Canadian firm ties up with IonIdea

MKS, a Canada-based company providing products for enterprise technology management, on Tuesday announced the establishment of a partnership with IonIdea for selling their Enterprise Software Configuration Management (ESCM) product in the Indian market.

ESCM helps an enterprise with an internal IT department or software houses and keeps track of software project development, from inception to trial.

Announcing the same, Michael Harris, COO of MKS said, "Our major markets have been in the US and Europe. While looking for a third market for entry, it made sense to come to India. Especially since we have had some success with our earlier product offering."

MKS, which recorded a topline of around $35 million and has only recently broken even, launched their ESCM 'strategy' in 2001 and has so far have installed 36,000 seats of the same.

Their earlier product of MKS Toolkit has been available in India from 2000 and is credited with 100 customers, including HSBC, in the country.

Their entry into the country with the ESCM product is driven by the aim of not only opening more local players to the product but also to provide better service to existing customers who have deployed the product.

"We will offer support services and we are in talks for actual product development as well. We will sell the product through both our direct sales force as well as through channel partners. We currently have around eight in the country," said Brindala Ananthram, COO and president of IonIdea.

The company, which is into IT solutions, records revenues of $25 million with a profit margin of 25 per cent and employs 250 people in Bangalore with intentions of scaling up to 400 by mid-next year.