US-based anti-spam and anti-phishing vendor Cloudmark announced its partnership with Synapse Communications, a Delhi-based customized software solutions provider, to make available its anti-spam and anti-phishing products in the Indian market.

Synapse will supply Cloudmark's products through its channel network and online via the Synapse portal.

Gary Iwatani, president and COO, Cloudmark, said, "The partnership with Synapse Communications extends our global reach and allows us to protect customers in the Indian market."

"The number, speed and complexity of spam attacks are rising, along with the costs to Indian organizations. Synapse Communications can now deliver anti-spam technology and related support services to the local market place. In order to propel user acceptance, Cloudmark products will be sold both offline through channels and online through the Synapse portal at discounted prices," said Shamit Khemka, CEO, Synapse Communications.

Cloudmark uses real-time intelligence of its network of users and apply human feedback for constantly morphing conditions of spam, phishing, as well as other messaging threats. The product comes in desktop, gateway and server versions.
Source: www.channeltimes.com

Cloudmark. Inc., a leading secure messaging solutions provider, will shortly introduce its anti-spam and anti-phishing products in the Indian market in partnership with New Delhi-based customised software solutions provider, Synapse Communications Pvt. Ltd. Synapse will supply Cloudmark's anti-spam and anti-phishing products through its channel network and online via the Synapse portal.

"In order to propel user acceptance, Cloudmark products will be sold both offline through channels and online through the Synapse portal at discounted prices," said Shamit Khemka, Chief Executive Officer, Synapse Communications Pvt. Ltd.

Announcing the tie-up, Gary Iwatani, president and COO, Cloudmark, said, "The partnership with Synapse Communications extends our global reach and allows us to protect customers in the Indian market."

A press release from Cloudmark states, "Cloudmark is the only company to fully harness the real-time intelligence of its network of users and apply human feedback to defeat the constantly morphing conditions of spam, phishing, as well as other messaging threats. Real-time and automated data feeds from the Cloudmark Collaborative Network of millions of users, results in the fastest possible detection of threats.
Source: www.domain-b.com

As the world goes belligerent 011 outsourcing, and big companies in India make money that would make traditional big ticket manufacturing outfits cringe, a diminutive company in New Delhi is quietly creating a small revolution. It is earning projects from across the world-not by sending project and account managers on whirl-wind US trips, not by advertising on prominent online sites, and not by having a huge staff on it business development team.

It relies on the old faithful the World Wide Web for procuring new projects and earning money in dollars.

At last count, Synapse Communications, the company in question, had earned nearly $85,000 through overseas projects using a Web service called elance.com, a Web site that launched in 1999, and is today an acknowledged leader in the Services Procurement and Management market.

In English, this means that you, as an individual or a company, can bid for a project in various categories software, creative writing, photography, 3D graphics, image editing, Web site design, banner ads, logo design, the works. Think of any topic, and Elance Online allows you to place a project or bid for one.

Just about the right raw material you need to jumpstart your
earnings as an individual or as a professional outfit. Synapse Communications, for instance,has been a software development company for over eight years, but as Chief Operating Officer Kapil Gupta says, "Elance provided us with a focused plat-form. We have been growing at a rapid pace, and Elance Online has provided us
with good business opportunities."

Elance was set up by an IIT Bombay graduate Beerud Sheth in 1999, a year after two Harvard Business School scholars Thomas W Malone and Robert Laubacher published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled, "The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy."

Among other things, the article spoke about how "the devolution of large, permanent corporations into flexible, temporary networks of individuals" was already underway. They also wrote about how the Internet will lower business transaction costs, and how these lower costs will change the "economic equation." They bravely predicted that this kind of business will define work in the 21st century.

Based on this philosophy, Sheth (also a Massachusetts Institute of Technology postgrad-uate) and his Elance team created tl1eir first product the Elance Online Service Marketplace-in 1999. Ever since, it has been the link between thousands of business and service providers from all over the world.

It is not easy getting a project, though. For every assignment, there are likely to be several bidders, and the experience each time may not be a pleasant one. Says Gupta, "Getting projects on Elance Online is a mixed bag. Because the client is on the other side of the world, and we never meet, it does create issues at times."

The process, although seem Qingly easy, is not fixed; it varies from project to project, and most times you end up disappointed as the project may be awarded to someone else. Your experience at Elance itself counts, and it usually takes that one break-through to get you set.

Mr. Gupta says: "Each project and each client is different. There is no single way that can describe the steps from start to finish."

Not that Elance Online is the only site that caters to free-lancers from across the world. For software programmers and creative professionals, sites such as Guru.com and renta-coder.com have been around for ages. Guru.com, for instance, has a tie-up with remit2india.com where you can collect payments from clients abroad. Rentacoder is free, but is restricted to small projects that could be executed byindividual programmers. This is one reason why Synapse does not bid on rentacoder.com.

