Day 1 of IAMAI - Digital Summit 2006 in Mumbai

My colleague Manish Nakar and myself are attending this 2 day event addressed my luminiaries from the Indian E-commerce Industry at Hotel Grand Maratha in
Mumbai, organized by IAMAI.

Addressing the keynote session, Union Minister for Communication and
Information Technology, Mr. Dayanidhi Maran, asked MTNL and BSNL to link
cable networks of television viewers in Mumbai and Chennai with phone lines.

Speaking at the Digital Summit, Mr. Maran said, "I have asked MTNL and BSNL
to opt for IPTV. The cable network of the two metros will bE connected to the
phone lines very soon."

The Minister said that server farms of international standards will be set
up to enable Indian browser surf the net and browse through the content he
wants. The farms will be priced as per the international standards. A formal
announcement of the venture will be made in June 2006.

Mr. Maran also focused on the need to reduce the cost of personal computers.
He said "PCs should be made affordable and local. I have been nursing the
idea of floating an Indian language browser or translators in the English
language browsers.

He opined that the broadband operators will have to make products more
consumer friendly and said, "In India, the broadband is still hazy, the haze
has to be cleared soon. Give comfort to the user. Make him feel secure.
Develop more content as is the norm worldwide and the government will be a
policy making agency. Also, the broadband connectivity should be on an
always on available basis."

In an effort to take broadband usage to the rural areas, he said, "We will
set up 1000 kiosks and unite over 1100 villages in a honey comb format. None
of the villagers here will have to visit government office to get an update
of their land record or to get a death or birth certificate. It will also
give information on the local businesses and promote employment
opportunities on the site. These kiosks will contain local information."

On the occasion, Ms. Preeti Desai, President IAMAI said, "There is a lot of
action in the Internet market in India, proactive government support and
recurring online activities have driven more and more Indians to reach out to
the Internet regularly for online communication, online content and
ecommerce. What makes the Digital Summit unique is the participation of the
best known speakers from the industry and prominent figures from government,
banking and airline sectors."

Neville Taraporewalla, Chairman IAMAI, Director and Country General Manager,
Yahoo India felt that a conducive environment needs to be developed to
encourage online businesses and at the same time spread awareness to the
mediums' potential.

Mr. Shashi Kalathil, President, Broadband and Retail Business, VSNL said,
that the country is on the verge of a net explosion. Broadband will be
linked to an estimated 20 million people in the near future.

Snapshot of the sessions

Session 1 : The potential of Internet Access via Mobile

India could well over power its neighbors in the Asian continent in the
internet usage market over the next five years. Panelists at the potential
of Internet Access via mobile phone, the first session were of the view that
India would see a change in the number of net users over a mobile phone on
the next 12 or 18 months. Improved infrastructure and better operator
services will play a key role towards this goals achievement.

As Mr. Mohit Bhatnagar, VP, New Products Development and Strategic
Alliances, Airtel pointed our, "Telecommunications contributes 2.5 percent
of the total gross domestic product or GDP. This year though, the revenue
from mobile phones will surpass that from the land line network."

He added, "People accessed the internet for simplistic information in the
initial stages. But now the search has become more personal, e.g. ring tones
or wall papers, etc. The net is not only limited to the metros, but people
from B & C class towns are also using it."

Rajesh Sawhney, President Reliance Entertainment opined that the early 2007
will be a landmark era for the internet industry in India. He added "80
million people use mobile phones today. But the number of people using the
mobile phones will increase to 300 million by 2010."

Arun Gupta, COO, Mauj Telecom pointed out that the mobile phones have
enhanced internet enabled services like SMS and tele-votes since 2000-01. He
said, "Off the 50 million people using handsets, ten percent are capable of
browsing the net. Of this 10—15% actually browse a site. He also added that
in the next five years, 50% of the new handsets would be GPRS enabled."

CEO and Co-Founder, Onmobile Asia Pacific Pvt. Ltd. Arvind Rao spoke about
the use of speech as an interface to make people use net on the mobile
phone. Focusing on the need of a voice enabled programmed, he said, " It is
handset independent, network independent, user friendly, intuitive and self
learning."

Speakers on the panel agreed that on-line gaming was the favorite site
referred to by net users, followed by ring tones and information on
Bollywood and other entertainment sectors. They said that majority of them
did not indulge in online purchases due to apprehensions over the security
issue.

Session 2: Navigating Growth: The business opportunities of Broadband

Broadband will play a key role in the neat future for expansion of on-line
businesses.

Ajit Balakrishnan of Rediff moderated this session, one of the key debate addressed by Ajit was whether we should worry about Always On Connection at 56kbps, or worry about speed over 256kbps, 512 kbps. Most in the panel felt always on connection was more critical as that would allow users to spend more time on Internet, though quite a few also believed both was important to drive user experience, rich applications and commerce.

Lav Gupta, DDG, Broadband, BSNL, informed that the broadband is a value
chain between content owners, content managers, service providers, the
customer and the Government. The broadband is needed to expand opportunities
and generate revenues.

Mr. Amitabh Pandey, Group GM (IT Services), IRCTC, opined that e-commerce is
a real and profitable venture in India. Though the Railway online ticketing
was a bit slow to take off in 2002-2003, it increased to 76% in 2003-2004
and between 2005 and now it has increased 99%.

