Effective and Efficient solutions from Extentia

Umeed Kothavala 
CEO
Extentia 
 

Extentia is a Pune based organization that develops mobile applications for Apple, Windows Phone, Android phones and Blackberry Platforms.  VARINDIA caught up with Umeed Kothavala, CEO, Extentia, to know more about the services and solutions offered by Extentia. Here are the excerpts….. 

How does Extentia Information Technologytry to revolutionize the Indian telecom scenario with its VAS offerings?

Extentia is a pioneer in mobile application development and in finding creative solutions and deployment opportunities around the technology. We've been providing development and consulting services around mobility for over four years and have coupled our expertise in web, design and infrastructure with mobility to offer the most valuable and comprehensive inputs possible. From the beginning we've worked to build mobile offerings that deliver genuine significant to customers and end-users. Our design and development teams are tasked with innovation – how best to leverage the mobile medium.

Typically our mobile applications mean convenience, originality, ease of use, and wide availability across platforms. We have developed several successful offerings for education, travel, e-commerce, utility, branding, enterprise mobility, catalogs, and productivity among others. Extentia counts several leading Indian and global brands as customers.

What kind of unique initiatives have you rolled out in the past 12 months? And how successful they have been?

We've introduced several innovative applications in 2012. The recent innovations from us include Itinerary management on mobile phones for travel agents and passengers; Mobile applications to showcase art, enabling the artist to reach a global audience; Mobile discount coupons that can be redeemed at establishments in the user's vicinity; Applications that allow a user to browse retail store catalogs on mobile devices; Learning and education content delivered and optimized for use on phones and tablets

What kind of revenue sharing model is there in the case of VAS?

We're always looking for creative ways to work with partners and customers. This will often include a revenue sharing model that can factor in product success, milestone accomplishment and the value of intellectual property different parties contribute. The objective of any such engagement is to align the interests of Extentia with our partners and to ensure that we're optimizing the process and route to deliver effective and efficient solutions to end users.

Do you think roll out of 3G and 4G would further catalyse the VAS offerings?

Yes, indeed. With better connectivity and speed, we're able to build new and exciting mobile services that offer even more value! High performance apps - especially that incorporate video and gaming - will benefit from 3G and 4G, and we're primed for this to happen. 

Is there a difference between the VAS for metros and rural part of the country? What are your views?

Yes, at this time there exists a difference between VAS for metros & rural parts across the country. The urban users usually demand and use more complex offerings like mobile applications for banking, trading, and utility. There's no doubt they are aware of what's on offer.

There needs to be more research on what the rural user wants, instead of just pushing VAS onto them. These users typically use basic VAS services like ring tones, and probably need more education on what is possible for them on mobile.

Internet access on mobile has great potential for these users, as many rural regions have poor net connectivity. In fact mobile internet use has grown faster in rural areas than urban. 

Also with more solutions integrating and depending on high-bandwidth content - just as video, education material, etc. - we have to be sensitive to the availability and access to bandwidth and what end-users are willing to pay for it. This does drive application architecture, platform choices and design.

Since you cater to different handset manufacturers, are the requirements different from vendor to vendor?

Yes. It depends on the mobile platform used by the device manufacturer, and the capabilities of the phone. We advise device makers accordingly.

For iOS (iPhones), we're able to offer a more standardized set of features and innovate from them, given our knowledge what is possible on the platform. Likewise for Android and Windows Phone, we're able to leverage unique attributes of these platforms. 

for more details :
mohini@varindia.com