Interworld Commnet A Paradigm Shift from Web Designing to Mobile Application Date:   Friday , September 03, 2010 At a time when the Indian mobile phone market was still in its infancy, a man observed the increasing number of mobiles among people and foreseen the possibility of a lucrative market in mobile application development. Despite from being a non-technical background and without having a proper idea about what the market for mobile phones would be, this man decided to jump into the arena of mobile application development. What he had was only a belief that this market will grow and grow big. J K Menon, CEO of Interworld Commnet, a web development and mobile application development company, was working for a hardware company when internet came into India in 1996-97. JK, an entrepreneur from his heart, was so fascinated by the facilities provided by the internet that he decided to start a company on his own, and this is how Interworld Commnet came into existence. Although the company starts its journey as a web designing company, a distinctive shift in its focus was waiting for it. “The company was started in 1998 as a web designing company, doing couple other things into multimedia also. But at that point of time, the market was not ready for the multimedia services. It was a time when mobile phones in India were gaining momentum, and seeing it increasing in number, I knew that mobile phones were there to stay. So instead of sticking only to web application programming, we started web and mobile both in 2007. We never knew what would be the market for mobile, but the increasing number of mobile phones inspired us to go with it”, JK says, explaining the transformation of Interworld Commnet from web designing to mobile applications. After getting into the field of mobile applications, the company has developed various applications that are GPRS and 3G enabled. Today, a vast majority of people carry some kind of a smartphone that has an active GPRS connectivity. Seeing the GPRS phones on rise, Menon believes that their applications will gain traction too. “We recently launched our products DEALSFINGER, an application for the people who love to go around malls and do shopping. We already have tie-ups with different malls in Delhi, out of which Ansals are the top most. Since more and more people are opting for GPRS/Wi-Fi/3G enabled phones these days, I am sure that this is going to work at any case”, JK reveals. The Company today is almost on the verge of delivering mobile application that will help the mobile users to hook on to the mobile video streaming technology. “Using our technology any event management company will be able to stream their video over most of the mobile platform at much cheaper cost of what they currently are spending.” JK says, explaining the company’s strength that helps it maintain a competitive edge over its competitors. To survive in the market with a competitive edge, a company has to make more investments in its R&D to bring out key innovations. Most of the time, companies don’t have the required funding and the investment into R&D turns out to be a challenge for them. Interworld Commnet also faced the same problem at its initial stage and according to JK, it is the one which the company considers to be a challenge even now. “Research and development is something that needs more time and money. But once it is solved, then of course, it’s not a problem at all”, JK says. With an urge to deliver something to the humanity, the company does charity works also. “We support graduates, who want to get into engineering, but don’t have money to do it. We also support school children who cannot go to schools, by giving them uniforms, books and everything they want”, JK says, “When I started this company, my father told me that if you are working for yourself, you are earning money for yourself only. But if you open up a company, you are giving employment to other people also. These are the guidelines which are always there with me.” With a headcount of about 100 employees, Interworld Commnet is going to have its Asia Pacific office in Singapore in the next month in order to cater to the Asia Pacific market. In terms of partners, the company has presence in 26 countries, says Menon, explaining Interworld Commnet’s global presence.