Tag Archives: enterprise

LiveBlog: Intelligence at the Edge

This is a live-blog of the event organized by @NexusVP, with the CTOs of @DruvaInc, @Helpshift, and @Uniken_Inc, talking about “Intelligence at the Edge” – i.e. the increasing amount of enterprise data that is now found in mobiles, laptops, and other devices of their employees, and how that is changing the world of enterprise software.

The panel consisted of these people:

  • Jishnu Bhattacharjee (@b_jishnu), of Nexus Venture Partners:
  • Sanjay Deshpande, CEO and Chief Innovation Officer at Uniken, a Pune-based enterprise security company.
  • BG (@ghoseb), CTO and Co-founder at Helpshift, a Pune-based company that provides a software platform that allows mobile app developers to incorporate high quality customer service and support into their apps.
  • Milind Borate, CTO and Co-Founder at Druva, a Pune-based company that provides backup solutions for the enterprise.

Here is a random list of interesting stuff said during this discussion:

  • More and more data and intelligence is being pushed at the edges of the corporate networks. Translation: Imagine a large company. It has an IT department that runs many servers and complicated applications in their labs and data centers. In the past, most of the data and intelligence of the enterprise was in these servers. But in recent times, the devices in the hands of the employees (the desktops, laptops, mobile phones) have more and more powerful apps, more sensitive data, and more unique data (i.e. data which is not replicated on the servers). This is the “edge” of the enterprise.
  • What does Druva do? Druva looks at data that is sitting on laptops, mobiles, and other devices at the edge from 4 different angles:
    • Backup of the data
    • Data theft prevention if the data falls in the wrong hands
    • Analyzing the data on all these devices and providing intelligence (actionable insights)
    • Being able to share that data with others: colleagues within the company, but also outside – customers, vendors

  • What does Helpshift do? Built a SDK that mobile developers can download and incorporate into their app to automatically and easily get very sophisticated customer service into their app. For example:
    • Reduce customer service calls through the use of in-app FAQs, which can easily be updated by the developer – updates to the FAQ can be pushed to all customers mobiles automatically
    • When a customer reports an issue, the Helpshift runtime uses breadcrumbs to keep track of what the customer was doing just before hitting the issue, so that without any extra effort on the part of the customer, details of the device, the configuration and what exactly caused the bug are sent to the server
    • Now they are focusing on building machine-learning based higher level features. Their bigger customers have millions of daily users and get thousands of support issues per day. So, they need sophisticated analysis to figure out the common patterns.
    • 80% of Helpshift’s market is the US and the remaining 20% is from the rest of the world, including Europe and Latin America
    • 80% of the money comes from iPhone users. But Android is still young, and growing.
  • What does Uniken do? Uniken realized that most of the technology on the internet has been driven by media companies who want to sell ads on their websites, and maximize the number of users, whereas enterprises (like banks) are trying to use the same internet to give a very secure experience to their (captive) users. There is a mismatch here, and what the enterprises need is a much more secure environment where they have much more control over all the pieces in the chain – including the network and the devices being used by the customers. This is the area Uniken is in.
  • Indian market vs US market: In India, there is a software/web/mobile market, but a lot of it is mostly consumer oriented. The B2B software market is still not really well developed, and is it not easy to make much money here.
    • 60% of Druva’s revenue comes from the US, 30% from Europe, and 10% comes from the rest of the world (India included).
    • Druva started off trying to sell in the Indian market. They tried in-person enterprise sales, and had a tough time. In the meantime, they started getting enquiries from the US from people who had simply downloaded their software, tried it out, liked it, and wanted to buy it. Over time, this increased, and they soon realized that US was where the real market was.
    • One of the key things that helped them was that they built software that was very easy to download off the web and install without requiring any help from the company itself. This was unheard of in the enterprise backup business (which was dominated by companies like Symantec/Veritas, EMC etc.)
    • Druva used Google adwords very effectively to market its products. The big players like Symantec/Veritas, EMC have very large sales organizations with great reach, and it would have been very difficult for Druva to compete with them in terms of reach of their salespeople. But Google adwords allowed them to reach out to customers all over the world.
  • BigData is big. The number of devices (mobiles, laptops, desktops) that people are using is so huge, that with even minimal intelligence in each device the amount of data is huge – petabytes.
    • Collect as much data as possible. You will find uses for it later.
    • Don’t worry about where/how to store the data. Just store it in flat files initially, and then later you can figure out where to put it to analyze it.
    • No single software will solve all your problems. Use everything – SQL, NoSQL, Hadoop, etc.
    • What has made this possible is the fact that all these devices are now internet connected, and hence all the data can be collected and stored centrally in the cloud. Further, again because of the internet connectivity, it is possible to push software updates to the devices, so the data collection abilities can be continuously upgraded.
  • How has Uniken managed to sell into the Indian enterprise market? It is currently 100% in the Indian market – and it sees India as a big market, with lots of potential. Most Indian software startups struggle with this (as seen by Druva’s experience above). You need to do this:
    • In any company, identify the right person – the one who has enough vision to do things differently, try new products, and who can also get things done in that company
    • Choosing the right champion in the customer company is key
    • Keep meeting the right people, keep selling them your story, keep plugging away, until the sale happens
    • Think of an enterprise sale as dating with a long-term relationship in mind
    • Have lots of patience. Don’t give up. India is a market requires a lot of patience.

