Business

Saturday May 2, 2009

QubeConnect pitches against the big boys

By LEONG HUNG YEE


FOCUS ON SMEs

IN the beginning, Dinesh Nair typed in possible names for his company in the search box and pressed ‘Enter’.

After several attempts, he and his partner, Sin Hock Kian, found a name for their Internet Protocol (IP) telephony company, QubeConnect Sdn Bhd.

“We typed the name and there were no hits on Google! We knew straight away that QubeConnect will be the name of the company,” Dinesh tells StarBizWeek in an interview.

Today, when you type QubeConnect on Google, it is the first or among the top 10 hits on the search list.

Dinesh, the co-founder and chief technology officer of QubeConnect, says he and his partner are unconventional and very adaptable to changes.

Dinesh Nair ...Our products are like Lego blocks that you can build on

“Why do some companies hire professionals and pay them a lot to get an appropriate name for the company?” he asks.

Founded in July 2004, QubeConnect is a home-grown provider of IP-based telecommunication systems.

The company provides what it calls cost effective unified communication (UC) for clients, ranging from small offices and home offices (SoHo) to large organisations.

Dinesh says many technologies work on their own but they “don’t talk to each other”.

“If I’m having a communication problem, I am sure others are experiencing the problem as well,” the computer science graduate says.

“We used to fix problems for other people and after doing it for sometime, we realised that we had created our own technology and software. We took bits and pieces and came up with our own technology, QubeTalk (QT),” Dinesh says, adding that the company owns the copyright for its flagship technology.

The QT is an open-source technology that lowers communications costs. The platform allows for voice, data and image transmission.

Prior to setting up this business, the duo had worked on the technology for over eight years.

“Over the years, we have came up with A, B, C, D and we added others to make it complete for the UC platform.

“Communication has become a bedrock today. We think it will make a lot more sense by unifying communication tools,” he reckons.

QubeConnect started with RM100,000 as its start-up capital and two years later, two investors – Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd and LB Aluminium Bhd invested RM8mil in QubeConnect.

Over the years, the company have came up with other solutions to cater to different users. It will also be introducing new products in the near future.

Apart from new products, QubeConnect is also constantly updating and enhancing its software and technology. It has introduced the QT5 IP PBX (private business exchange) solution targeted at the SoHo market.

The QT5 can handle up to five concurrent calls and cater up to 20 users.

The company also has QT1000, QT20, QT50 and other technologies catering to different market segments.

“Our products are very cost effective. They are about 20% below market prices. While everyone is implementing cost-cutting measures during current economic times, we help customers to save costs,” Dinesh says. “Our products are open source and it’s like Lego blocks that you can build on. You do not need to throw away your hardware whenever you upgrade and it save costs”.

QubeConnect’s clients include the UEM group, Putrajaya Holdings Bhd and Bandaraya Holdings Bhd and it hopes to secure deals with some telecommunication companies in Malaysia.

The company has also embarked on a branding exercise recently.

“There is a need to start branding, as half the battle is done when people know who you are,” Dinesh says.

The MSC-status company, which has ventured to China, Indonesia and Thailand, plans to expand to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh going forward.

QubeConnect has also managed to beat big guys like Cisco and Alcatel in clinching contracts through open tenders.

In China, QubeConnect has three major telcommunication companies as clients – China Mobile, China Netcom and China Unicom.

The company has an office in Beijing and works with its partners in Thailand and Indonesia through representative offices.

“We will adopt a pragmatic approach in our business expansion. We do not want to spread ourselves too thin.

“We’ll set up an office in other countries when we can justify the growth. Meanwhile, we will continue to work with our partners and we are still looking for more partners,” Dinesh says.

The company’s revenue has been doubling every year with strong double-digit growth over the past four years, according to Dinesh.

“We’re still a small company. We hope to be more well-known,” he says, expressing hope that one day, people will say they want to have a company like QubeConnect.

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