As per the alliance signed between Aptech's managing director Ganesh Natarajan and SoftGenie's chief operating officer Ketan R Vanjara here recently, BconnectB would provide the domain, infrastructure and IT enabled services and SoftGenie, an integrated software solution provider, would provide `EnterpriseGenie' as a comprehensive ERP (enterprise resource planning) on an ASP basis to facilitate automation of all business operations of SMEs.

With this pact, Mr Natarajan said that BconnectB could now provide the SMEs with the same cost and competitive advantages which were earlier extended to bigger corporate houses. He expected 60 per cent of the Rs 10 crore business projected by BconnectB to go to SMEs next year.

"The heart of the applications," he said, "is the Web-based information exchange framework which provides a common platform for partners to transact business and collaborate. All a client has to do is to rent three e-software solutions over the Net to connect to suppliers, distributors and customers. The SMEs need not have to invest large sums of money to embrace the new world of Internet economy nor worry about their internal processes to meet the pressures created by the dynamics of e-economy."

BconnectB was incorporated in February and launched two months later as an Asia's first intelligent ASP (application service provider) to develop B2B and facilitate e-commerce in India.

Mr Vanjara expected that the client-base of SoftGenie might go up from 80 now to 2,000 SMEs by the next year. The company has developed several software products under brand names like HealthcareGenie and ConsultGenie. EnterpriseGenie is a multimodular for purchase, inventory, finance and accounts, costing, sales, production, planning, among others.