Interview with Vaultize: Pune based Enterprise File Sharing and Sync Service

PuneTech has just learnt that Pune-based Enterprise file sharing and sync (EFSS) startup Vaultize has just received funding from Tata Capital Innovations Fund.

Vaultize builds cloud-based solutions for enterprise endpoint (i.e. laptop/desktop/mobile devices) sync, backup, encryption, security, and anytime/anywhere access to corporate file servers – all of this in a way that is visible to, and under the control of administrators in the company.

Through Vaultize’s endpoint encryption, sensitive corporate information remains encrypted on endpoints ensuring protection against unauthorized access and potential data leakage from lost or stolen device. In addition to on-disk protection, Vaultize’s patent pending encryption technology used in file sharing and backup ensures that the data is encrypted or decrypted only on endpoints – guaranteeing end-to-end protection

Vaultize, which so far has a presence only in India (with some sales outside via channel partners) will use the funding to scale up its expansion across the world, with immediate plans to establish operations in the US and Europe in conjunction with channel partners. The company will also use the funds towards building up its sales, marketing and engineering teams, and to enhance its global partner program.

PuneTech spoke with CEO and co-founder Anand Kekre. Here are some excerpts from the conversation:

Question: Another Pune startup in the storage and backup space, Druva.com, has been in the limelight in the last few years. How is Vaultize different?

Actually, we are not in the same market as Druva. Druva is more of a backup solution. Also, while they do have cloud-based backup, their focus traditionally has been on on-premise backup.

By contrast we are in what Gartner calls the EFSS (Enterprise File Sync and Share) space. We are more concerned with providing access to enterprise data from any device, from any where, without compromising on security. We ensure the enterprise data can be accessed from any device – including personal mobile devices – while at all times ensuring that the data is encrypted at all times, whether it is being sent over the network, or when it is stored on the disk in the device.

There are two major things we do that are unique to our solution. First, all the data that is being shared, synced, or in general being moved around via Vaultize is encrypted at source. This ensures that the data is never at risk once it leaves the device. Specifically, any data going over the network, or stored on Vaultize servers is always encrypted and the encryption key is only available at the endpoints (i.e. devices). Second, we do data de-duplication at source. That is, if the speed/latency and network bandwidth consumption is greatly improved by detecting whether the Vaultize servers already have a copy of the data that needs to be sent/synced (for example, same attachment being shared by various people), and only sending across the unique content. And this is achieved without losing the benefits of encryption-at-source, using patent-pending technology.

Question: So, your software can ensure that use of mobile devices with enterprise data is secure?

Across the world, there has been a proliferation of consumer file sharing and Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) trends, and this has resulted in an increase in data loss, security and compliance risks.

There are two different aspects to ensuring security for BYOD devices. First, the enterprise needs to ensure that it is safe to allow a mobile device to connect to the enterprise network – i.e. it is an authorized device, and it only has authorized applications, and more specifically, does not have viruses and malware. This area is called Mobile Device Management (MDM). Vaultize does not deal with this issue.