On Elance Online, the cost of bidding could be quite high, even if the returns over a period could be higher. Prices range from $12 (Rs 560) a month for writing and translation assign-ments to $1,195 (Rs 56,000) a year for soft-ware, technology, design and engineering categories. In addition, there is an 8.75 per cent service charge. Besides, even if the first wire transfer of funds is free, each incremental transaction would set you back by $10. This pricing mechanism allows Elance Online to keep the site free of any riffraff, although there are still some who do not honour their commitments.

Another problem, as Gupta points out, is that, Elance requires that payments be routed through them. "But Elance does not provide any guarantees since they simply act as a common meeting ground between the service providers and the buyers. About 40 per cent of payments on Elance result in defaults."

On the positive side, however, the site offers a well-defined selection of the most popular job categories-from photography to developing .Net applications. And since most of the work is done through the Net without any human interac-tion, it does not really matter how educated you are, or how big your company is, as long as your work is credible and is of the highest quality.

Indians, especially, love this site because western project managers tend to give big proj-ects to Indians, because they quote rates that are 50-70 per cent lower than their American counterparts for the same qual-ity of work, if not better. Sounds familiar? The outsourcing debate just got a new point.
Source: www.thinkdigit.com

Synapse Communications, a New Delhi based software services company, prides itself on providing just that. Founded in 2000, when other services companies already had a tremendous head start, the company went on to carve a niche for itself in a cluttered field.

Synapse develops innovative and creative products and services that provide total communication and information solutions. Among a plethora of services, web designing and programming, shared and dedicated hosting, e-commerce solutions, customized software applications, network security and internet telephony solutions are a few that the company excels in.

"For us, the core issue is to convince customers to let us help them. The solutions we provide are best in class and our roster of clients attest to this," says Shamit Khemka, chief executive officer of Synapse.

Synapse's forte lies in creating user-friendly applications for the web and the customer's desktop. The company provides a range of solutions that have won acclamations. But the star service is certainly the company's suite of e-commerce solutions. "Synapse offers its customers competitive, effective B2B & B2C solutions involving reduced transaction fees; real-time tracking of transactions; e-tailing of products; secure electronic transactions and the remote management of logistics," Khemka says.

And that is just one among a plethora of services the company provides. Says Alok Modi, a senior member of Synapse's advisory board. "We provide customized small to medium sized software solutions in areas like internet/intranet, desktop and client server architecture." The company also offers solutions in areas like Customer Relationship Management and supply chain management & Integrated Accounting Solutions. The company also provides consultancy and programming services that include business software analyzes, prototype development and database optimization.

The company is a member of the government body, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). This helps it leverage various export-import regulations the government has enacted to foster technology companies.

Having grown organically since inception in early 2000, Khemka is now looking to ramp up the company's U.S. operations. "We are looking at building a marketing team in the U.S. that will be able to highlight our record and our strengths," Khemka says. The company is on the lookout for 'bright young Indians who will be able to drive Synapse's growth in the U.S. market over the next few years.

And with clients like United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UNAIDS (United Nations program on AIDS) and Uniglobe, the company is on its way to doing just that. Uniglobe is the larges travel franchising company in the world. Synapse is involved in designing e-commerce solutions for the company. The project for Uniglobe is the beta testing phase. The company's current U.S. operations are solely targeted at state projects. "The small and medium sized projects, we handle out of Indian itself. But with a majority of our clients being based in either the U.S. or U.K.

When the Indian government legalized Internet telephony on April 1st, 2002, Synapse realized the immense potential for VOIP solutions, tailor made for the Indian environment. "We realized that Internet telephony with its low costs was likely to play an important role in telecommunications in India also. So Synapse introduced three solutions to market, "says Kapil Gupta, chief operating officer of Synapse. The company claims its VOIP solutions can save clients 80% when calling locations like the U.S. and U.K.

"Primarily, what we are trying to do is not just resell VOIP solutions but also integrate with our accounting systems etc. in order to provide more value for the customers," says chief operating officer Kapil Gupta. The catchword obviously is integration. "We started experimenting with creating customized solutions or customized add-ons to our clients. Now it is a standard part of many of our projects," he says.

Synapse's engineers work out of a 5000 square feet facility in India's capital city. The software park boasts 24-hour power backup, multiple redundant Internet leased lines and wireless Local Area Network that ensures that the projects can go ahead, uninterrupted. Synapse employs 60 personnel on a full time basis, with the average employee age 31 years and an average employee experience of 5 years.

As customers expect more than just a service provider and their development need increase in complexity, Synapse Communication is the one company that is well placed to provide effective solutions while retaining the cost-advantage that is paramount
in the industry.
Source: Siliconindia publication