So what is Remote Monitoring and Performance Reporting? (See RMPR Services article). Simply put, it is a service that a company can buy on a pay-and-use format, where the service provider installs a system of proactive monitoring of the health and efficiency of the IT network, thus reducing downtime and preventing snags. How did InteQ get into this? Seven years ago, Santhana Krishnan and Yash Shah quit Hewlett-Packard on the same day to join the flood of Internet entrepreneurs. “You will never be an entrepreneur as long as you are in a secure job,” says Yash Shah, himself from a business family in Gujarat. The duo are candid enough to admit that they didn’t know what they wanted to do at that time, except that they wanted to be in the Internet business. “I think we have managed to hold on to our basic four tenets: to be pervasive, to make money while we sleep, to leverage technology to automate and to build knowledge,” Santhana Krishnan reflects. Out of a 500 sq.ft., windowless office, InteQ began its history. Their first projects came from MIT Press and Bose Corporation. They made interactive CDs for MIT Press, converting a book on fluid mechanics into an interactive tutorial.

Why InteQ? “We started with Intech, and found many businesses of the same name. And the domain name was owned by an oil corporation in Texas,” rues Shah. InteQ was a judicious combination of Internet, Technology and Quality. “Some have commented that the “I” and “Q” follow the “H” and “P” of Hewlett-Packard. Some have even joked that we are about IQ. And we find truth in all these interpretations,” a proud Krishnan and Shah claim. While Krishnan took on projects in building messaging systems for corporates, Yash remained focused on IT management. “This eventually paid off,” says Krishnan. They moved on to help companies manage their IT systems, built a few InteQ branded softwares and leveraged on their core idea: systems management. Yash Shah came with the experience gained in IT management at Hewlett-Packard and TRW, while Santhana Krishnan brought in business management and software knowledge. “When we looked back in 1999, we were pleasantly surprised to see InteQ grown to a 25-people team and completely self-funded,” reminisces Krishnan. “We were a reliable team with clients like Hewlett-Packard and Bose, despite which companies like Remedy wouldn’t talk to us.” Eventually they did.

And in 1999 came the turning point. “We owe a lot to our mentor, Desh Deshpande, who led us through our expansion and business focus,” say Krishnan and Shah. The duo was keen to garner the data center markets. “Internet data centers are not as tough as corporate data centers, where you need to be reliable enough to be embedded in the corporate structure,” advises Shah. This market segment was still nascent and Krishnan and Shah saw the opportunity in it. The business on which they were speculating needed massive infrastructure and technology capabilities. When they came up with the final strategy roadmap, they found three venture capital companies’ offers on the table. “Choosing to go with the partner who shared our vision was a critical decision,” says Krishnan. They finally chose to partner with Charles Rivers and M/C Ventures, who they think had a long-term vision and could fully understand the business. And this was in spite of a lower valuation by both firms.

With a good dose of dollars ($15m first round) pumped in, InteQ wisely expanded its technology capabilities. “Anybody who walks through our 5000 sq.ft. NOC center will believe they are walking through the future,” says a proud Shah, who drives the infrastructure capabilities. “Our systems can seamlessly extract the best of products, independent of tools or vendors.” With many patented technologies like FusionLayer and MPOP in place, InteQ was propelled into the Internet boom. “Our first client was Ford Motor Co., and we also gathered in some dot-coms, and our close ties with Exodus brought in other clients, big and small,” Krishnan recollects. Some Fortune 50 clients, some mid-tier clients and some dot-coms evened out the plate. It was also time to restructure. While Krishnan and Shah still remain hands-on at InteQ, they felt it wise to recruit an experienced CEO. “We looked for someone who shared our vision and Maureen was an excellent fit.” Maureen Ellenberger came in with experience in start-ups and acquisitions.
How are they different? While the big giants walk in and take over entire operations for a client, including all of the client’s existing inefficiencies, InteQ offers selective outsourcing. “In any company, 60-70% of the budget is eaten up by IT operations. We see no reason why a team of DBAs should be occupying expensive real estate and business budgets, simply to maintain the system. The future is in outsourcing,” say the duo. And in this, they feel India will find its next wave.

As the name itself implies, RMPR could be the next big thing India is looking for. “The challenge is up to them. The knowledge base is there. The infrastructure is there. We’ll see how they take it on,” is Shah’s response. InteQ has so far been testing the Indian potential by strategic partnership, rather than investing in capital-heavy offshore facilities. “So far, India has been used to developing applications in virtual time frames. The U.S client will typically offload an application development that is only part of a major development, to the Indian company. And there was always sufficient time to get it right…not now. This is real time, with no space or time for mistakes.” RMPR, continues Shah, will bring the Indian industry closer to the U.S clients and consumers like never before. If the Indian markets tighten up their process and project management tools and hone communication skills there is no better market.

Krishnan feels that the future of InteQ lies in being proactive about the business, and not focusing on mundane activities. And thus InteQ will get closer to the consumer. So far, consumer tolerance has been fairly high, and it is only bound to shrink with time. And towards this end, InteQ has made sound investments in best practices. “The European market demands the IT Infrastructure Library familiarity. And we saw tremendous benefits in learning it,” says Shah.

InteQ has built in online tutorials for clients, employees and contractors alike, and in making the whole team familiar with the ITIL best practices, they manage to speak the same language. Best practices make InteQ become more sensitive to consumer needs, and they are able to handle expectations better. It is no longer individual-dependent, as the system takes over.

“We feel that an IT team should spend its time in development and not in maintenance. Isn’t that what they are hired for?” asks Krishnan. InteQ portals can help the client do just this. “It is not an easy task to be allowed to be embedded into the security loop of a company's system. But look at what we have done for Compaq." Erstwhile Compaq built on InteQ’s strengths and relies on InteQ for offering remote management to its customers who operate their systems 24x7. And what about competition? Gartner places InteQ along with publicly listed companies like NetSolve and Nuvo, where InteQ reportedly has a comprehensive service platform, capable of handling web, network and enterprise level infrastructures. The duo claims that its competition lies in the internal software team team and vendors within a company itself. Since it is not a sales-based job, the market is open to companies capable of handling mission-critical operations.

“This is not for small players,” declare Krishnan and Shah. “You need to be vastly superior in your infrastructure and technology, and build the business on reliability.” The RMPR market will develop on value-based pricing, feels the duo. “If a company were to invest their entire IT operations with you, you better deliver value. And your value is immediately questioned, if you enter into a price war. Will you compromise their systems and operations for a few dollars?” Many Indian companies don’t understand this value-based pricing, says Shah. InteQ has surprised many partners in India with their systems, operations and business ethics. “Eventually, customers will control the competition, based on their satisfaction levels,” claims Shah, “ and this business will not go the way of call centers or transcription. The risks are immeasurably high.”

The Compaq business will add about $30-50 million in the next three years to InteQ’s revenues. In a second round of funding, InteQ raised about $41m in May 2001. The move is to focus more on corporate data centers. They expect their business to evolve into a split: 20% from Web infrastructure management, 30% from Network infrastructure management, 50% from Server and application management.

And their future? “We focus on what we are good at. And that is systems management. Our tenet of being pervasive will hopefully drive us to become generic to this business,” says Krishnan. As they help CIOs and CTOs migrate to their system of operations, Krishna nand Shah are privy to how the markets are evolving. “As wireless and remote hotspots see their growth curve, we see potential in helping companies use our portals to become real-time proactive. That is our key benefit.”

A slew of awards grace their lobby, as InteQ is boldly moving towards its dream of delivering InteQ Insight.