Head of Marketing, Reliance Web-World, Sunil Buch said the broadband has to
be fair so that it is safe for mothers, daughters and wives to safely roam
the web. The focus areas on the web these days are entertainment and games.

Mr. Sanjeev Bikchandani, CEO, Naukri.com focused on the need for a compelling content to attract net users. He also said that content should be in a language that is understood by the locals.

Sanjay Trehran, Head Broadband, Times Internet Ltd. Said, "The broadband
revolution took off in Korea because of gaming and localization. The largest
broadband users in the US are bored housewives. He added, "We need to
streamline the issues and protect the users by way of intellectual property
rights but nobody knows how to acquire those."

Mr. Madhivanan B, GM Retail Assets Products Group, ICICI Bank, stated that
broadband can be used in the form of new markets and new products to reach
rural or distant areas. Information highways would facilitate easy access
for bank transactions on broadband. The payment mechanism should be made
more transparent.

Anupam Mittal, Chairman and CEO, People Interactive (India ) Pvt. Ltd. Said
customer segmentation is a critical area. Opportunities should be evaluated
to be used according to the needs of these segments.

Expert Guest Session: Unleashing the retail Power of the Web

Mr G.R. Gopinath, M.D. Air Deccan asked the reason why people from backward
and parts areas of the country were never considered by the airline
industry. Mr Gopinath who pioneered low cost airline as well as on-line
ticketing in India said, "I wanted the mason, the carpenter, the primary
school teachers to fly. We did not print tickets, but invited people to book
them on-line. This cut the fees to be paid to travel agents and other such
fees. I have made optimum use of the Indian talent and the Indian context in
making my venture a successful one."

Session 3: Panel: State of the Indian Online Market: Where we are at, where
we are going? Where is the buying power?

Online Shopping is bound to increase manifold in the near future. According
to an estimate, online shopping that was pegged at Rs 430 crores upped to Rs
570 Crores in 2004-05- a jump of 124%. The turnover is further expected to
increase to Rs 1180 crores in 2005-06"

The fact that Mr. K Vaitheeswaran, COO, Fabmall.com compounded that Online shopping in India will touch a whooping Rs 1000 crore in 2007.

He said "Direct consumer interactivity , lower sales cost, higher margins
will drive top brands to start retail sales on their websites. Titanworld.com and Tanishq.in are two recent examples"

Ms Anupama Salvi, COO, Avenues.com informed that currently there are 4500 merchants online today. She said that the
relationship between the internet and commerce has passed its nascence, She felt that consumers are ready to buy, but merchants are not yet ready to sell.

Session 4: Leverage Search to Drive Retail Sales

With Searching one of the most popular internet activities, it is prudent
that entrepreneurs SME's and enterprises understand the searching and
shopping patterns of the online users and how effectively search can drive
sales to Online shops though converting them to buyers is another story. In
this session we will cover: What are e commerce search deployment options –
where the etail business is a multichannel or an emerging pure play
ecommerce site. How to measure the efficacy of a commerce search deployment?
What challenges business face when rolling out commerce search solutions?

Mr Krishna Prasad, head programming, MSN India said that on an average,
people speand 25 mins to get specifies they want. "We need to create
robustical system such that our search engines can be efficient," he added.

Session 5: Challenges facing E Commerce in India

Prominent companies that trade online in India are conspicuous by their
absence on the On-line trading scenario in India. The reason being lack of
education among the surfers and lack of interest on part of the companies to
market their products here.

Mr Amitabh Pandey, group General Manager (IT services), IRCTC Lamented, "
Credit card percentage sales has dropped from 74% to 61%"

Mr. Sunil Menon, Head Mobile & Wireless, Citibank informed that by and large
online transactions are unpathetic. Companies should keep a file of
registered users, who should be identifuied pre and post screening. For the
consumers, a wise word of caution ,'Ensure that you are entering a secure
site."

Mr Alok Suroji of Jet Airways, admitted that companies are facing the
problem of credibility even today.On a brighter note, he said" enough people
are seeing the web as an option." The major problem is that the distribution
system is off line and in air travel, it is difficulty to convince travel
agencies to co-operate. The biggest challenge is that online trading does
not have industrial consensus.

Shantanu Sirohi, Head Strategy & Planning, Media tuf added that a company's
delay in designing and implementing the product discourages buyers. Also,
there is a danger of disintermediation where the traditional channel may
feel excluded from the entire process. He said that solutions can be arrived
at for all the problems and that e-commerce should be promoted in a big way.

The second Day of the Summit focuses on *Online Advertising & Search* , and we will provide you with further updates.

About IAMAI

Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI, Formerly known as the
Internet and Online Association of India) is an industry trade organization
registered under the Societies Act, 1896 is dedicated to present a unified
voice to industry and Government. It specifically addresses the issues,
concerns and growth related to communication, content and commerce
pertaining to the internet and mobile medium. Its activities include
evaluating and recommending standards and practices, fielding research to
document the effectiveness of the Internet & wireless as interactive mediums
and educating the marketing & advertising industry about the use of
interactive advertising & e-commerce. Membership includes companies that are
actively engaged in, publishing, marketing, advertising using Internet &
Wireless as interactive mediums.

*For more information please visit the IAMAI web site at http://www.iamai.in
*