As it happens, he's around at the end of this century trying to make a hit with his e-service product, Talisma, to equip companies that are looking for gold on the Web.

Announcing the launch of the enterprise edition of Talisma (version 1.0 was aimed at small and mid-size companies), Singh said it offered e-mail management and web-support to companies that face large volumes of electronic customer service and support inquiries.

Drawing a parallel with Levi Strauss, he said Aditi was doing for e-businesses what the jeans-maker did for gold hunters in California.

With the arrival of the e-customer, companies have found the rules of customer service altered drastically. More customers globally expect a more responsive and faster service with the spread of the Web.

According to Forrester Research (quoted by Aditi), the customer e-service software segment is expected to grow from $11 million in 1997 to $658 million in 2002 --- doubling its market share to 18 per cent. While the earlier version of Talisma was limited up to 10 users (or seats), the Enterprise Edition can be accessed and used by hundreds of representatives across various locations.

Singh, who heads operations from US office, said at $3000 per seat (with options like connectors to integrate it with applications), the new version would ship on November 11 with five orders already in hand. Offering comprehensive workflow and customer interaction management, Talisma Enterprise allows quick deployment leveraging SQL server 7.0's scalability and reliability.