Aussie technology win with Indian IT giant

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 28 May 2009 09:00

IT Industry - Deals

An Australian company – ContentKeeper Technologies - has beaten the Indians on their home patch, winning a major deal with Indian services giant, Tata Communications.

Canberra-based ContentKeeper has signed a partnership deal to distribute its web filtering solution to enterprises in the sub-continent.

In an announcement today, Austrade New Delhi-based senior trade commissioner, Peter Linford, described the win as a “breakthrough partnership deal” which he said underscored the strength of the Australian ICT industry.

“This is the first time an Australian internet security solution provider has entered the Indian market on such a scale. India has become a hub for information technology to the world, and Tata Communications has a global footprint in the industry. It is a great achievement for an Australian SME to secure such a significant partnership with a world leader in the field.”

Linford said Tata was the largest provider of international long distance, enterprise data and internet services in India, a country with over 100 million internet users.

ContentKeeper’s head of sales & marketing, Manish Kumar said ContentKeeper and Tata Communications would jointly deliver the high-speed web filtering solution to Tata’s SME customers via the company’s web portals.

“The web security solution will allow Indian businesses to define and enforce internet usage policies, monitor, manage and control staff internet activity, and secure their networks against web-based threats. Delivered as a managed service, the product will take the strain off corporate IT infrastructure and free up important resources for other business functions.”

According to Kumar, Indian SMEs generally rely on their internet service provider for IT security, and the alliance had given the company access to the entire SME market in India – a segment that was previously difficult for the company to reach.

Kumar said Austrade’s local knowledge had been invaluable to ContentKeeper’s expansion into the sub-continent.

Peter Linford said that the Indian SME market for IT products and services was estimated at $5.5 billion (INR 20,000 crore), and in 2006-07, there were over 12.8 million micro, small, and medium enterprises in the country.

“Despite the global downturn, the Indian ICT market is growing steadily with more Indian firms continuing to invest in IT hardware and software to improve productivity.

“A recent Gartner report said India’s domestic market for IT services is the fastest-growing in the Asia-Pacific, expected to reach US$11.8 billion by 2012. This means more opportunities for innovative Australian IT firms.”