While more than Rs 2 crore would be spent on marketing, the remaining wouldbe invested in expanding operations, says Expopoint.com's chief executiveofficer Gaurav Motwane. As part of the marketing plans, the company islooking at aggressive online marketing. It is in the process of sponsoring10 key words with the top 15 search engines like Yahoo, Excite, Lycos andSnap. Says Motwane: ``Offline advertising does not make sense for us. Ourbusiness is such that the organisers, advertisers and consumers are part ofthe Internet medium, it being a virtual trade show.''

Expopoint.com is ready with the technology part and is in the process oftailoring the pages to be seen as one of the top 10 results in any of thesearch engines. Eventually, it has plans to release banners in varioustradeshow portals too. The company recently signed a memorandum ofunderstanding with MIS Web in Singapore, a leading IT authority in the AsiaPacific region to set up and conduct 12 IT trade fairs.

Expopoint.com will play the role of providing technical infrastructure,design and development for these trade shows. About four virtual trade fairswhich will begin next month, comprise of datawarehousing, ERP and supplychain management, ecommerce and intranet/extranet. Each one will be a monthlong and will be repeated three times during the course of 2000.

The company plans to liaison with various trade organisers across the globe.For the purpose, it will open up offices in Singapore, United States and NewDelhi to start within the next five months. It has plans to set-up regionaloffices in trade hubs across the globe. Says Motwane: ``These offices willhelp in building trade and trade links with various organisations.''

The company is expecting a lot of mentoring from Infinity after offloadingsome part of its stake to Infinity for raising capital. Even as Motwanecontinues to hold a majority stake in Expopoint.com, Infinity is all set toappoint a chief technical officer, chief financial officer and chiefmarketing officer to oversee the operations. Says Motwane: ``We are veryhappy doing what we have been doing. Infinity will help us with back-endoperations and financial support.'' Earlier Expopoint.com had received itsfirst round of funding from a UK-based Angel Investor Club when it waslaunched in June 1998.

In the next one and half months, it is looking at Webcasting live a tradeshow on the Net. According to Motwane: ``It is already happening abroad butin India it will take some time due to lack of broadband access.''

At present, Expopoint lists over 10,000 trade fairs and a search can beconducted via various categories such as product, country, city or name ofthe trade fair. Very soon it will begin online registration forms,ticketing, buyer profiles, reviewing and critiquing.