Satyam Infoway floats e-com subsidiary

CHENNAI: India's leading private Internet firm Satyam Infoway Ltd. said on

Tuesday it had launched a wholly-owned subsidiary, Satyam Webexchange Ltd., to

operate its entire range of e-commerce business-to-business (B2B) portals.

The new firm, which would operate the network of portals through its site, www.sifywebex.com,

will integrate four vertical industry portals — www.satyamplastics.com,

www.echem.com, www.autowebex.com

and www.teawebex.com - and three

horizontal portals.

The horizontal portals are www.seekandsource.com,

www.formsindia.com and www.firmseekindia.com.

"Our objective is to create and operate marketplaces for a range of

businesses and industries in India," a statement from the firm quoted

Satyam Webexchange president A V Ram Mohan as saying.

The firm said its portals were all transaction-enabled and would offer

businesses the benefit of several productivity enhancing features such as an

eProcurement engine, vendor and product cataloging and trading through auctions

and tendering.

Satyam added that it expected its Webexchange to cover more than 60 per cent

of Indian industries and businesses.

The firm's American Depositary Receipt closed trading on Monday at $6/12,

marginally up from the previous close of $6/02 on the Nasdaq.

It had touched a new lifetime low of $5/02 on November 30, while its calendar

2000 high was $113 on February 24.

Satyam Infoway is an affiliate of Indian computer services firm Satyam

Computer Services Ltd. and is one of three Indian companies listed on the

Nasdaq.

The firm currently has about 400,000 subscribers for its dial-up ISP service.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.