Once a device has been allowed to connect to the network, Vaultize ensures that the data on the device is safe and secure by encrypting all the sensitive data on the disk, by being able to sync data across various devices, and geographies, and by providing secure (via encryption) access to the data from anywhere, in a way that compiles with all the enterprise security policies.

And it does all of this in a way that can be easily managed and controlled by the enterprise IT administrators.

Question: What is your team size currently, and how are you planning on expand
ing it?

Currently, we are about 15 people, all in India. Over the next year, we hope to expand our team to about 30-35 people. We will be looking to expand not only in the area of sales and marketing, but also engineering, QA, and support.

For more information about Vaultize, see http://www.vaultize.com

Pune-based Druva get $12M in Series B from Nexus/Sequoia – This time its official

Pune-based Druva software, which makes enterprise backup software, has just cosed a $12 million round of funding from Nexus Venture Partners and existing investory Sequoia. In April 2010, they had raised $5 million from Sequoia and the Indian Angel Investors.

This funding is going to be used by Druva to make a strong push into cloud-based backup. Cloud infrastructure for a bandwidth and storage intensive like backup can be a significant expense, and of course, sales and marketing too.

A few weeks back a partially inaccurate version of this story had been leaked by Economic Times and was reported by PuneTech, but we “withdrew” the story after Druva called us up and let us know that it was premature to talk about it. Talking about a company’s funding round before everything is finalized and the money is in the bank is dangerous for a number of reasons including:

  • Funding is a tricky thing and there are no guarantees until the money is in the bank. Many things can, and do go wrong. One bad day on the stock market can cause VCs to reconsider any deals that are not final.
  • From the time the startup received a term-sheet from the VC until the deal is finalized, there is usually a no shopping clause which prevents the startup from talking about the details of the deal with anybody else. This is to ensure that the startup does not use this offer to try and create a bidding war between VCs. Hence, if the details leak out the VCs might feel that the startup is trying to violate the no shopping clause
  • Most importantly, if word leaks out that a VC is funding a company for amount X, then in next few days is is possible that the VC’s contacts in the industry (probably other VCs) keep saying “Why are you paying X? I don’t think it is worth more than Y?” and this can cause the VC to reconsider the deal. This is very dangerous for the startup.

This time however, the news is official (and is actually better than the deal reported by Indian Express).

As for what Druva does exactly, and why it is one of our favorite Pune companies, just read the previous article, which had a bunch of links. Here are some other interesting tidbits about Druva:

  • “Druva’s disruptive innovation reduces the storage footprint and bandwidth requirement for backup by orders of magnitude compared to other industry solutions” -Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Nexus
  • Druva, founded in 2007, has amassed more than 750 customers and protects more than 300,000 endpoints (i.e. servers, laptops, PCs) worldwide
  • InSync’s global, source-based deduplication reduces bandwidth and storage by 90 percent while providing 100 percent accuracy for Microsoft Outlook and Office applications

Here’s the full press release regarding this news

News of Druva’s funding was inaccurate and premature

On Friday, based on an Economic Times report, we reported that Pune-based enterprise backup software provider Druva has received $10 million in funding from Nexus VP. Unfortunately this news appears to be inaccurate.

Here is a comment from Jaspreet Singh, CEO of Druva:

Thanks Navin, but this news is not very accurate. This was unethically leaked and then misreported by Peerzada (abrar.shz@timesgroup.com) of ET for some cheap thrills.

Not sure when would people this these grow up and stop screwing lives of entrepreneurs who are already fighting against all the odds.

You have been a great supporter and I would give you a call sometime next week to give accurate information and some more good news.

Basically, Druva is indeed in an advanced stage in their second round funding process, but it is not done yet, and they cannot talk about the details of the amount or the investors involved. The details that came out in the ET report are inaccurate.

We wish Druva luck, and hope to hear the official good news sometime soon.

Backup Software Provider Druva.com get $10 million funding from Nexus

Update: It appears that the report in ET, on which this article is based, was inaccurate. Please see this update.

Pune-based startup Druva, which sells enterprise backup software, has just closed a second round of funding worth $10 million from Nexus Venture Partners, reports Economic Times.

