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c m y k c m y k

Bengaluru ● Tuesday ● 5 January 2010

Study: Chromeis now the

 world’s third-most popularbrowser.

13

 TechnomicsLenovo isincluding AMDchips in itslaptops for thefirst time.

IBM has baggeda data centredeal with KaradUrban Co-opera-tive Bank.

DC

GOUTAM DAS

BENGALURU

Jan. 4: In a decade fromnow, a child with a printedtext book may be passed off as a bore. He would besmart if his books were inthe ‘cloud’ and he accessedthem through a PC, prefer-ably an iPhone,a tablet, or aKindle-like e-book reader!

But before governmentshost their text books andcome up with somethinglike an ‘e-reader for everychild’ programme, a book delivery system has to bereadied. Bengaluru-basedImpelsys, which is helpingpublishers devise their e-book strategies,says it couldbe the crucial link.

The firm is talking to state-level governments in Indiafor a book delivery system

for text books. With the evo-lution from print to electron-ic in the publisher space, the

company’s founder andCEO Sameer Shariff believes all government cur-riculum will also need ‘e-support’ in the future. He ispitching an idea that mayultimately result in betterlearning tools, assessments,and collaboration betweenstudents and teachers.

“We have got some pro-posals with governmentsaround the world to buildbook delivery systems. Inthe next 10-15 years, this isthe way to go,” Shariff says.

Impelsys, in a way, shouldbe better positioned to deliv-er such a platform — for thelast many years,the firm hasbeen working on ‘buildingthe future of book’.

Traditional publishersunderstood the print busi-ness well but had littleknowledge of the electronic

world. Impelsys came outwith a content deliveryinfrastructure that can,

going ahead, push books

into multiple devices,including smart phones andthe e-reader.

“Initially, we build theplatform as a software prod-uct and customised for pub-lishers. We were gettingwins. But the problem waspublishers were still experi-menting and the cost of theplatform could be between$20,000 to $100,000depending on the complexi-ty and volume of the con-tent,” Shariff says.

The firm then explored thesoftware as a service (SaaS)model.

“Through a self-servemodel, we allowed a pub-lisher to come to our web-site, register, load up hisfiles, and create the accesscontrol , the search, thewarehouse, and the portalfor delivery. No other com-pany has created a solutionin the publishing spacewhere someone could do all

these by themselves andoperate at no cost upfront,”the CEO says.

The model has seen greatsuccess — publishers signedup from over 40 countriesand the company currentlyhas 350 publishers using itssystem in some form. Amonthly fee is charged andwhen a purchase is madethrough the platform, a per-centage goes to Impelsys.

“The commerce transac-tion is on our infrastructure.We hold it for the publisher.On an average,we charge 35

per cent of the e-book sale,”Shariff says.Educational, children’s,

and professional books arethe ones that are accessedthe most online.

The firm recently signedon Sesame Workshop, anonprofit educational organ-isation that revolutionisedchildren’s television pro-gramming in the US withSesame Street . SesameWorkshop has nowlaunched five digital booksand soon would begin offer-ing individual titles for pur-chase and an annual sub-scription.

Sesame is a huge influencein the children’s book seg-ment and Impelsys expect-edly sees an uptake in rev-enues this year. “SesameStreet sold over 20 millionunits in 2008. They have

been publishing for the last40 years — so every book Sesame Street has publishedwill be on its e-book store,”says the CEO.

The 200-people company,still tiny in terms of rev-enues, eyes $100 million by2014. That’s possiblebecause e-book as a seg-ment has been rocketing:The International DigitalPublishing Forum says e-book sales for October 2009in the US are more than 3.5times greater than those of the same year-ago month at$18,500,000.

On this Christmas Day,people bought more e-booksthan hard-copy books onAmazon.com, the companyhad noted. Amazon addedthat its e-book reader Kindlehad also become the mostgifted item in the Internet

retail firm’s history.Sameer Shariff likes thearithmetic.

Infosys Prize 2009 winners along with Infosys chief mentor NR Narayana Murthyand CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan. The prize, called India’s answer to the Nobel Prize,was awarded to K. VijayRaghavan, Thanu Padmanabhan, Ashoke Sen, Abhijit

 Vinayak Banerjee, and Upinder Singh in New Delhi on Monday by the vice presi-dent of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari.

