Even Videocon, the market leader at one time, is bringing in brand innovations to excite the TV market and Internet-ready Television has been one of its responses. The first version was launched three months ago in some of the metro markets with a price tag of Rs 21,000. The company is now working on adding more features to the Internet TV to make Internet browsing on television a richer experience. Videocon is aiming sale of one lakh units for this TV.

Mr Anant Padmanabhan, managing director of Ygyan Consulting Private Limited and his team have been working behind the scenes for Videocon's Internet TV from their development facility in Pune. Ygyan implemented SAP at Videocon and has been the company's IT consultant for some time. Videocon assigned all the software development work for the Internet TV to Ygyan.The updated version Internet TV comes with higher memory and cable modem.

"This TV is not positioned as an alternative to the computer but is aimed at an audience that uses the net for e-mail and surfing," says Mr Padmanabhan.

The attempt is to extend entertainment from TV to the Net, Mr Padmanabhan adds. This calls for TV-specific portals for which Ygyan has developed the hellovol.com portal. The microprocessors for the TV has been sourced from Telecruz. The portal is at present being hosted by Asian Frontiers Pvt Ltd from Singapore but will soon be hosted out of Mumbai, where the Singapore-based company is setting up its new hosting facility.

Videocon has already tied up with Rediff for content and with Mantra as the ISP. Ygyan would be working on the interface between these partners and the television portal. The three-year-old Ygyan is also into enterprise solutions with core competence in ERP with a team of 120. It is also into customised software development, Internet/Intranet solutions and multimedia.

Mr Padmanabhan is talking to VC funds to raise a US $ one million to fund his foray into the US markets.