PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

Global Reach
new promise for e-commerce, ubiquitous business applications,
and communications.
Bhatia and colleague Jack Smith spent nights and weekends developing
an Internet-based version of the database software program
Filemaker Pro. “The Internet had the same interface no matter
what kind of computer you were using,” Bhatia says. “We
looked at the simplicity of the point-and-click interface, and instinctively
felt it was going to be used by a lot more people.” As Bhatia
and Smith worked on the Javasoft database program, they became
increasingly frustrated with available email options—Bhatia
on a restricted Stanford system and Smith paying high charges to
America Online. So they developed their own, email network
(dubbed HoTMaiL, for email in an HTML format) and put it up on
the Web for free, under an advertising-driven model. Draper Fisher
Ventures contributed $300,000 to the startup. After six months,
Hotmail had 1 million subscribers. In December 1997, when
Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400 million, it had 11 million users.
Today it has 480 million.
Bhatia has since taken his basic philosophy a step further with
several startups:
Live Documents, a free Web-based service that replicates
via flash technology Microsoft Office word processing,
presentation, and spreadsheet applications
without using any Microsoft code;
Navin Communications, a Web-based voicemail provider;
Telixo.com, a service allowing users to upload and sync
contacts, notes and appointment calendars from their
computers to a remote handheld device via text
message prompts; and
SabseBolo.com, a free web-based teleconferencing service.
He characterizes the Indian market as having a pyramid-type
structure, with a minority of people at the top—India’s new rich and
emerging middle classes—with money and a taste for the latest
lifestyle trends and products, but who work long hours and have
very little free time in their day; and a majority at the bottom—
maids, drivers, laborers, farmers—with little money and more time.
“The only way to get mass adoption of technology in developing
countries,” he says, “is to make it free and generate revenue
through advertising or some other type of service, on the simple
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