Acccording to Hari Balasubramaniam, chief operating officer and executive director UMIL, the company has plans to invest $ 15 million in the same 24-month cycle in the Internet services and software division. In the past nine months, UMIL already has invested $ 5 million in these areas.

The major markets for the company are the US, UK, Cananda, Germany, Japan, Australia and Singapore. The company already has a technical presence in all these markets. It is also looking at the West-European markets.

Positioning itself as a `solutions provider' the company also has plans to set up a competency centre. Working with over 120 professionals, the company therefore plans to hire 800 people by the year 2002.

According to Mr Balasubramaniam, the key areas focus area is development of applications which leverage the broadband opportunities. Bluetooth applications and developing mobile SIM tool kit in the telecom applications are the other interest areas.

In March this year. the board of directors of Usha Beltron Ltd (UBL) approved the reorganisation and reconstruction of the company by transferring its knowledge business to UMIL.

Earlier, speaking at the IT World/ Comdex India, Mr Balasubramaniam in his presentation on `Broadband services: How broad' cautioned that the proposed broadband explosion will not relay happen unless infrastructural bottlenecks and last mile connectivity issues are not sorted out. Enablers in the form of proactive government policies and reponsive service providers would go a long way in encouraging change, he added. The broadband revolution will not just increase the Internet usage but will put enormous pressure on the content providers and will also compel businesses to overhaul business models. This would not only add to the increase in mobile commerce, but would also lead a drive towards personalisation on the Net.