'You can either serve your company or the markets'

Phillip Terry Ragon, better known as Terry, admits that InterSystems, a technology solutions' provider, has been a late entrant in India and faces a tougher market. He reasons: "I was a little scared to make the decision to come to India. I do not want to be a moth who flew too close to the fire."

Ever since he founded InterSystems Corporation in 1978, this physics graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has gradually led the company to prominence in the database and integration markets.

However, even after 27 years, InterSystems seems to be virtually unknown in the database world -- besides its sphere of dedicated, loyal users and partners and those seeking specific database technology characteristics supported by InterSystems flagship product Caché.

The president and CEO of InterSystems wants this perception to change. He is now ready to sweat it out in India. A firm believer in managing his business on his terms and conditions, Terry seems to be getting restless being a name that's taken after Microsoft and Oracle.

Touted by IDC as one of the best kept secrets in the DBMS world, Terry's 'baby' is itching to grow up and challenge the biggies.

Terry was in India last fortnight. Priyanka Joshi caught up with him on his plans to expand the DBMS presence in India and slice a pretty share for his company in the Indian market.

That you are late in coming, is a known fact. Tell us, what will be the business strategy for InterSystems to make up for the time lost?

In India, InterSystems took off six months back even though we were in India for the last two to three years. Yes, we are new and our beginnings are humble. Why are we small? We chose not to be a sales and marketing driven company like our competitors Microsoft and Oracle. Why? We don't have to worry about market cap, shareholders and numbers.

We don't have to sacrifice long-term projects to scramble up short-term gains for the markets. We have no intention of going public in the near future. After 27 years in this business, I would say that InterSystems has done quite well for a privately-owned company.

We expect to do $180 million worth business this year and that's a neat figure. My opinion is that it's hard to serve two masters in a business; you can either serve your company or the markets. And I believe in serving the first one.

Primarily, your focus and thrust in India would be on...

We will continue our joint venture with MTech India, with whom we have been associated for the last three years. They are our license distributors in India. InterSystems will also look closely for acquisitions and partners to spread itself in India.

InterSystems has offices across 22 countries but employs a relatively smaller number of employees. We have around 500 employees worldwide and this is because we want our partners to grow our business. In India we are expanding our presence and building a network of developers and independent software vendors.

India is contributing a small share today, with the US market dominating InterSystems' cash books. We are not going to make money in the first few years. We have to introduce our products Cachè and Ensemble in India, create a few projects and get people talking about them.

More than 75 per cent of our business is selling to application partners, who develop applications based on our DBMS platforms. We have four such application partners in India and will have a couple more by next year.

Which segments figure on your target list?

Healthcare segment has been the major contributor to InterSystems' revenues. In India, sectors like the oil and gas, telecom and financial services are on our lists too. Our clients in India include names like the Escorts Heart Institute and Amity Group. Here, we have seen our database systems work wonders with the client applications.

As far as visibility is concerned, our products are the bricks on which the software applications are structured. So we are not really visible to the end user. Hence application partners are only way out. Unless they start talking about us, we will not do well.

We are looking at distributing 4,000 licenses in two years, so that greater number of applications are designed around Cachè. The untapped market for us is the software integration, and Ensemblè should help us reach.

What does the global database and enterprise integration market look like?

The worldwide database management systems software market saw a double-digit growth in 2004. According to Gartner, the five-year forecast calls for a compound annual growth rate of 6.6 per cent, bringing the market to $13.2 billion in new license revenue by 2009.

Enterprises are now looking at standardising DBMS vendors and products to streamline their operations.

Innovations in the database world are largely focused around high availability, scalability and reliability, with data security emerging as an important aspect for many enterprises. Especially for those storing sensitive data related to customer information such as social security information, credit card numbers and others.

For InterSystems, the potential lies in the embedded database system. We embed the database in the application which can, then, be deployed as a single unified programme that is functional, efficient, and self-contained. I see a great scope for embedded database in segments like healthcare, BPOs and technology services providers.

We intend to launch a product within two years, built on Ensemblè. Cachè is still in its early years and we are in no rush to replace it.

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