The two sites will provide career counseling services through a link on a co-branded page, according to Mr Vinod Kumar Chand of Compassbox.com. Mr Kurt Venkatraman, CEO, Studentsguild.com who is based in Norway, said in an e-mail interview with the FE, "studentsguild.com plans to invest in excess of Rs 10 crore in India and has registered 25,000 users from all over the country. The cost of acquisition per user is Rs 175, and the revenue generation has commenced." The company's revenue streams comprise of fees for the online training and intranet-based training courses, which are available on the site as well as in the form of CDs, Digital Advantage (DA) Workshops for companies and the Education Delivery and Management Systems.

The DA Workshops enable companies to evolve online training programs. These workshops are conducted on a regular basis in the UK by Business Lab (www.businesslab.co.uk), and Business lab and studentsguild.com Pvt Ltd will jointly conduct seven of these workshops starting from December 4, according to Mr Venkatraman. The Education Delivery and Management Systems called Admin.sys comprises of open courses for students, wherein students can also answer tests online.

Mr Venkatraman said, "for the Indian companies this is available as an Application Service Provider version, if they do not want to make the initial investment in the software." Studentguild's future products include www.educatorsguild.com- a forum for educators and www.worldcurriculum.com- a repository of online courses. The company expects to break even by 2001 end, according to Mr Venkatraman.