Indian Railways and gives the passengers video clips with local information (i.e. about the station they are going to soon reach) based on where the train currently is.

Company Profile: VeriSoft

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Verisoft is an independent testing services provider. While it is a “horizontal” testing company providing services in many industry segments, they have specialized skills in Video Games testing. Customers range from major video-games publishers in the US to betting and casino games companies in UK. Types of testing provided: Game-play testing, localization, pre-submission, compatibility testing

[edit] Games Testing

Testing video/computer games involves a number of aspects:

Functional Testing
to ensure that the games functions such as collisions, players attributes, menus, events, button functions, scoring /statistics, are according to the game design.
Compatibility Testing
to ensure that the game functions consistently, without any conflicts with other standards software, across all typical PC configurations on the market.
Multiplayer Testing
to ensure if games are designed to be played across the Internet or local network. These tests ensure games provide a smooth multiplayer gaming experience for end-users.
MMOG
to test a computer game capable of supporting thousands of players simultaneously, and which is played on the internet online.
Localization Testing
to ensure that local language version of games perform consistently with the original versions.
Compliance Testing
to ensure if the games are designed as per pre-defined standards, rules or a technical requirement document such as TCR/TRC, Lot Check, etc.
Game Play Testing
to give a professional and independent evaluation of the game play quality, such as realism of animation and fight damage, balance of the game, exploits etc.

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Company Profile: Reconnex

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(This article is a copy of the Reconnex Pagecreated by Anand Kekre on the PuneTech wiki. Please help by creating one like this for your own company.)

Reconnex is a provider of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) appliances that are designed for organizations that want to secure sensitive information, protect their brands and maintain compliance. Reconnex not only delivers protection against known data-loss threats, but also provides a solution that automatically learns of and defends against new threats as they evolve. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, CA with its R&D center in the heart of Pune City (Model Colony).

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Reconnex has a high-performance, high-accuracy, appliance-based data loss prevention system that enables an organization to protect all information assets on its network without requiring up-front knowledge of what needs to be protected, and regardless of how that information is stored, secured, or communicated. As a result, IT can protect against both known and emerging threats.

Reconnex provides comprehensive information protection solutions in three key areas:

  • Data-in-Motion – Deployed at the network perimeter, Reconnex can inspect incoming and outgoing traffic to accurately identify information security violations
  • Data-at-Rest – Deployed in the campus network, Reconnex can connect to and inspect the contents of laptops, desktops, servers, and information repositories to identify sensitive material, and arm data-in-motion and data-in-use systems to protect it accordingly
  • Data-in-Use – Deployed as an agent on the user desktop or laptop, Reconnex can provide information protection whether the user is on the network or off the network through virtually any I/O channel that presents an information security risk.

The Reconnex system is comprised of two components:

  • iGuard Appliance – Hardened, turnkey appliance solution for information monitoring and protection
  • inSight Console – Intuitive central management console for managing device configurations, reporting, incidents, policies, rules, and case management

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Reconnex is headed in India by Anand Kekre

Company Profile: Amberpoint

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Company profile of AmberPoint from the Punetech wiki

AmberPoint is a provider of middleware for governing the runtime of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications. Utilizing a policy-based approach to managing the health and well-being of SOA-based applications, AmberPoint’s software offers comprehensive capabilities for visibility into and control of loosely coupled systems.

Contents

[edit] Main Features

[edit] Application Discovery

Automatically figure out what all SOA applications exist in an environment and determine their capabilities. Upload this information to a central repository. Keep the repository updated as applications come and go and their capabilities change. Track dependencies between various applications.

Knowing what applications are deployed, and the dependencies between them is the first step towards managing the applications properly.

[edit] Policies

Once applications have been discovered and cataloged AmberPoint allows administrators to specify policies which need to be enforced against the applications. And enforce them. Also, architects can define approved policies and make them available to their SOA developers. Developers can select the policies they need to implement and attach them to their services on the fly, without any additional coding effort.

