Surviving in the highly competitive server market and competing with big names like IBM and Sun is no easy task. But Pramati Technologies has done just that and lives to tell the tale. Stanley Glancy reports

According to Jay Raghavendra pullur, Pramati’s highly talented R&D team continues to remain its single greatest competitive advantage

A Gulliver in the land of the giant Brobdingnagians. Pramati Technologies has certainly more than proved a point by surviving against all odds in a market controlled by giants like IBM, BEA, Oracle and Sun. Based in Hyderabad, Pramati (Hindi for exceptional) has, true to its name, shown exceptional forbearance and perseverance by surviving in the tough Java application server market. Since its inception four years ago, Pramati has, as its founder and chief executive officer, Jay Raghavendra Pullur puts it, focused only on creating tools and servers that cleanly implement the J2EE (Java2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) standard.

According to IDC estimates, the application server market will be worth $11 billion by 2004.

Target market
Pramati’s chief objective right from the beginning has been to provide a low-cost alternative to the platforms offered by the likes of BEA and IBM. The target market segment has been small-to-medium enterprises. “Many customers need a great server and toolset, but they can’t afford to pay the exorbitant rates charged by the biggies for their platforms. We are targeting this segment,” explains Pullur.

According to Giga Group estimates, the worldwide application server market is worth $2.25 billion in 2002. Of this, the SME segment is expected to account for more than $200 million. Independent analysts also predict that this segment will continue to grow steadily at a rate of not less than 50 percent annually.

Says Pullur, “There is no space for three to four big companies in this niche. Prices have escalated to unaffordable heights. The intense competition among them will sooner or later drive out a few. This state of affairs has encouraged small and mid-segment business enterprises to turn to us for their application server needs, which makes it easier for smaller vendors like us.”

Pramati also sees an opportunity in large enterprises. Many of these organisations already have an application server in place. But some are on the look-out for a second application server, which will be able to handle the organisation’s rising computing requirements. These organisations need a server that is not only cheap but will also provide the same quality as that provided by the existing one, and will also pose no interoperability issues. This is where Pramati comes into the picture. Says Pullur, “We are targeting larger enterprises as a second application server provider. Since our solutions do not have any proprietary add-ons, many of these companies prefer us to the other players.”

The Indian market is also very important for Pramati. According to Pullur, the Indian market is worth $5 million at present and is seeing rapid growth. Pramati already boasts of names like Polaris, Orbitech, ICICI Bank and Ericsson India on its client list.

Strategy
One of Pramati’s key strategies has been to deliver excellent support. Says Pullur, “Most enterprises prefer us to the bigger vendors because we offer better support. Companies find it difficult to obtain support from the big vendors. We realised the importance of providing good support right from the start and have made it a policy to do so.”

Cost savings is another key feature provided by the company. This is also the main reason for customers preferring Pramati to bigger players. According to Pullur, Pramati’s products cost one-third less than competing products like BEA’s Weblogic or IBM’s WebSphere.

Pramati has adapted to changing market trends by making constant revisions related to its pricing strategy. Previously, when there were too many players in the market, the company played the time-to-market card. Says Pullur, “During the nineties, companies were willing to shell out any amount for products that would enable them to save time. This was expected to provide them with an advantage in the cut-throat market.” But today, total cost of ownership (TCO) is weighing heavily on the price-conscious customer’s mind. Sensing this change, the company has lowered the price of its product by a big margin in comparison to larger players.

Other than price, Pramati is also looking at strategic alliances to crack a market otherwise controlled by big names. Since it is playing the cost savings card, it is very important for Pramati to control expenditure, especially that related to marketing and advertising. While the J2EE brand ensures a ready market for its products, it still takes some effort to convince major software vendors to bundle Pramati’s application server with their products. Succeeding in this, according to Pullur, will not only help Pramati in reducing marketing costs, but also in penetrating bigger markets without incurring any extra expenditure.

With this game plan in mind, Pramati has already tied up with close to 120 partners in the past few months. The strategy has paid huge dividends for the company, with nearly a hundred customers acquired in less than six months.

Technology
Pramati has achieved distinction in the global application server market by being the first to market products based on new standards announced by the J2EE standards committee. The company also holds the distinction of having the third largest J2EE developer team in the world. Pramati is also a part of the J2EE standards body.

The company’s primary agenda right since inception was to develop a technical edge in a space dominated by globally-renowned products like Weblogic, WebSphere, iPlanet and Oracle9i. The strategy has paid off. Of the more than 50 US companies which were competing in this space around two years back, only a handful are left in the field. Also, according to Pullur, Pramati is the only Java licensee in the country. The company has now made it a policy to work ahead on the next standard. In fact, Pramati was the first to have products that adhere to the J2EE 1.3 standard. Achieving this was no easy task.

