Jataayu Software

While third-generation mobile phones enable users to surf the Internet, users face a few limitations such as the small screen, lack of a full keyboard and Web pages not being compliant with data communications standards.

Jataayu Software's browser product, jB5, overcomes these hurdles. Web pages can be rendered in low-end to mid-range mobile devices in three formats--text-only, fit-to-screen and natural (what users see on laptop screens).

In addition, jB5 can be used for wireless application protocol (WAP) 1, WAP2 and HTML standards. Jataayu believes the technology will enable products that are built on it to last for the next five to eight years. The company has applied for patent and trademark registration.

The total market for third-party browsers is about 500 million handsets this year, Jataayu estimates. The figure is expected to grow by 33 percent year-on-year until 2008.

In order for the company to gain a firm foothold in the market as a leading mobile application vendor, Jataayu has partnerships with leading chipset, reference design platform and man-machine interface vendors. The focus is to cut the time-to-market.

Revenue comes mainly from licensing fees, royalties on shipped handset units and interoperability testing for devices, among other charges levied on handset makers, reference design vendors and communications service providers.

Among Jataayu's top customers are leading handset brands such as Samsung, Motorola, Palm and Philips. Jataayu's technology is now available in more than 20 million handsets worldwide.

In addition, the company's services--multimedia messaging service centre, WAP gateway, short message service gateway, SyncML, instant messaging and presence services, as well as alert systems for mobile operators--are deployed at more than 50 carrier locations globally.

Jataayu counts three leading operators in India among its clients--Hutch, Reliance and Aritel. They have subscriber bases of 24.48 million, 23.41 million and 27.06 million, respectively, as of September 2006.

Next year, Jataayu plans to raise a second round of funds, spend more on research and development, extend its market reach, build its brand and invest in human capital. The company also intends to set up operations in Africa, China and Japan by January 2007. So far, its offices are in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the UK and the US.

Jataayu's innovations have not gone unnoticed. This year, it became a winner of the Eighth Institute of Electronics & Telecommunications Engineers Corporate Awards for performance excellence in software development. A year before, the Software Technology Parks of India conferred the company a certificate of excellence for being the second fastest-growing small and medium-sized enterprise software exporter in Karnataka, India.