The Hindu : Business : AOL extends cyber footprint over India

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Friday, Apr 27, 2007
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AOL extends cyber footprint over India

Anand Parthasarathy

Launches `in' website and offers unlimited email

BANGALORE: AOL (formerly America On Line) has finally extended its cyber footprintover India. On Wednesday, Ron Grant, President and Chief Operating Officer of AOL, flew in to Bangalore to launch its India-specific website — its first outside North America and Europe.

The site (www.aol.in) banks on live video-backed-news; large dollops of sports and Bollywood, city-specific resources — and a `Gurus' section, where leading Indian and international leaders can be accessed in the video lecture format.

Mr. Grant announced a free e-mail and messaging service for Indian users, which would leverage a next-generation, not yet released elsewhere mail tool. This will extend the mail features to mobile platforms. In a move that underlines how central India is to AOL's global expansion plans, the company has positioned Maneesh Dhir, its Executive Vice-President in charge of all international operations outside the U.S. in Bangalore. "He will be the first international head of a global online company to function out of India,'' Mr. Grant said. AOL, which handles over two billion instant messages worldwide every day and counts 67 million among its e-mail service users, sees India's burgeoning `connected population' — 45 million today and an expected 150 million by 2010 — as a `critical market opportunity.'

Many technology offerings of AOL, including a significant portion of the new email tool, have been crafted by engineers at its India development centre. "They are truly spectacular in all that they do... and partners and thought leaders in everything we do,'' Mr. Grant said, answering a question during his brief interaction with the media here.

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