Tentacle''s next version to roll out in a year

Pratima Harigunani

PUNE: Netpro Technologies, a solutions development and marketing company is working on future upgrades of its contact management and measurement product Tentacle along with new software migration tools.

The next version will be out in a year as the company works on strengthening its first in-house product while adding more customer acquisitions too. This would also be escorted by a scale-up in headcount to around 100 people in a year.

“Tentacle currently is a low level Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product meant for marketing promotion, for acquiring and managing new customers and we want to take it ahead to mid-sized CRM,” reveals T N Sundar, CMD Netpro Technologies. “We have recently started a R&D division for developing migration tools to enable transition from one platform to .Net environment,” he adds. These migration tools are slated to release in the first quarter of next year and would be accompanied by small software productivity tools.

Tentacle is the first offspring of company’s in-house product development strategy. Its current customer base includes Idea Cellular with 500 users, Tata AIG with 250 users while it is under implementation at Landmark Insurance.

At the same time, other key products in its stable, like Altiris and activePDF are in the phase-out mode. Sundar attributes lack of synergy as the reasons of ousting these products while he denies possibilities of more alliances.

“We won’t be looking at any more alliances at least for this year. Our focus will be on strengthening our presence in Business Intelligence (BI) and CRM.” Notably, Netpro has been an Altiris value added distributor since 2003 and was chosen as an Altiris Platinum partner last year besides being the exclusive national distributor for activePDF.

Meanwhile, he is upbeat about the rub-off that has come with the acquisition of Proclarity by Microsoft, “The product is going to be more strong and popular and we see many opportunities ahead in the BI space,” feels Sundar.

Brushing aside possibilities of moving beyond .Net he says, “At least for the next two years, we would prefer to acquire depth and build a critical mass rather than moving into too many technologies.” Netpro’s scope of business covers business solutions in applications, BI, ERP and CRM along with offshore software development work under its JV called GNet with GCI Systems, Minnesota. Proclarity and Navision are part of its marketing business that it does for Microsoft.

The company sees tremendous potential in the Rs 20 crore to Rs 200 crore mid-market segment. “It is an untapped area and growing fast as enterprises realize that until they turn IT savvy growth wouldn’t be easy,” Sundar explains. The company is expected to clock Rs 7 crore in revenue this year with plans to double its growth next year.

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