In April 2010, Druva had raised $5 million from Sequoia and the Indian Angel Network. At that time, these are the reasons we gave for why we liked Druva:

  • Druva is a purely homegrown startup. This is not a company started by someone in the US setting up a development center in India.
  • Druva is a product startup. It is not a services company. Hence, it has a potential for exponential growth and returns.
  • Druva is not done by serial entrepreneurs. The co-founders are all first-time entrepreneurs who quit their big-company jobs to start Druva. This should give hope to all the first-time entrepreneurs in Pune.

Druva has been one of PuneTech’s favorite startups and we have covered it extensively in the past, so, frankly, there isn’t much new that we’ll be able to say about it. Instead, we’ll simply point readers to the older articles:

We also want to point out that Druva is one of the sponsors of PyCon – the International Python Conference that’s happening in Pune next month.

We wish Druva luck, and although getting another round of VC funding is not as good an indicator of success as an IPO or an acquisition, we would still like to repeat what we said in April 2010:

  • We now have in our midst a startup success story that will hopefully inspire a 100 new software product startups in Pune.

Pune-based Innovize Tech Launches Productivity Measurement Software

Last week, Pune-based product startup Innovize Tech announced that it has received funding of $350k from the Indian Angel Network. (Note: Indian Angel Network had also invested in another Pune-based startup Druva.)

Innovize Tech Logo
InnovizeTech is a Pune-based startup that builds employee productivity measurement software. Click on the logo to go to Innovize Tech's website.

Innovize Tech has built a software product, called Sapience, that helps companies measure the exact amount of time spent by employees in various work related activities.

LiveMint has a nice article explaining the Sapience product:

For example, an investment banker working on a deal will use several applications, such as MS Excel to do financial analysis and modelling of companies, and MS PowerPoint and various in-house databases to obtain information and do analysis.

Sapience will be customized to register these applications as work applications, and will calculate how much time the banker spent on them at the end of the day.

This would help his managers know how many hours the investment banker actually spent working, out of the time he was in office. They can also find out if the banker was spending too much time on some aspects of the work.

The article further points out that:

The software can be installed at company data centres. Smaller firms without a data centre can operate it from a so-called cloud server managed by InnovizeTech.

Its target consumers are software firms, banks, insurance firms and other firms whose employees use computers to deliver their output.

The key USP of Sapience is that it is a highly automated method of accounting for time spent by employees on different software packages (and hence different activities). While information can be manually fed, Sapience has an API that encouranges programmatic sourcing of this information. Further, nit uses learning and rules based intelligence, to increasingly automate this activity. Further, it can handle various difficult cases, like different employees sharing the same PC, or the same employee using different machines, or an employee logging in remotely to a server. They have applied for a global patent on their technology.

It then aggregates the per-employee information at team, project, and other company levels and locations. The product’s analytics and trend engine then provides insightful information that helps senior management to enhance overall business efficiency, and individual and teams to improve their own productivity.

Sapience is priced on per-user basis. The per-user permanent license fee is equivalent to a few hours of average per-employee cost to company. They point out, on their website that they demonstrate savings of several hours of productivity within the first 30 days of deployment. Therefore, Return on Investment (ROI) period is typically one month.

Innovize tech was started last year by Swati Deodhar, Shirish Deodhar, Hemant Joshi and Madhukar Bhatia. The Pune startup community will remember that Shirish, Hemant and Madhukar were also the people behind nFactorial software, the Startup Mentoring company. nFactorial has not been accepting any new mentorship engagements for a while now, and the founders are now primarily focusing on Innovize Tech. For more details on the executive team of Innovize Tech is on their About Us page.

“World-class software products can come out of India” – Interview with CEO of Druva

We now have in our midst a startup success story that will hopefully inspire a 100 new software product startups in Pune.

PuneTech and the Pune Open Coffee Club both started about 2 years ago, and the steadily increasing memberships and vitality of these communities points to a very strong startup community in Pune. However, throughout those two years, one question always cast a doubt on the long-term potential of this startup ecosystem. And that question was: Where are the success stories?

