India has arrived, says Sabeer Bhatia

India has arrived on the global scene and there is tremendous respect for Indian talent in the United States now, the computer industry whizkid Sabeer Bhatia said.

Bhatia, who started hotmail.com, is currently working on a project on cellular telephony and plans to launch that in the next 2-3 months.

"I am looking at the confluence of Internet and cellular telephony and hope my 20-member team and I will be successful", he told PTI after inaugurating the eastern wing of his alma mater, St Josephs European Boys High School in Bangalore.

"We will expand this project to Bangalore, but not right now," Bhatia said.

Navin Communications, his Mumbai-based company, had already been supplying voice mail to telecom operators like Spice Telecom, BPL and RPG Cellular, he said.

The failure of his other venture, arzoo.com, had not deterred him at all, Bhatia said.

"I was not able to hire the best quality team for arzoo. In fact, it has been a very good lesson. I have learnt that you must start with a small but right team, test the product ideas and then venture into something big."

Asked to comment on his being named by Massachussets Institute of Technology as one of the contributors to technology in the next decade, he said, "I cannot say what I will do in the next 10 years. I am exploring one idea at a time, basically in the realm of cellular world."