Pramati had to undergo a total of 15,100 tests from Sun to get this certification, compared to only 5,600 tests which they endured for the J2EE 1.2 certification. According to Pullur, these certifications have proved beneficial to Pramati as they were able to develop around 30 products based on the J2EE 1.2 standard, and have already developed close to six products based on the J2EE 1.3 standard.

The company offers end-to-end J2EE support, including development tools, management tools and deployment tools. “Our products can be used in all e-commerce, e-governance and e-business solutions. We have J2EE-based products for every single space that you can think of,” says Pullur.

Products
Pramati’s flagship products include Pramati Server 3.0 and Studio 3.0, which not only provide features comparable to that of BEA and IBM servers and tools, but also come with visual guides, which speed up and simplify enterprise software development. Pramati Server 3.0, which was launched in March this year, is, according to Pullur, the industry’s first application server to achieve J2EE 1.3 compatibility. Pramati Studio 3.0 is targeted at developers who need an integrated development environment (IDE) for building J2EE applications.

Pramati Server 3.0 was built with the J2EE standard in mind, and no proprietary code has been added. It includes all the latest features for advanced Java software development. It carries a high-performance Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 2.0 container, and provides all other expected features for an industrial-grade server, including load balancing, failover and hot deployment, as well as remote monitoring via a Web-based console.

Pramati Studio 3.0 provides distributed development teams with a set of intuitive and intelligent tools that reduce the time and cost of developing standard enterprise components. The product is application server agnostic, and supports direct deployment to several J2EE-compliant app servers, including the popular servers from BEA and Oracle, as well as its own Server 3.0, which is included to help with testing and debugging code.

Pramati Studio also features a unique migration tool that allows code created with it to be moved from one application server to another at the touch of a button.

Funding
Pramati has received two rounds of equity funding, totalling $6 million, from global investors till date. The first round of funding in 1999, ($1.4 million from Citibank), was used to develop a strong technological footprint. Thanks to this strategic investment, Pramati today claims to have a technological edge over competitors.

The company got its second round from Intel Capital and k1 Ventures. Pramati plans to use these funds to expand its international sales and marketing presence. The company also plans to add certain extra features to its existing range of products. Pramati has already added Web services to its application server product.

Application servers form a critical component of the Internet infrastructure and e-business architecture.

Companies like Intel are interested in Pramati since it has the ability to apply an application seamlessly across a variety of platforms.

Clientele
Pramati has already sold more than 200 licenses till date. Its client roster includes names like BaaN, SSI, Aditi, Majoris, NetKraft and Amtec. Orbitech (formerly Citicorp Software) has standardised on Pramati Studio for all its J2EE application development. BSNL uses a Pramati Server to offer mobile services, while ICICI Bank deploys its collections infrastructure for its personal finance division on a Pramati Server.

The company has clients spread across the globe, including the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Pramati’s marketing strategy is to spread into newer geographies, and it has already made forays into more than 20 countries. The company plans to increase its channel partners worldwide to over 1,000 by the end of this year. Pramati has also increased its dedicated support centres in the US and India, delivering 24x7 support to its customers across the globe. It will also be opening additional support centres in Asia-Pacific and Europe.

A highly talented R&D team continues to remain Pramati’s single greatest competitive advantage. The company could well serve as a model for the services-centric Indian IT industry.

Existing companies, which started off by body shopping can follow Pramati’s example and keep India’s best talent for themselves. Most Indian software companies create very little intellectual property. But with the services segment getting saturated, it is imperative that many more Pramatis blossom and achieve distinction as suppliers of world-class technology products and achieve distinction as suppliers of world-class technology products.

Pramati Studio features a unique migration tool that allows code created with it to be moved from one application server to another at the touch of a button
Exceptional milestones
April 1997	Jay Raghavendra and Vijaya Prasanna start Pramati technologies to build middleware server products
April 1998	Launch of Proton, a 100 percent pure Java Web app server
November 1998	Makes inroad into server-side programming, launches ProStudio
June 1999	Proton EJB Server/Studio launched at JavaOne, San Francisco
September 1999	Citibank stake backs faith in open standards
December 1999	Pramati Server and Studio signals full J2EE compliance at Java Business Expo, New York. Proton phased out
June 2000	Pramati moves into EJB 1.1 and adds server management console
October 2000	Turns on sales pressure, focuses on Studio retail and Server OEMs