[edit] Monitoring

Reports: Monitor the various components of the SOA in real time. Produce reports about things like: throughput, availability, response times, and errors/faults. This is achieved without requiring any modifications to existing services (no code changes), or any extra development time. And with low overhead.

Composite service monitoring: In addition to monitoring a single component, you also want to be able to monitor the same parameters for a composite service created using these components.

SLAs: The ultimate aim of this monitoring is to ensure that Service Level Agreements are being met.

Visualization: Show pretty pictures to get an idea of who is using what. And how much. And the dependencies between various components. And the flow of data.

Early warnings: Based on information about the existing SLAs and how the applications are composed of sub-components, it is possible to figure out which SLAs are likely to get violated based on the predicted trends for some of the low-level measurements taken at one or more of the components. This can help in catching problems before they become problems. Also, using the same basic information, traffic spikes can be prevented by throttling can be applied at the appropriate places at the apropriate times.

[edit] Exception Handling and Root Cause Analysis

Provide an integrated view of message flows that occur across the various components of the system. Thus allow a single interface where administrators can search for errors/issues by message type, content, client credentials, and even tie the low level messages to higher-level business transactions. This eliminates the need to manually piece together a message flow by searching multiple log files.

Also, allow for rule-based routing of exceptions to various exception handlers. It integrates with existing exception-handling resources such as in-house exception-management frameworks as well as exception-handling workflows and process-management systems.

[edit] Testing

When one component changes, it is possible that the composite service might break. And testing for this is difficult because of the distributedness and loose-coupling that is inherent in a service oriented architecture. Using AmberPoint, administrators can automatically verify the performance and functionality of a changed service against applications that consume it and the services on which it is dependent. Additionally, they can perform “what-if” runs to see the potential impact of management policies (especially security) as they change within the runtime environment. AmberPoint also allows simulation of services for testing purposes using actual production traffic and realistic performance characteristics.

[edit] Regulatory Compliance

AmberPoint provides pieces needed for complying with regulations in the financial industry, health industry, credit card industry and the SOX regulations. Examples include multi-factor authentication, role based access control, etc..

Website: http://www.amberpoint.com/

(Editor’s note: Occassionally I will be posting such quick’n’dirty profiles of Pune-based companies. These will essentially be information collected from the company website. This is not intended to be an in-depth look at the technology. It is more directed towards people how might not know about the existence of the company, or not know what it does.)

MyJobsInPune.com to expand to other cities

News, Pune City, Websites, ,

MyJobsInPune.com launched last September and is already considered a major success.

Within seven months of going live, myjobsinpune.com has emerged as the leading website in Pune, as regards jobseeker traffic emanating from Pune. The site is attracting more than 5,000 visitors daily with 10000 new jobseekers registering every month. It has on average 3,000 clients advertising 4,000 jobs monthly from entry-level to mid-management level for leading players in IT/ITES, manufacturing, automobile, retail and BFSI sectors.

Source: IndiaPRWire

MyJobsInPune is owned by Irish company SaonGroup which chose Pune as the location for its maiden venture into India because:

Pune is a fascinating city with great economic potential. It has attracted numerous Fortune 500 enterprises as well as many top-tier professionals who aspire to develop their careers in Pune. It is for these reasons that Pune was selected as the first city for Saongroup to launch in and we plan to invest up to €10m in the initial phase of expansion across India from our HQ in Pune. We strongly believe that India presents a huge opportunity for sustained growth in different sectors and a rapid growth in online recruitment.

Source: Leslie Buckley Chairman, Saongroup.com

I just checked out MyJobsInPune’s home page and noticed that everyone from B.U. Bhandari Auto, to Goel Ganga Group have put up ads there. So it seems to have managed to rope in a quite eclectic mix of customers. On the other hand, I did not find ads from major software companies like Symantec, or Persistent, or even Infosys listed.

In any case, it is heartening to note that there are 1000s of web-savvy employers in Pune.

(Found this newsitem via AlooTechie.)