Srini Rajam - Madurai personality found Ittiam Systems - Inflight entertainer

Very proud to see such personalities from Madurai - Madurai Machan!

Till early last decade, the only screen entertainment you had on an aircraft was a single channel of programmes. For the economy class passengers, a single screen was suspended along the aisle. However, in-flight entertainment has changed dramatically over the past few years. There are now screens for every seat, including in economy, and many airlines provide a large bouquet of movies, TV programmes, music and games to choose from. You can even forward, rewind and pause a programme, just as you do with a DVD player at home.

This change was a result, in part, of technologies developed by a small company in Bangalore called Ittiam Systems—founded a decade ago by Srini Rajam and four others who had left semiconductor company Texas Instruments with the idea of creating innovative software systems to put on top of chips.

Ittiam developed a video-on-demand technology and demonstrated it in early 2003. "In San Diego, US, we came across three or four aviation electronics companies working with different airlines. They found the technology interesting. We worked with them and got our first order from a company that had 50% of the in-flight entertainment market then," says Rajam.

The first to use Ittiam's system was Singapore Airlines. Rajam recalls that once, while he was flying the Singapore Airlines in early years, the system crashed. When the airhostess rebooted it, he was delighted to see the 'Developed by Ittiam' message on the screen. Rajam says the system does not crash anymore, and today about 80% of the aircraft in the world use Ittiam's solution.

Rajam, 50, grew up in Madurai, did a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Madurai University and then master's in computer science from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1984. He briefly worked with Wipro Systems as a software development engineer, and, in 1985, joined Texas Instruments. He was there for 15 years—the last five as the MD of its India operations. During the period, TI India grew to be the largest R&D centre for its parent in Asia.

In 2000, he quit TI and rented a business centre. He saw an opportunity for India in a segment that was till then dominated by a few North American firms. That segment was the space between the chip—from companies like Intel, TI, Qualcomm, Freescale—and the end device like a PC or a phone. Chips are built in such a way that you can programme them with software, allowing the end device to have multiple functions. Given India's strength in software, Rajam thought it would be possible to innovate in the space. The name Ittiam is an acronym for Rene Descartes's famous line, 'I Think, Therefore I Am'—the idea was to convey that the company's biggest advantage was its people and the intellectual property they create. Today the company has 38 US patents.

Ittiam focused on video solutions and early success came in portable media players, like mp3 devices. The solution enabled devices at sub-$200, when competition was about twice that price, and it had customers like Creative Technologies, Philips and Thomson. Ittiam also found markets in video security and automotive multimedia.

The company now has a big play in smartphones, particularly those based on Android. In 2010-11, some 8-10 million smartphones, or about 5% of the global market, will be running video player and video camcorder functions on Ittiam's multimedia engine. Rajam is unwilling to name his customers for confidentiality reasons.

Companies like Ittiam provide a time-to-market advantage to customers. Some like Sony keep their design in-house. But the trend is to use third parties for systems design. "For a customer, the normal design cycle time is 18-24 months. But that can be slashed by 50-70% if they can start with what we already have. Our offerings are like a pre-cooked meal. And this is why there are such rapid innovations in smartphones and tablets today," says Rajam.

Today, Ittiam faces competition within India from firms like Aricent, Tata Elxsi and Sasken. But Rajam is looking at newer avenues. He expects the video phone market to take off this year. He's looking at extending Ittiam's expertise to areas like graphics, which drive gaming, and 3D. "The opportunities are plenty," he says.

courtesy of t i m e s o f i n d i a