Interviews

FTK to Appoint National Distributor for Retail

FTK Technologies

Neeloy Roy Chowdhury, VP (Marketing and Sales), FTK Technologiesin an interview with Kapil Mudholkarthrows light on the company’s India plans and channel importanceExcerpts…

What are your immediate India plans?

FTK’s vision is to bridge the digital divide, and bring computers and the Internet closer to the average Indian who may not be very comfortable in English. In India, there are approximately 300 million potential users who are more comfortable in their mother tongues rather than English, and would hence use computers and the Internet provided there is an easy-to-use local language interface.

These potential users are across the consumer, commercial, government and educational segments. The target of FTK is to capture 5-10 percent of this user base over the next few years.

We have already tied up with leading computer OEMs and Internet organizations, and are making inroads into the consumer and commercial segments. In the short to medium term, we shall appoint a national distributor (ND) for the retail segment, as well as intensify our efforts in the government and educational verticals.

Kindly brief us more on your products for the Indian market?

Our flagship product ‘LooKeys’ is the most comprehensive and user-friendly Indian languages Word processing tool; this enables a user to do basic computing applications such as document creation, emails, chatting, etc. in 10 Indian languages. This provides an easy-to-use visual and dynamic interface to the user, hence enabling the users to easily adapt to the technology without any training or orientation.

We have invested more than $15 million in R&D, and we hold two global patents: For our unique predictive virtual keyboard and the other for our Image processing technology.

LooKeys flagship is available in two versions: Standard (without webcam and simulated hands feature) and Professional (with webcam and simulated hands feature)

You recently partnered with HP for ‘Compaq My Bhasha’. Are any more such partnerships in the pipeline?

We are proud of our association with HP. The co-branded ‘Compaq MyBhasha’ software is a very useful tool and value-addition for the Compaq Presario 2000 desktop users, who are now able to send emails, chat, surf the Internet and create documents in their own language.

As mentioned before, we are looking at appointing a ND; besides this, we shall also be appointing partners for our engagements in the state government and educational verticals.

How do you see the role of channel partners in taking your products to the end-users?

The channel partners have a very important role in taking ‘LooKeys’ to the end-users; and the channel partners of our OEMs are already doing a commendable job for the end-users who are buying new computers and Internet connections.

Now in the retail market and especially those end-users who already have computers and Internet connections, the ND and its channel shall have a pivotal role to play. We along with our ND and its channel plan to cover the top 15 cities initially and then shall expand the activities thereafter. And we are targeting consumer, commercial, education, defense and government segments in India. We also plan to have some special rewards and recognition programmes for our esteemed channel partners.

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