AK INTERVIEWS Interviews: September 2004

Saturday, September 18, 2004

"Technology comes before we expect it"

By Aditya Kuber

In conversation with Ajit Edlabadkar, Country Manager - India, Wind River on embedded technology and its future

What segments do you primarily cater to?
We are catering primarily to five major markets that include Telecom, easily our biggest, Aerospace and Defence, digital consumer market, industrial automation and the automotive market. Our clients are the biggest names in their respective fields such as GE, ABB, Cisco, Alcatel, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Sony, Bose and many others.

What is your India set-up like?
We have two centres in India - Bangalore and Pune. While both the centres development centres, the Bangalore office also looks after sales for the India and SAARC regions.

What are your expansion plans?
We will be adding more people to both the centres but will not increase geographic presence. We don't want to be too scattered and make it difficult to manage. We will be investing significantly in development. The global investment of $70 million would be made by Red Hat and us jointly. Of this, about $5-6 million would be for India.

How has the company performance been so far?
In the last financial year (year ended January 04), we touched $ 205 million in turnover. This year, we are expecting to touch $ 250 million. We have a client base of 120 in India and almost 4,000 globally.

What are the possibilities of embedded technology?
The possibilities are endless... some have already become a reality. While some of the applications are more for luxury and comfort, others are more a necessity. Technology comes upon us before we expect it. In future, almost all devices will have a hard drive and have multiple applications. Something like what Wipro is doing on an experimental basis using RFID (Radio Frequency ID) is also very interesting. You could even walk into a store with a cash card and buy whatever you want and walk out without having to stand in line for a bill. The amount will simply be deducted from the card when you walk out of the store.

What are the new software you have launched?
We have just announced the Wind River Workbench 2.0, an integrated development environment (IDE) that supports end-to-end device software development process. We are also announcing our strategic shift to Linux. As embedded Linux matures, the realm of possibilities for embedded OS will only grow.

What are the applications in use in India already?
We will be installing anti-collision devices on all trains in India. These have been tried out on the railways in Konkan Rail. They alert the driver of an approaching train, signal or station and if there is no acknowledgement from the driver, it takes action and stops the train in time to avoid any untoward event.

As published in The Herald, Pune.(c) The Herald.

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