Entevo Corp makes a big splash

They intend to become the biggest and baddest' players in the market. Amir Hudda and Prashant Vishwanath, ideally, could have remained c...

They intend to become the biggest and baddest8217; players in the market. Amir Hudda and Prashant Vishwanath, ideally, could have remained content inching their way up the corporate ladder at SecureWare and Microsoft in the United States. But they could not resist the challenge of breaking out on their own and making it big. And how? Their NRI owned company Entevo Corporation today, is not only competing effectively in US and Europe, but has become a leading directory management solutions provider.

Entevo, in fact, is the first and only provider of cross-platform directory management solutions based on Microsoft8217;s Active Directory.

8220;Actually, we just got together and decided to something back in India and especially Pune since we belong here,8221; Prashant Vishwanath, co-founder of Entevo Corporation says. The duo got in touch with Dr Ashok Joshi who has over 25 years of experience in software and hardware and urged him to look after the infrastructure here and the Pune facility was established in 1995.

Hudda had taken a loan on his house and gathered 50,000 and kickstarted operations with the help of some contacts at Microsoft in 1993 at Arlington, USA.

8220;We did a lot of work in security and directories. We soon raised venture capital to the tune of 7.2 million and later decided to concentrate on directories,8221; Vishwanath explained. The company soon began to provide robust solutions for managing enterprise directories the basis for e-commerce and systems management applications and extranet applications.

Today, the company has offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Virginia and the UK. More offices are in the pipeline in Germany, France, Italy and Japan later this year.

But the Indian operations remain significant to the company which plans to pump around 1 million this year to attract top management talent.

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Following projections for a double-digit growth for directory servers over the next four years, Entevo developed DirectManage8217; product suite, the only comprehensive integrated directory management solution for enterprises before, during and after Windows 2000. According to Vishwanath, DirectManage offers today8217;s enterprise reduced cost of ownership with simplified systems administration and investment protection with a standards-based architecture. The product also dramatically reduces the planning, training and transition time required for the implementation of Microsoft8217;s forthcoming Windows 2000 and Active Directory.

8220;What is unique about the product is that it is a virtual directory solution to administer large NT systems, complete with role-based delegation, searching and reporting and script-based exchange,8221; Vishwanath explained.

Entevo8217;s Indian export earnings stand at Rs. 4.26 crore during 1998-99 with investment to the tune of Rs. 10 crore and the current net worth at Rs. 3.18 crore.

Dr Joshi and his team intend to double the current head count over the next 18 months from the present head count of 80 people. 8220; We are targeting very large corporations with 10,000 to 20,000 computers,8221; Vishwanath said.

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Entevo has major plans three years hence. The company not only has plans to double its turnover and export earnings, but also grow key marketplace relationships with enterprise vendors 8211; SAP, Cisco, Anderson and KPMG. 8220;We intend to make it big and target specific segments like telecommunications, finance, health sector and posts,8221; he said. From here, Entevo has only one way to go 8211; obviously become one of the biggest software corporations in the world.