Vercom India to market Gargantua, Starjet

Vercom India, a branch of US-based Vercom Software Inc, will market two electronic document management system (EDMS) solutions, Gargantua 5 and Starjet in India.

Garanguta 5, a product of France-based Siatel, is a document scanning, archiving and folder management software while Starjet is a document archiving and management software from another French company, APPIC.

The products are targeted at banks, insurance companies, public sector organisations, FMCGs, universities and other organisations facing challenges of managing voluminous documents.

Announcing the formal launch of these products here today, Asif Ahmed, managing director, Vercom Software Inc, said, "We expect to capture 15 per cent of the Indian document management software market in the coming 18 months."

Though the products have been launched in Hyderabad, 70 per cent of the market for them are expected in Mumbai, the financial centre of India.

An estimated Rs 200 crore Indian document management software market is already serviced by several other companies such as Documentum, FileNet, Staffware, Savvion, IBM, Lotus Domino, Handysoft, Hummingbird, Ultimus and Newgen. Vercom has exclusive market rights to market these products in USA, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar apart from India.

Siatel's export sales director, Jean Pierre who was present at the launch, said, "We are targeting sales of around $2.4 mn in the coming calender year through our product Gargantua."

Enthused by the performance of Siatel's product in the Gulf region, Vercom ventured to market the same in the Asian market, to start with in India, and plans to extend it further to the markets of Singapore and Hong Kong.

Vercom tied up with Siatel for marketing their products in the Middle East region about three-and-a-half months ago. Their first client is ABN Amro Bank. Mohammed Arief, director-product development, Vercom India, said that the product wouldl cost about $10,000 for a simple installation to anywhere up to $50,000 depending on the complex features to be installed and the magnitude of the network.

Vercom Software Inc opened a software development centre in Hyderabad five years ago and markets a similar document management solution, Primac targeted at the North American market. It achieved a turnover of $1.1 mn in the last calendar year and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian-based holding group, International Research and Marketing (IRME) with operations in the entire Middle East and Africa through its other division called Techno Plus.