With just about 50 exhibitors, the Technology Centre at CAWorld Asia 2000 may seem poorly represented, but enquiries with exhibitors looking at Asia specific markets reveal that the convention-one of the first of its kind in Asia-is proving to be rather focussed. "We feel the response has been a lot more focussed here," says Mr Ranjit Dhuru, Chairman & CEO Aftek Infosys, one of the Indian exhibitors at the Technology Centre. "Unlike the previous exhibitions at New Orleans where we felt like a drop in the ocean, this has been much better. Seven out of 10 visitors have been potential customers, which is about five times more than what we see at New Orleans.''Aftek Infosys which provides a system for UPS management which sits on CA's Unicenter TNG has had institutional visitors ranging from the Chinese Postal Service to banking corporations. The Chinese market-particularly in telecom-appears to be poised for action and given the mobile phone user base of 65 million (India has about 3 million mobile phone users), it's a market that cannot be ignored according to exhibitors like Mr Kumar Dasgupta of Crossword Software, a company which creates billing and customer care software for telecom companies, apart from call centre products. "With the advent of Voice Over IP in China we expect the market to really open up to smaller players. There will be increased competition among resellers and given that VOIP is billed as a voice call, we see huge potential here."
The only hitch according to Dasgupta is the language factor wherein Chinese companies need all the front-end infrastructure to be re-programmed in Chinese. "We are looking for local partners to tide over this issue," says Mr Dasgupta. "We've seen excellent response for our products," comments Mr Manohar Bidaye, director, Zicom Electronic Systems which is in the business of making security hardware more intelligent. The company's clientele includes the likes of Hong Kong Bank and Stanchart in India. "Our products are new in China and we have no immediate competition, so basically we are trying to get all users of Unicenter TNG here to get onto our products as well, since our products sit on CA's system" explains Mr Bidaye.
Taking advantage of the focussed platform, Pandapremiums.com, a US-based promotional products sourcing and selling company has chosen to hold its sales launch at the convention. "The response is outstanding," says the Hong Kong-based Rob Glucksman, CEO, Pandapremiums, who plans to use the vast Chinese manufacturing base as a sourcing point for customers looking for promotional products the world over. In sum, the convention is proving to be an opportunity for IT and Internet players to get a first hand feel of a potentially huge market of China-both in terms of sales and sourcing.
The travel for this story was sponsored by Computer Associates
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.