Druva Software is a Pune-based backup software product startup. Click on the logo to see all PuneTech articles about backup software (mostly about Druva)
Druva Software is a Pune-based backup software product startup. Click on the logo to see all PuneTech articles about backup software (mostly about Druva)

Druva software (previously known as Druvaa) which just closed a $5 million round of funding led by Sequoia Capital answers that question. Of course, getting a round of VC funding is not as good an indicator of success as an IPO or an acquisition. And of course, there have been other successes in the past. But still this news is great, for the following reasons:

  • Druva is a purely homegrown startup. This is not a company started by someone in the US setting up a development center in India.
  • Druva is a product startup. It is not a services company. Hence, it has a potential for exponential growth and returns.
  • Druva is not done by serial entrepreneurs. The co-founders are all first-time entrepreneurs who quit their big-company jobs to start Druva. This should give hope to all the first-time entrepreneurs in Pune.
  • There haven’t been many high-profile successes in recent times, and this one comes as a breath of fresh air.

Druva has been one of PuneTech’s favorite startups. With 5 different PuneTech articles, this is probably the company that has received maximum coverage from us. And a quick look at the articles gives hints as to why:

  • It is a product company, which is always more interesting than a services company; it’s especially interesting to watch the product evolve over time.
  • It requires some very complex technology, not something that any company could easily build. Plus, they are happy to write detailed technical articles about the technology that underlies their products.
  • It has repeatedly featured in high profile startup events in India, from proto.in to the NASSCOM summit

PuneTech spoke to Jaspreet Singh, CEO of Druva, over the phone, and here are some quick notes based on this conversation. There are a number of unique features here that other Pune entrepreneurs would do well to take note of.

On the current state of the company

Druva has $2.5 million revenue run rate, coming from about 400+ customer deployments. Most of this is from their flagship product, the inSync remote laptop disk-to-disk backup solution. Recently they also introduced Phoenix a remote server disk-to-disk backup solution. They have about 23 employees, most of them in Pune, with a few sales people elsewhere. The product is developed entirely in Pune.

How do they manage enterprise support for 400 customers with such a small employee base?

Although supporting their customers is a very high priority for Druva, one of the things they focus on very hard is to make the product very easy to use and very easy to support – so that to a large extent, most of their customers don’t really require any support. They have a “release often” philosophy which ensures that customers always have the latest, bug-fixed, version of the software.

Another area that they put a lot of effort in, is in ensuring that the product is easy to install. A lot of their customer testimonials speak of how easy it was to self-install the software. By contrast, the comparable software from the more established players in the market requires professional services help for installation.

How do they manage sales without a strong US/Europe presence?

Instead of the tradition of hand-holding that is a common feature of enterprise sales in this domain, Druva decided to go a different route. They made their software freely downloadable from the web, and made it easy to install and try. As a result, most of their customers approach them after having first tried the product out via the website. And many of their sales, even large ones, have happened over skype/email, with no in-person customer visits.

How do they compete with the large MNCs, the established players in this market?

We were very surprised to learn that Druva does not try to compete with the incumbents on cost. Jaspreet told us that in fact the average Druva sale tends to be 3x more expensive than the comparative offering from the established players. Druva scores on ease of use, simplicity, and most imporantly, the technology.

Jaspreet points out that one of Druva’s strong points is the easy-to-use source-level de-duplication. Which means that when backing up a laptop, they can ignore duplicate content even before the data is sent to the remote backup server. Specifically consider the gigabytes of windows operating system files on your laptop. Most of these files are likely to be identical across all laptops of a company. Druva’s software would know beforehand that there is a copy of those files on the backup server, and would never send it across. Such optimizations ensure that backing up 15 TeraBytes of data from a number of different laptops just results in about 2 or 3 TeraBytes being send across the network. This results in an increase in speed, reduction in network bandwidth consumed, and in disk-space consumed.

By contrast, traditional backup systems do de-duplication at the destination. Which means that all the data is sent to the server over the network, and only then is the server able to remove duplicate content. This means that the speed and network bandwidth improvements are lost.

Also, claims Jaspreet, Druva’s backups are fully searchable – a feature that is not available with most competitors.

What is their primary challenge currently?

