The Hindu : Front Page : Indians create `Windows' on the Web

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 17, 2007
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Indians create `Windows' on the Web

Anand Parthasarathy

Nivio helps one to create a full-fledged, but entirely virtual desktop of one's own

— Photo: Special Arrangement

VIRTUAL WEB WINDOW: CEO Sachin Duggal (in suit) and the team which created Nivio.

Bangalore: The Web is where it is all happening — or so we are told by Internet pundits. The applications that we use on our desktop or laptop personal computers will eventually all migrate to the Web, they say. Indeed, players such as Google already offer their users the ability to create and save documents and presentations entirely through a browser. But it's still something happening piece-meal and in driblets.

Now, a Delhi-based start-up, fuelled by the creative efforts of a dozen young Indian programmers, has boldly gone where no major player has gone before — and has just announced the "world's first Windows-based online desktop." It's called Nivio and helps one to create a full-fledged, but entirely virtual, desktop of one's own — on the Web.

What those who register for a trial of the beta or advanced prototype get is the full Windows XP look and feel; 5 gigabytes of storage, and all the standard desktop features such as file back-up, virus and spam protection. The free bundle of software tools includes the ``OpenOffice'' suite, the Outlook Express email tool and the Internet Explorer browser. Also on offer are Acrobat 8 reader, iTunes and Winamp players, Yahoo Messenger, and for ``Open'' software lovers: the choice of a Mozilla/Firefox browser and the Foxit Reader.

`People want to take their desktop with them, whereever they go — and thousands of them are students or budding professionals who can't afford, or can't be bothered, to carry their own laptops,'' explained Nivio founder-Chief Executive Sachin Duggal during a special telephonic briefing for The Hindu on Saturday. ``For them Nivio will be a neat solution.''

Blogs and IT-oriented web news pages in the last few days are full of references to Nivio and users' reaction has been very positive. The company is a recent spin-off from the Delhi -based SMX Corporation, which operates web hosting and allied services through sister concerns in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Mr. Duggal, who was formerly with Deutsche Bank — he was its youngest employee in the U.K. — is partnered in the Nivio effort by Iqbal Gandham, known here as the one who started Net4India, one of the first Internet service provider players in the 1990s.

After the free-use period that might extend to year-end, Nivio will be offered on a monthly subscription of Rs.399 — with a 50 per cent discount. ``It's a whole new way of personal computing — but we are confident that we will have a million users in India alone by 2010,'' says Mr. Duggal. The beta version can be accessed at www.nivio.com after a registration procedure.

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