With the launch of e-Speak platform for e-services, Hewlett Packard hascatapulted itself to the forefront of e-volution. The company projects theplatform as an essential part of development and intelligent interaction ofe-services. "Every access is a service to some one or other," says the manresponsible for the development of e-speak, Rajiv Gupta, at present chieftechnologist of e-services and general manager of e-speak operations at HP.Gupta, an expert in processors, algorithm, business model and system design,holds more than 30 patents in these fields and was the technical lead onHP-Intel EPIC/IA 64 architecture. He spoke to P Sreevalsan Menon of TheFinancial Express during the recent HP Developer conference atBangalore. Excerpts:Can you briefly explain the concept, e-speak?
This is an open, standards-based platform for the creating, managing andaccessing Internet-based services. It is compatible with most of thesoftware and hardware platforms and devices and we look forward to anenvironment with limitless freedom to access across various technologies. Weare focussing on e-services like brokering, mediation, discovery andcomposition. I feel that e-speak is ready to do what Web has done to dataaccess. We have seen how HTTP and HTML have created the data access arevolution over the Web and now languages like XML and protocols like WAPwill take over.
You mentioned few services being offered under e-speak. Can you explainfurther?
E-speak actually solves key issues like brokering, discovery, mediation andcomposition. In brokering, we will have free trade zones, accessing whichthe customer can get the best service he needs. For the software developers,we have tried to reduce the amount of code they will have to write to pulltogether different applications. On the discovery, e-speak enables thebroker functions to swiftly find appropriate bidders for requested servicesfrom the huge volumes of information available.In mediation, the e-servicescustomers can figure out the best and suitable people and the best deals.Composition allows one to create the best new e-service from the existingservices through a mix and match mode. Since the architecture is already inplace, inter-operating the existing with the new ones will be at ease.
Where do you stand technologically?
E-speak services can be developed using any good programming language suchas Java. Jini, as I said earlier, is another complementary technology, muchclose to e-speak platform, but does not provide any services. However, Jinican be integrated into the e-services. E-speak also provides support for XMLand Microsoft BizTalk.
What are your expectations from the launch?
Our revenue will depend on the number of infrastructure developmentdeploying e-speak. There is a huge market for e-speak enabled componentsmarket. Ever since we released e-speak last December, there were 10,000downloads. HP has targeted $1 billion from the e-speak by the next two yearsand expects a $500 million in revenue for the current year. We haveconfirmed orders worth around $300 million.It took the Internet nearly 17years to develop. E-speak will spread in two years.
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