Building a high-technology product out of India: The Intelli-Fi way

Abstract

There has been a constant debate over the last decade as to whether the Indian information technology sector should continue to be driven by services revenue or should the firms actively pursue in building high-technology products. Dr Prashant Joshi, former lead researcher at AT&T Research and IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Centre, New York, while returning to India in 2002, conceptualized that someday, the world would witness massive deployment of WiFi networks and that these networks require active 24 × 7 management. He incubated his start-up in Bangalore, India, with a vision to build a WiFi secure management product suite for global markets. The case outlines the evolution of Intelli-Fi networks from a humble beginning to a strong network management firm with installed base all around the world. The case highlights the technical and managerial challenges of the firm and its entrepreneur founder in building a world class product.