Catchflix February 22, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Movie Rental , 1 comment so farIf I compare it with Homeview.in, Catchflix site looks more mature. Thankfully, there is no foreign-family graphic anywhere and the look-and-feel overall is more slick.
Catchflix has been around since mid-2006 and serves Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai and Bhubneshwar currently. Their pricing model is a bit different (they call it ‘tranactional pricing’) in the sense that they do have due dates. Plans look cheap, but may turn out to be in the same ballpark as other online movie rentals. They charge 
Rs.99 per title rented and you need to return within 3 days (they do the drop-off/pickup). Membership is free and there are no deposit fees, it seems.
Homeview.in February 22, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Movie Rental , 1 comment so farI wish all Indian startups would stop writing “India’s #1 <whatever>” as a tagline. It’s stupid and inelegant since we all know that there are no polls to justify any ranking for websites in India. Heck, even in US it’s controversial, at the best.
Homeview.in is an online movie rental startup for Delhi and surrounding areas. Yes, they do claim to be “India’s #1 Movie Rental Company” in all their modesty. The website itself is nothing special, a bit amateur-ish. What irks me is the pseudo-global, almost mindless design decisions most startups make. The big graphic of non-Indian family smack in the middle of Homeview.in’s homepage is a great example. I don’t know what they think their target audience is. Obviously, they’ve never read about Homepage Design Guidelines in the field of usability.
The membership price is steep- Rs.999 per month (discounted a bit if you sign-up for 3 or 6 months). Also, you can only rent one title at a time, which is lame.
Seventymm February 22, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Movie Rental , 7commentsI thought the online movie rental market was a fantastic sign of internet arriving in India. I still think that is true, but didn’t expect the market to spawn so quickly.
I was myopic when I thought Seventymm™ and Madhouse.in were the only couple of startups in this area. Turns out that they are the only two funded startups in this area. Heck the total number of players is six, as of my last count (Check out all the Indian movie rental websites on our lists page)
Back to Seventymm. The site look slick, which is no surprise given the $7 million funding they got from Matrix Patrners last september. But digging around on the web, I found my enthusiasm for seventymm fading away. Thejo’s blog provided good details, you can read his post here, but I’ll summarize the biggest disappointments here:
- ‘No due date’ is not true- you need to return the movie in two weeks
- There are hidden, unadvertised fees that jack up the Rs.199 plan by Rs.2499
The ‘free’ trial, as one reader points out, is not free after all- you pay Rs.1000 refundable deposit + Rs.200 registration fee + Rs.199 for one month waiver.
Geez… Talk about overdoing concept arbitrage. They can cherry-pick the concepts that worked abroad, but massacre them when porting back to India. Wake up, Seventymm, before you blow all the $7 million away.
Proto.in February 18, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Organizations, Technology , add a commentProto.in is about Indian startups. It is the newly started event organized for startups to showcase their products and technologies. There is no final award/prize to be won (it’s not a competition, it’s a platform for display); the love and attention of media and VC’s is probably a reward in itself 
…
The first Proto was held in January this year with select 27 companies, and there are already talks of another in works. From what I could gather, companies needed to pay Rs.500 and investors Rs.25,000 for participating in it. Each company had 8-10 minutes for presenting their stuff, which surprises me- all that hoopla for 10 minutes each?
Proto is probably modeled after Demo (which has been around for last 16 years in US, basically the same theme) and is definitely a great step towards formalizing Indian startups scene.
Rajshri February 16, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Media Streaming , add a commentHere is a good example of a major film production company increasing their reach by incubating a digital media division. Rajshri Productions has been around since 1947; they are one of the major players in the Indian film production and distribution business, along with TV serials, short films and documentaries.
Rajshri is their official website, aimed at distributing their premium content to viewers worldwide. The site is very usable… looks simple and neat. The best aspect is that all the content is free
for online viewing. And its a sizable amount- around 130 full-length movies, numerous TV serials (like Malgudi Days, Mahabharat etc), songs, concert recordings and short films.
I really like their presentation. All content is well classified and show a rating, view count. The business model is very logical (at least to me)- they let you watch online for free, but to download and own it you need to pay $1.99 per serial episode and$4.99 per movie. Overall, a well-thought and promising venture.
Apollo Health Street February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , 104commentsThe Apollo Hospitals Group is the single largest private hospital group in Asia. HealthStreet is a healthcare service spinoff from Apollo, focusing on BPO and IT services in healthcare domain.
