With
the intention to support its service development platform (SDP), top
integrated telecom services provider Bharti Airtel has roped in about
100 companies such as Infosys, Indiagames, Mobile2Win, Versa,
Symbiotic, Pyro, Hungama and OnMobile amongst others.

Bharti along with IBM had invested around $100 million over the last
two years to build up this platform (SDP), which has now become fully
operational.

Bharti’s SDP is claimed to be the first-of-its-kind in India.

The main objective to come up with such a SDP is to allow these
100-plus companies to develop and provide services related to content,
messaging and applications to all Airtel subscribers across services
including mobile, landline, broadband services or DTH service.

Mr. Jai Menon, Bharti Airtel’s director, technology and customer
service, said that the company expects to sign up more than 1000
companies from India as well as abroad by next two years (2010).

Mr. Menon explained, “Any company that develops Value Added Service
(VAS) or interactive application can plug their solutions into the SDP.
For these companies, the time to market is reduced significantly — by
up to 90%. They can now offer their products and services to Airtel
customers in such a short time.”

Moreover, the company has also appointed IT giant Infosys to develop
and offer interactive services for its ambitious DTH services.

“Infosys will plug into to the SDP to offer all interactive
applications to our DTH customers — this deal marks the last leg of the
SDP platform,” Mr Menon added.

Mr. Sanjay Kapoor, Bharti Airtel’s president (mobility), said that the
service development platform (SDP) could help the company uniquely
channel ads to its 80 million customers.

“For instance, if a customer were to download a song, he will get ads
on his mobile screen that are related to it. Similarly, the SDP keeps
tracks of all his preferences and therefore the ads will be very
specific. We can go down minute details such as ads that are specific
to the customer’s geography, the time of the day etc,” Mr. Kapoor
explained.

On the venture capital (VC) front, Bharti Airtel, during last month,
declared a $44 million venture funding through its "Airtel innovation
fund".

The company expects the fund to boost the areas of content and technology in the telecom space.