Jaspreet says that they want to build a high-quality, world-class product, and for that he needs lots of high-quality, world-class people. While they’ve obviously managed to build a team like that which got them so far, they need many more such people in the coming days, and that’s a significant challenge. He says that it is difficult, if not impossible to find “readymade” world-class talent here (even when “world-class” salary and/or equity is offered!). Instead, he feels that the only approach that works is to find individuals (whether freshers or industry veterans) who have the right attitude and potential and then nurture them into the required shape.

(As an aside, we’d like to point out that is a pattern. Pretty much every startup we talk to mentions hiring of high-quality people as one of their primary challenges. This is a problem that needs a solution, and I’m hoping that some entrepreneur in Pune is looking at this as an opportunity.)

Parting thoughts: In the Druva co-founders, we have people who have been through the entire process, from zero to VC-funding, in Pune, recently. And they are nice guys. Pune entrepreneurs should take advantage of this, and flock to them for guidance, advice and mentorship.

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How can a Pune startup sell in the US? POCC event – Nov 7

This Saturday, 7th November, the Pune Open Coffee Club will meet to discuss an important issue facing many of Pune’s small startups. How can a small startup with limited funds sell effectively in the US market? First we’ll start with a couple of early achievers – Pune startups that launched on the world stage, with the entire world watching them: Dubzer, which launched at DEMOFall’09, and Onion.tv which launched at TechCrunch50. We will follow that up with a panel discussion on the details and mechanics and logistics and the strategy and the tactics of enterprise sales in the US – with panelists who have lots of experience in this area. Read on for details. This event is free for all to attend, and there is not registration required. So if you know someone who would benefit by this, please forward this article to them.

Pune OpenCoffee Club - POCC Logo
Click on the logo to find all punetech articles about the POCC

4pm-4:30pm: Dubzer’s experience with DEMOFall’09 AlphaPitch – Santosh Dawara

Dubzer, a SaaS offering that allows publishers to quickly and easily create translated versions of their websites without requiring any technology development or software changes, debuted at the AlphaPitch event at DEMOFall ’09. We have covered details of this here. Santosh will talk about the whole experience, how they got in, how they prepared, the expenses, and the benefits.

4:30pm-5pm: Onion.tv’s experience with TechCrunch50 – Nilesh Diane

Onion.tv, another SaaS offering that allows publishers of video content to add tags, notes, tables-of-content, and other rich meta-data to their videos, was selected for the TechCrunch50 DemoPit. We covered the details of that here. Nilesh Diane will talk about their experience, and other Pune startups can get a feel for what they need to do to be in the same situation.

5pm-6:15pm: How to bootstrap enterprise sales in the US Panel Discussion

We have three panelists – Abhijit Athavale, Devendra Deshmukh, and Amit Paranjape  – each of whom have over 10 years of experience doing enterprise sales in the US. Each panelist will speak for about 15 minutes about specific topics related to the theme (as given below), and answer questions from the audience. After that we’ll have about 30 minutes of a general Q&A where startups can ask any questions to the panelists.

Details:

  • Devendra Deshmukh, will talk about “How to set up a sales channel; How to increase your reach; and also talk about his early experiences in this area while setting up eZest.” Devendra is a founder and executive director of e-Zest Solutions Ltd., e-Zest Inc. & e-Zest (UK) Ltd. He is also a co-founder of Webizus Technologies, the IT (Information Technology) consulting company. He has experience of working with Indian software companies in both the operational and business development functions. For more, see his linked-in profile.
  • Abhijit Athavale will cover: “How to hire a Sales Rep; Why and how much time to spend in the field; The difference in sales and distribution and why it matters.” Abhijit is President and CEO of Markonix, and a high-tech marketing consultant. He has 16+ years of high-technology industry experience. Prior to Markonix, Abhijit spent over 11 years at Xilinx, Inc. in various engineering, applications and marketing roles. In his role as a marketing consultant, he has held executive management positions at Taray, Inc and Sanved DA. He has a masters degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University and a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from University of Pune. He is an accomplished speaker and author of several publications including a book. For more, see his linked-in profile.
  • Amit Paranjape will talk about: “The dynamics of enterprise sales (understanding your customer, his ecosystem, his business) and the kinds of problems you run into if you don’t understand all of this.” Amit has been in senior positions with enterprise product companies for over 12 years, most of it with i2 in Dallas, USA. He has extensive leadership experience across Product Management/Marketing, Strategy, Business Development, Solutions Development, Consulting and Outsourcing. For more, see his linked-in profile.