The BPO services is aimed at US customers. Of course, off shoring non-core health information management activities (medical transcription, coding, revenue cycle management and claims processing) is a big industry now.
The IT services are around development, implementation and QA/QC testing. They also have a Hospital Information System product called LIFELINE (only for sale in Asia). I wish they had list of current customers of LIFELINE. In-keeping with the growing premature craze of Telemedicine in India, they showcase MedIntegra, a suite of Telemedicine-related applications.
Note: As obvious from the comment avalanche below, there is some personal mud-slinging going on between some readers. It’s sad to see how anonymity will make people abuse their right to free speech. Please note that none of the comments below are approved or supported by us in any way (except the ones left by eIndia author himself).
Folks, please keep the discussion about AHSL products, not employees
Healthcare Solutions by CDAC February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , add a commentI’ve written about CDAC before. It’s primarily an R & D institution involved in the design, development and deployment of advanced Information Technology (IT) based solutions.
I was intrigued by the healthcare IT part of CDAC portfolio, which is why I’m writing a separate post about them. Seems like there are 3 overall solutions:
1. Sushrut: A Hospital Information System with an impressive list of functionalities. They advertise the following modules: Out-Patient Management, Investigations, Billing, Appointments, Operation Theatre, Blood Bank, In-Patient Management, Registration, Enquiry, Master Management, Central Sterile Services, Diet Kitchen, Bio-Medical Engineering, Central Stores, Pharmacy Management, Patient Medical Records.The software has been installed at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute (SGPGI) Lucknow, and Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital (GTB), Delhi.
2. Mercury: An integrated Telemedicine Solution that has an EMR, device connectivity features (scanners, cameras and direct interface with medical devices), a web interface, and even DICOM and HL7 support. There is not much info online, I wish I could see it in action somewhere to review it further.
3. AyuSoft: It’s a Decision Support System for AyurVeda. It converts the classical Ayurvedic texts into interactive knowledge repositories with supporting analytical tools. I think there is a need to digitize this traditional Indian science, and this sounds like a good step in that direction.
CDAC February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Governmental, Technology , add a commentThe story goes that in 1987, Indian government required a supercomputer for weather forecasting and was refused the sale of one by the US government. That led to the establishment of CDAC (Center for Advanced Computing) in 1988, with the mission of developing indigenous advanced computing products, solutions and services.
CDAC develops high-performance hardware as it’s legacy focus. Over the years, they have diversified into IT-based solutions for various industries (I’ve written about their Healthcare focused solutions here), IT training and government R&D projects in areas like Artificial Intelligence, Data modeling, Data warehousing etc.
Although they claim to an ‘independent’ scientific society, I figure they have tight dovetailing with the government based on projects and funding. They offer products and services for sale, and the government is probably their major customer. Check out their corporate presentation.
ITIH India February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Governmental, Healthcare, Technology , add a commentITIH stands for ‘IT Infrastructure for Health’. It is a recommendation report regarding the need, issues and state of Healthcare IT Infrastructure in India. ITIH was published by The Department of Information Technology (DIT) under the Ministry of Communications and IT (MOC).
The report proposes some standards for Telemedicine systems in India and addresses information needs of different stakeholders in the healthcare sector. It seems like a first step towards governmental action in the healthcare IT domain.
I’m curious as to why the immediate focus is on Telemedicine, even in these initial stages of healthcare IT discussion. Maybe the think-tanks in India see Telemedicine as the most applicable area. Or maybe it just sounds cool. But the truth is that there are so many other things with Medical Informatics that need to be seeded and reviewed at this early stage. Basic electronic medical record, master patient index, eprescribing are some of the more established (and researched) flavors of IT deployment in healthcare. Some of these are actually building blocks needed for Telemedicine concept to work.
DIT has also published another report recommending guidelines and standards for Telemedicine in India. Wonder why there is little talk about anything other than Telemedicine.
ShareVDO February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Media Streaming , add a commentAllright, here is the P2PTV entry for Indian content…
ShareVDO utilizes sopcast system for the streaming and you’ll need to install the software before use (find more about sopcast here). The redistribution of video streams over peer-to-peer connection has it’s adv/disadvantages, and you can read more about it here and here.
Basic membership (with all the pains of delayed buffering) is free, and there is a ‘premium’ membership for $17/month that sounds like an upgrade. I’m not enthusiastic about complicating my system with P2P software, so I didn’t try ShareVDO. But if you do, feel free to leave a comment about your experience.