Mumbai, July 19: In the Indian consumer electronics industry, the accent is now on `converging technologies'. Come October 2000, and Philips Speech Processing - part of the Philips Consumer Electronics Division - will be launching India's first voice portal in association with DSQworld.com, a major player in the Application Service Provider (ASP), portal and ISP business in India. According to Philips Consumer Electronics senior vice-president Rajeev Karwal, this speech interactive portal will enable individuals to get access to a host of information services via phone. ``The service, the first of its kind will enable people to get information like news, weather, sports and results, amongst others.This service will also enable secured stock trading,'' added Karwal. For the project, Philips Speech Processing will provide a complete speech processing platform, runtime licenses for the speech processing technology and consulting services. DSQworld.com will be the content aggregator, speech-enabled services provider and services developer.
DSQ World will act as a Philips Partner and the system integrator along with IBM, its local system integration partner. According to DSQworld.com chief operating officer C Mohan Ram, the company will be rolling out the service in Chennai first. ``After Chennai, we will introduce the service in 12 cities across the nation. By creating a voice-enabled service, we will enable customers, including mobile phone users, to access news and information,'' elaborates Ram.
In the second phase, the company has plans to introduce the service in 30 cities across the nation. As for the services charges, the company is still working out the amount, informs Ram. To create awareness for the new portal, the company has plans to adopt direct marketing technique first. ``We will initiate door-to-door demonstrations. We will also promote the portal through our dealer networks,'' informed DSQworld.com vice-president (sales & marketing) N Venkat.
As part of its marketing strategy, the company has plans to launch an aggressive print campaign across the nation.
..to start online ads from Aug 1
Philips India Limited will kick off its online advertising on August 1, 2000. For this the company has tied up with a host of dotcom companies which include Satyamonline, Yahoo.com, Jaldi.com, Mantra online and globalwonder.com, amongst other. As part of its online advertising plans, the company will display banners on these sites. ``You can also get access to philips.com through these sites,'' said Karwal. The online campaigns will be designed by Euro RSCG. According to Euro RSCG creative director Anjan Roy, the online campaign will be focused and personalised. ``Besides banners, we will be exploring innovative ways to exploit the Internet medium. The company also has plans to initiate e-commerce activities such as gift schemes targeted at NRIs,'' said Roy.
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