It has already floated a subsidiary in the USA which, according to industry sources, could even be turned into the holding company at a later stage. The company is on the verge of drawing up a long-term growth plan which would also involve a serious attempt to take the company public with a listing in USA over next one year, said sources. However, it could not be learnt how much had been invested in setting up the US entity.

Presently, PentaMedia has marketing offices located in a few cities, including one near Hollywood in Los Angeles. The final gameplan will be chalked out by the former Silicon Graphics Asia-Pacific director of business development and marketing, Ashok Desai, who will be taking charge as PentaMedia Inc's chief executive in the US next week. Speaking to eFE, however, Desai refused to comment on the corporate plans, asserting that a full-fledged strategic plan was yet to be effected. He is relocating to Silicon Valley from Singapore where he will set up the subsidiary Continued on Page II company's headquarters. Desai, who headed SGI in India for four years since it set shop in the country, will report to PentaMedia chairman and managing director V Chandrasekaran.

The company is likely to set up research and development facilities in the USA, in addition to its Chennai facility, in partnership with other associate companies, according to sources. Software for games, entertainment, R&D and Broadband access are the key focus areas which have been identified by the company for major forays.

``We plan to double the revenues of PentaMedia within two years and create a long-term intrinsic value in the projects that the company is doing. We can provide total solutions, including hardware platforms, as a result of our relationship with hardware majors like SGI, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Apple,'' said Desai.

``If you are creating content for a game, there is no reason why it cannot be used for education, or entertainment or information. What I can say is that we would like to be able to re-purpose whatever content we have, or we may create in the future, for a variety of other purposes. Thus, we could look at joint R&D in graphics,'' according to Desai.

A number of hardware companies had been attracted to providing a platform for high-end graphics solutions, but few in the software side had ventured towards graphics, Desai felt. ``There is a need and possibility of a graphics operating system. The previous generation operating systems bring a lot of baggage we do not need. So we will work on creating such an OS which can make it possible to share our content across devices and media for different purposes. It can be managed and distributed by a joint venture,'' he added.

PentaMedia has a content creation tie-up with Digital Domain Inc of USA which is one of the largest full-service digital production studios in Los Angeles. It was founded by Scott Ross who has worked with George Lucas' Lucas Arts Entertainment Group and Industrial Light & Magic, the two top special-effects giants.