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Peak XV Networks to offer IP services in India

Fakir Chand in Bangalore

Peak XV Networks Inc, the US-based global networking company, has set up its wholly owned subsidiary in Bangalore to offer layer 3+ solutions and next generation Internet Protocol services to Indian service providers and large enterprises from the new year.

At the same time, the $8-million nascent IT infrastructure company, headquartered in San Francisco Bay area, will be outsourcing its pool of talent from India for deployment worldwide for onsite project executions, service support, and trouble-shooting.

In order to meet its human resource requirement, Peak XV is setting up a $4-million India Technology Centre in the Electronics City on the outskirts of Bangalore for training hundreds of engineering graduates in the Cisco Certification Network Administration, Cisco Certification Network Protocol, and the Cisco Certification Infrastructure Expertise, the highest level of certification from Cisco Systems.

"We have already invested $1 million so far in the Indian subsidiary to train about 200 skilled engineers in CCNA and CCNP for locating them at our project sites, mostly in the US and Europe," declared Ashok (Ash) Murthy, co-founder and president of Peak XV.

The state-of-the-art training facility will become operations from Q2 of 2001, and will boast of a sophisticated inter-operability lab and certification cell, authorised by Cisco. The computerised energy management systems will facilitate the trainees to utilise the resources for exploring the frontier technologies in the areas of telecom and networking.

Though the company intends to outsource talent and technologies from India, it is also gearing up to provide global services to Indian carriers, services providers, and large enterprises.

"In partnership with Cisco and Nortel, Peak XV will offer customers consulting and engineering service, branded Content Now, to enable them deploy rapid content distribution and management services," Murthy said.

The company will also provide its patent-pending Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) solution to enable users to deploy VPN Now services. "The solution has been pre-tested and proven in our Interoperability labs at San Francisco to ensure its compatibility with different vendor platforms."

Peak XV's Security Now and Infrastructure Assessment services will enable Indian customers to drive more traffic through their network, ensuring scalability, audit, data collection, analysis, reporting, and recommendation across the LAN/WAN network assessment.

According to managing director H N Deepak, these services will be offered in strategic alliances with Redback, Juniper, Clarent, and Inktomi, which will be providing the technologies and products.

"The core competencies of the company include infrastructure assessment and design, project managed implementation and operations, and management support."

The company will, however, face stiff competition from Indian corporates like Wipro, BPL, and MantraOnline, which provide similar services to institutional customers.

With 36 customers such as Ad Network and SBC on hand, mostly in the US, Peak XV is projecting a turnover of $33 million in the second year of operations, including $2.5 million in revenues from its Indian subsidiary. "We also expect to break-even in Q4 of 2001," Murthy claimed.

The company may go for second round of funding in the Q2 of next year for expanding its presence in Europe, West Asia, and the Asia-Pacific region.

"We went for our first round of dilution to raise $21 million. Of which, $4 million were invested in the US operations, including offices in Washington DC, Dallas, and Denver, " Murthy added.

The non-disclosure agreement with the VC fund manager, Doll Capital Management, prohibited Murthy from revealing the holding pattern, and the price valuation that was undertaken for the dilution.

The company's technical advisory board includes world-renowned Wu-Fu Chen, Internet veteran Don Dodge, and Exodus Communications co-founder K B Chandrasekhar. Chen is the chairman of Cinta Inc, and Zettacom Inc. Dodge is with Napster for providing client software engineering product management and business development.

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