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Sabeer Bhatia shares his views on travel, Hotmail and plans
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Photo: V. Sudershan
Sitting pretty Sabeer Bhatia says culturally Indians are not risk-taking people
“Knowledge is all there on the Internet… it is all about thinking out of the box,” says the man largely responsible for turning post offices into parcel offices and working now to make travel a habit rather than a luxury.
Yes, it is Sabeer Bhatia, the man who founded Hotmail, making e-mail a reality. He was in Delhi recently to promote his online travel company Arzoo.com. “Our education system is partly responsible for the lack of ingenuity in this country. It tests the individual on the knowledge that already exists and doesn’t encourage the youth to collaborate and create something that never existed.”
From his personal experience, he adds: “Culturally, we are not risk-taking people. So when I created Hotmail allowing people to e-mail for free, to me it was a calculated risk, but not for my parents. I had left a cushy job at Apple. So I can say the risk taking capability is definitely not genetic.” That he went on to sell it to Microsoft reportedly for 400 million dollars is part of corporate folklore, used to inspire the young guns in the corporate world. “For long, business in India has been a family-owned thing. I believe this prevented the emergence of role models from the corporate world. We have had people from films, politics and sports inspiring generations but things are changing now. Companies are hiring CEOs from outside the family and we see common people establishing businesses and making a name in a lifetime. This has spurred youngsters to emulate corporate leaders.”
Explaining the Arzoo concept, Sabeer says travel is the emerging sector in the country. “I had a company by this name earlier so I stuck to the name. The word also has a great recall value in this country. Our technology enables sourcing of best prices for air travel and hotel reservations. We are the only international online travel company in the country and offer all currency modules. We have our office in the U.S. and soon we are going to be in the U.K. and Australia. If you are stranded in the U.S. you don’t need to call your Indian agent. We have a local office.”
Then Sabeer offers something called arzootable through which one can reserve a table at around 1,500 hotels and restaurants across the country. “These days there is so much rush at the eating joints so we thought of this option. We also provide suggestions on cuisine. Soon we are coming up with tickets for concerts and plays, reservation at salons and flower delivery service. The effort is to make it a complete concierge service on the lines of American Express.”
Sabeer points out that the Indian customer’s tendency to expect a voice at the other end has yet to go away. “That’s why we have kept the phone and sms options going. Also, lack of bandwidth is still an issue.”
Talking of infrastructure, Sabeer laments there are hardly any airports to the north of Delhi. “That’s why we started our operations from the South and now we are moving North with an office in Amritsar to tap whatever air traffic is there.”
On the recent rise in rupee value vis-a-vis the dollar, Sabeer feels it’s good for the individuals, but not for the IT sector and exporters. “Their profit margins will be reduced.”
As for his other initiatives, Sabeer says his site, which provides the option of sending files of any size (even in giga bytes), is catching the imagination of the people. “Next in line is a free voice conferencing website.”
ANUJ KUMAR
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Metro Plus
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