The panel discussion will be moderated by me (Navin Kabra). If you have any specific questions or areas that that you’d like the panelists to cover, please send them to navin @ punetech, or leave a comment below.

6:15-7pm: General Networking

Practise your startup pitch, bring your business cards, mingle, portray the confidence that you don’t always feel, ask the seniors for free advice, convince the juniors that working nights and evenings for your startup will be the most fun thing they’ve ever done, and feel out your peers for potential co-founders. Ask the panelists questions that you were too shy to ask in public, practise your startup pitch, set-up follow-up meetings with potential advisors, mentors, CAs, HR outsourcers, php coders, facebook app developers, potential angel investors, and people who will help you get in touch with potential angel investors. Or just talk about beer, or Pune’s new microbrewery, or ask around for new and interesting restaurants in town,  practise your pitch, and find new and interesting people to be friends with. And, did I mention, practise your pitch? All of this…possible only at a Pune Open Coffee Club meeting. Be there.

Logistics:

What: Pune OpenCoffee Club meeting on How Pune’s startups can sell in the US enterprise market. Featuring presentations by Dubzer & Onion.tv’s recent success at DEMOFall’09 and TechCrunch50, and a panel discussion with Abhijit Athavale, Devendra Deshmukh, and Amit Paranjape
When: Saturday, Nov 7th, 4pm-7pm
Where: Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Atur Centre, Model Colony. Map.
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all to attend. No registration required.


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IBM Pune Tivoli Users Group Meeting – 6th June

IBM Global Services
Image via Wikipedia

What: A meeting of the Pune Tivoli Users Group – with presentations on various Tivoli products
When: 9:30am to 12:30pm, Saturday 6th June
Where: Meeting Room M4 (Video Conference Room), 7th Floor, Tower (B), Tech Park One (TPO), (Panchshill), Off Airport Road, Near Don Bosco School, Yerwada
Registration and Fees: This meeting is free for all to attend. Register here.

Details:

The agenda for this meeting is as follows:

Agenda:
0930-1000 hrs: Welcome and Introductions (Aleem Subhedar, Barclays)
1000-1030 hrs: IBM Tivoli Monitoring – Universal Agent (Himanshu Karmarkar, IBM)
1030-1100 hrs: Introduction to Tivoli Security Operations Manager-TSOM (Boudhayan Chakrabarty, IBM)
1100-1130 hrs: Hands-on TSM Installation and Configuration (Bharat Vyas,IBM)
1130-1200 hrs: DEMO – Tivoli Identity Manager (TIM)- Provisioning Policies (Deepak Kaul, IBM)
1200-1230 hrs: TUG Members Networking and Working Lunch (Pizza)

As usual, see the PuneTech calendar for other tech events in Pune this week.

Pune Tivoli Users Group Meeting – 18 April

IBM Global Services
Image via Wikipedia

What: This is the first meeting of the Pune Tivoli Users Group – with introductory presentations on various Tivoli products
When: 9:30am to 1:30pm, Saturday 18th April
Where: Meeting Room M4 (Video Conference Room), 7th Floor, Tower (B), Tech Park One (TPO), (Panchshill), Off Airport Road, Near Don Bosco School, Yerwada
Registration and Fees: This meeting is free for all to attend. Register here.

Details:

Come along to the first ever Pune Tivoli User Group meeting and meet like minded people. Your presence will help to make this group a success !

Agenda:

9:30am – Introduction for Tivoli User Group members. What do YOU want to get out of YOUR group
Topic #1 – TSM FastBack : Introduction & Architecture
Speaker: Chanchal Ghevade, IBM
Topic #2 – Introduction to Tivoli Identity and Access Management
Speaker: Deepak Kaul, IBM
Topic #3 – Introduction to Tivoli Storage Manager
Speaker: Rahul Sharma, IBM
Topic #4 – Introduction to IBM Tivoli Monitoring
Speaker: Himanshu Karmarkar, IBM
Topic #5 – IBM Support Assistant (ISA) tool for Tivoli products

Feedback & close
Lunch and networking.

As usual, see the PuneTech calendar for other tech events in Pune this week.

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