Atul Ramchandra, Vice President, Explocity.
Overall cost of our project has been greatly reduced because of the scalability and flexibility of the
Mahiti system. We are able to add new cities and shops at no extra cost, and minimal effort. In
retrospect, after comparing what we spent on Mahiti, with what other websites claimed to have spent
on their development, Mahiti has been up to 10 times cheaper.
Explocity.com is an aggregation of city centric portals that provide
the ultimate city experience. Covering 7 cities in India with the
recent addition of New York. The site covers, broadly, City News, City
Listings, City Events and City Movies. With journalists, info, sales
and event teams in fully functional offices in Delhi, Mumbai,
Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata, explocity.com offers
in-depth local city news, detailed info listings, and up-to-date events
section. Apart from this we also provide astrology, discussion forums,
city pictures, guides, features and election results. Explocity.com is
funded by Newscorp and ICF.
We have started hosting city retail stores online, such as sadhwanis.com,pallonimagees.com,candystoreonline.com, habitatmusic.com, and analyzeyourwriting.com, to name a few.
For the last 2 years we have been using Mahiti as our technology providers.
Mahiti started by building our website from scratch as per spec document, and has implemented all subsequent improvements, features and changes to date.
We have been using their extremely effective open source content management system - Knowledge Manager. The advantages have been multiple
We have direct and complete control over our web site content. 10 graphic designers, 18 reporters, 4sub-editors, 6 senior editors, and 6 information managers across 5 cities update the web site, on continuing basis, using simple web forms.
These people are not required to have any HTML or programming skills. There is no technical layer between edit and uploads.
Our technical personnel are free for developing new technologies with Mahiti
We are able to update and edit the site content, at any time, and from any location. For example, a story can be written in Calcutta, edited in Delhi, images added from Bangalore, and final modification done from New York, where the managing editor happens to be. This whole process can happen in a few minutes.
As an illustration, during the kidnap saga of a prominent Kannada film actor, stories were being uploaded every 3-4 minutes at times. This rapid response was the main factor for Explocity being recognised for its timely news.
During a classical dance festival in a village outside Bangalore, we uploaded new stories with video files using a dial-up line at the village as and when each recital ended.
Overall cost of our project has been greatly reduced because of the scalability and flexibility of the Mahiti system. We are able to add new cities and shops at no extra cost, and minimal effort. In retrospect, after comparing what we spent on Mahiti, with what other websites claimed to have spent on their development, Mahiti has been up to 10 times cheaper.
Mahiti (in particular Sunil Abraham and S.R. Sreekant), have between them an amazing breadth and depth of knowledge on the technology of the Internet, and computers in general. Their areas of expertise range from hardware/networking issues to programming and security analysis.
They have also keen insight into the mind of the Internet user, and have helped us in many design and business decisions regarding the site. They have the ability to absorb new areas of technology with minimal exposure. By the same token they are able to analytically examine any new technology, and quickly assess its usefulness for the company.
Even their predictions on the trends and directions of Internet users, and technology have been on the mark.
As our CTO, Mahiti has been able to advise us on various technology purchase decisions that have saved the company lakhs of rupees over the last 2 years. This has left us in a strong financial position at a time when a lot of companies in this space are retrenching staff, and cutting back on key business activities.
Mahiti have been very responsive to all our needs, and have provided valuable inputs across the companys activities. Programmers, who join them as freshmen, are selected through rigorous testing. The work is hard, the pay average, and yet programmers feel privileged to have worked at Mahiti. We have seen these promising youngsters mature into levelheaded, thinking software professionals.
Atul Ramchandra [atul@explocity.com]
Vice President
Explocity Private Limited
24 Rest House Crescent, Bangalore 560001
Phone: +91-80-509-1801/2/3/4/5/6
Fax: +91-80-558-1063
web: www.explocity.com
We have started hosting city retail stores online, such as sadhwanis.com,pallonimagees.com,candystoreonline.com, habitatmusic.com, and analyzeyourwriting.com, to name a few.
For the last 2 years we have been using Mahiti as our technology providers.
Mahiti started by building our website from scratch as per spec document, and has implemented all subsequent improvements, features and changes to date.
We have been using their extremely effective open source content management system - Knowledge Manager. The advantages have been multiple
We have direct and complete control over our web site content. 10 graphic designers, 18 reporters, 4sub-editors, 6 senior editors, and 6 information managers across 5 cities update the web site, on continuing basis, using simple web forms.
These people are not required to have any HTML or programming skills. There is no technical layer between edit and uploads.
Our technical personnel are free for developing new technologies with Mahiti
We are able to update and edit the site content, at any time, and from any location. For example, a story can be written in Calcutta, edited in Delhi, images added from Bangalore, and final modification done from New York, where the managing editor happens to be. This whole process can happen in a few minutes.
As an illustration, during the kidnap saga of a prominent Kannada film actor, stories were being uploaded every 3-4 minutes at times. This rapid response was the main factor for Explocity being recognised for its timely news.
During a classical dance festival in a village outside Bangalore, we uploaded new stories with video files using a dial-up line at the village as and when each recital ended.
Overall cost of our project has been greatly reduced because of the scalability and flexibility of the Mahiti system. We are able to add new cities and shops at no extra cost, and minimal effort. In retrospect, after comparing what we spent on Mahiti, with what other websites claimed to have spent on their development, Mahiti has been up to 10 times cheaper.
Mahiti (in particular Sunil Abraham and S.R. Sreekant), have between them an amazing breadth and depth of knowledge on the technology of the Internet, and computers in general. Their areas of expertise range from hardware/networking issues to programming and security analysis.
They have also keen insight into the mind of the Internet user, and have helped us in many design and business decisions regarding the site. They have the ability to absorb new areas of technology with minimal exposure. By the same token they are able to analytically examine any new technology, and quickly assess its usefulness for the company.
Even their predictions on the trends and directions of Internet users, and technology have been on the mark.
As our CTO, Mahiti has been able to advise us on various technology purchase decisions that have saved the company lakhs of rupees over the last 2 years. This has left us in a strong financial position at a time when a lot of companies in this space are retrenching staff, and cutting back on key business activities.
Mahiti have been very responsive to all our needs, and have provided valuable inputs across the companys activities. Programmers, who join them as freshmen, are selected through rigorous testing. The work is hard, the pay average, and yet programmers feel privileged to have worked at Mahiti. We have seen these promising youngsters mature into levelheaded, thinking software professionals.
Atul Ramchandra [atul@explocity.com]
Vice President
Explocity Private Limited
24 Rest House Crescent, Bangalore 560001
Phone: +91-80-509-1801/2/3/4/5/6
Fax: +91-80-558-1063
web: www.explocity.com
Last modified 2005-06-10 04:19 PM
Mahiti trains at Reliance Infosolutions