Country’s best

GABRIEL MADWAY

SAN FRANCISCO

Jan. 4: ChipmakerFreescale SemiconductorInc is staking its claim onthe tablet computer mar-ket, an emerging productcategory that will gener-ate plenty of interest in2010.

Although next-genera-tion tablet PCs arescarcely evident on themarket, the technologyworld is abuzz abouttheir potential, as AppleInc is expected to unveilits offering in 2010.

Freescale’s announce-ment comes ahead of thisweek’s Consumer Elec-tronics Show in LasVegas, where rival chip-makers are expected toshow off new so-calledsmartbooks, which aimto bridge the gap betweenlaptops and smartphones.

Privately held Freescaleunveiled its referencedesign for a 7-inch,touchscreen tablet run-ning on the company’slow-power ARM-basedprocessor and priced atless than $200.

The company said sucha device will be able torun either Google Inc’sAndroid mobile software

or Linux, with Wi-Fi and3G capability.

Although Freescaledeclined to name anypotential vendors for itstablet design, it saiddevices could hit retailshelves as soon as thissummer. The companyexpects to show proto-types at CES.

Freescale makes chipsfor a variety of products,including the automotivemarket. Its applicationprocessor is used in Ama-zon.com Inc’s Kindle.

Henri Richard, seniorvice president of salesand marketing forFreescale, called a smart-book tablet the “missinglink” between PCs andsmartphones.

“The PC has been stalein terms of its ability toinnovate. Smartphoneshave been makingprogress ... but they havelimitations,” he said.

Qualcomm Inc andNvidia Corp are alsoexpected to unveil smart-books based on theirchips at CES.

The devices will seek tobreak the world’s biggestchipmaker Intel’s stran-glehold on stripped-down, low-cost PCs.

— Reuters

City firm buildingthe future of books

Freescale aimsat tablet mart

Founder and chief executive of Impelsys Sameer Shariff (Left) and COO Nizar Jamal has plenty to smile about. In ashort time, publishers from more than 40 countries have signed up for the company’s online content deliveryplatform. — Satish B

Traditionalpublishersunderstood the

print business well

but had littleknowledge of the

electronic world.

Impelsys came outwith a content

delivery

infrastructure thatcan now push

books into multiple

devices, includingsmart phones and

the e-reader.

New Delhi, Jan 4: TheIndian video games industry— minuscule compared tothe evolved western markets— is poised to grow 49 percent to touch USD 830 mil-lion by 2012, when thecountry’s overall animationmarket will scale USD onebillion, says a report of soft-ware industry body Nass-com.

According to the 2008-09report of the IT-BPO indus-try body, the Indian anima-tion industry was worthUSD 494 million in 2008.Globally, it will grow to a

size of USD 100 billion atan annual growth rate of 10per cent by 2012.

The country’s gamingindustry was worth USD167 million in 2008. At theglobal level it is poised foran annual growth rate of 10.5 per cent to reach USD53.6 billion by 2012 fromUSD 21 billion in 2008, thereport added.

“Now, India doesn’t haveto depend on outsourcedprojects. In fact, domesticdemand pressure is con-stantly increasing and adearth of skilled animatorsis felt at times,”Maya Acad-emy of Advance Cinematics(MAAC) EDM Rahul Ebrolsaid.

He said the demand forcomputer gaming anima-tion, in addition to anima-tion alone, is increasing rap-

idly, which indicates that alarge number of expert com-puter animators will be

needed very soon.According to Ebrol the

Indian gaming and anima-tion industry has flourisheddespite the global downturn.There was neither mucheffect of the slowdown onthis industry nor cases of jobcuts,he added.

“In this context I can citethe example of a video game‘Call of Duty’, which shat-tered the records of themovie Harry Potter in thefirst few days of its release.

This game earned USD 550million in five days itself,”Ebrol said.

The present scenario sug-gests that there are goldendays ahead for this industryand India will become acenter for original anima-tion films, in addition tobeing one for outsourcing,he said.

India can be a large globalmarket for Panchtantra andother such legends, headded. — PTI 

India gaming can touch$830 million by 2012

 MCT