Newspapers get into PDAs

HYDERABAD: Accessing news portals on a PDA is nothing new. But accessing news in the original print layout of a newspaper sounds novel. Hyderabad-based IT services and Solutions Company, Bodhtree Consulting's patent-pending product ePaper can be customized to access the print edition of respective newspapers in the original format not just on the user's PC but on a PDA too.

Bodhtree Consulting CEO Sanjiv Gupta said, "Our ePaper solution in many ways scores over the traditional news portals. While retaining the original pagination is one key aspect, this framework also gives additional impetus for advertisements in the form of multimedia ad's Shoshkele ads (animated ads that appear for a short duration and can be closed by the user anytime), geographic-based ads, URL-based ads, etc. On the other hand a news portal only supports banner ads."

Bodhtree's ePaper solution was commercially launched last September. "We haven't started business development for the product. But we are receiving good customer acceptance and this can be justified with the present number of customers we have in a span of six to eight months. Presently, we have around 20 customers spanning across the world and we foresee that by the end of 2005 we will have additional 20 to 25 customers. Also, internally we have decided that we will now go ahead with proper business development strategies to explore the market potential further," explains Gupta.

"This service on PDAs is primarily targeted at both domestic and overseas customers. It's because of the larger screen size than mobile handsets that we chose to customize the solution for PDAs. We are talking to various customers and we foresee that this would be extremely beneficial for people who are always on the move," said Gupta.