NetD ready to launch office-in-a-box

BANGALORE: US start up, Net Devices (NetD) is all set to globally launch its first product from its stable either by the end of this year or early next year. Christened NetD SG 8, the office-in-a-box product is being beta tested in the market.

The Sunnyvale, California based company plans to cash in on the business gateway market, estimated to be in the size of $1.2 billion globally, by capturing 10 to 15 percent of the market share in the first year of launch. According to market research In-Stat MDR, the market for business gateway products and services is projected to grow to $16.6 billion by 2008.

Founded by ex-Cisco executives, the company kick started its operations with an investment of $15 - 20 million from venture capitalists and expects to be cash flow positive by next year. The product, which integrates routers, switches, firewall and VPN in to a single product now, plans to include IDS, Anti Virus, VoIP and Storage too into the box.

"The product will bring down the cost by almost one third of the actual cost of purchasing each of the product. The return on investment for the product will also be high because cost is saved on implementation, maintenance and training other than space and power consumption, which are hidden costs that are saved. So subsequently, businesses will be saving a lot more," claims Uday Birje, Director-Marketing, NetD India.

Targeting enterprises and service providers, about 75 to 80 percent of the product has been developed in the India engineering center in Bangalore. The 60 people team at the moment in India is expected to grow up to 120 within the next 8 to 12 months. Other development centers of the company are located at Australia and US.