PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute
PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute
PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute
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Computing/Networking/Internet<br />
accelerate WAN and data center performance nationwide; the first project involved upgrading<br />
the website of online securities trading firm Sharekhan in August 2007.<br />
Juniper invested more than $200 million in India over 2005–07 and has committed another $400<br />
million through 2012. The company sees big opportunities for working with existing Tier 1 telecom<br />
customers on rollout of their 3G wireless networks, including network performance acceleration<br />
and security.<br />
Senior vice president for high-end security systems Michael Frendo, interviewed for this report in<br />
early 2008 before leaving Juniper, was instrumental in setting up the company’s captive operations<br />
as he had previously done for Cisco Systems. The objective at the time, he said, “was getting more<br />
hands, freeing people here to work on the next thing. We began giving the Indian engineers<br />
relatively mature products and teaching them to work with those; we went from an outsource<br />
model to a captive model.”<br />
Even though Juniper keeps its core technology close to home in Silicon Valley, half of the company’s<br />
India workforce of 1,250 in 2008 was composed of development engineers. “We’re not<br />
moving things to India,” Frendo explained, ”we’re creating things in India based on the skills and<br />
domain expertise the country offers.”<br />
Online auction site e<strong>Bay</strong> made its big push into India with the $50 million acquisition<br />
of Mumbai-based Internet marketplace Baazee.com in June 2004. Baazee delivered a<br />
million confirmed registered users to e<strong>Bay</strong> through a familiar localized portal selling<br />
cameras, music, phones, consumer electronics, fashion, home furnishings, toys, and travel. In<br />
return, e<strong>Bay</strong> provided Baazee with integrated global access for its Indian user base.<br />
Today, e<strong>Bay</strong> has doubled the number of regular users to about 2 million in 670 cities, with half<br />
of registered Indian sellers coming from small cities. The site has another 2.5 million unique<br />
visitors each month.<br />
e<strong>Bay</strong> fully integrated Baazee under the e<strong>Bay</strong> name in 2005. Although it had acquired online payment,<br />
clearance, and settlement firm PayPal in 2002 for the global portal, for the India market, it<br />
kept Baazee’s payment system PaisaPay, with its established banking relationships.<br />
e<strong>Bay</strong>’s India volumes have grown steadily. In 2005–06 Asia-Pacific traffic grew by 75%, with an<br />
item from India sold every nine minutes. A third of the sales were to international buyers, mainly<br />
from the U.S., UK, Singapore, Mexico, Canada, and Pakistan—for apparel, leather goods, collectibles,<br />
musical instruments, handicrafts, and jewelry. Fixed-price rather than auction items increased<br />
in popularity. In August 2008, the company reported an item sold every minute on the<br />
e<strong>Bay</strong> India website; the most popular product was jewelry, with an item selling every 7 minutes.<br />
Men aged 25–30 make up 75% of shoppers; men shop mostly for electronic gadgets, while<br />
women tend to shop for jewelry and apparel. Stamps, coins, and books are also among frequently<br />
sold items.<br />
e<strong>Bay</strong> Indian Motors, originally launched by Baazee in 2002, has emerged as a major online B2B<br />
secondary market for used trucks, buses, three-wheelers, and other commercial vehicles. By late<br />
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