Hotmail's Sabeer Bhatia to launch new online product

Nov 19, 2007, 17:30 GMT

Bangalore, Nov 19 (IANS) Hotmail.com co-founder Sabeer Bhatia said he would launch a new product in online space for mass use in Mumbai on Wednesday.

'It will be a global launch. The product has the potential to surpass the success of even Hotmail. About 100 technologists have been working on the product for months at a start-up in Bangalore,' Bhatia told reporters on the sidelines of a Nasscom function here Monday.

Declining to specify the investment made in the product development, Bhatia said it would be positioned in the growing online space, which has an estimated market size of about $20 billion per annum.

Earlier, delivering the keynote address at the Nasscom product conclave, Bhatia said there was no hard and fast rule for innovation to take place and it could begin informally even with an idea.

'Innovation many a time happens informally, even over a coffee table,' Bhatia told entrepreneurs, setting aside a popular notion that innovations take place at serious business meetings or conclaves of researchers and round-table conferences.

Recalling his own tryst with Hotmail.com, Bhatia said innovation did not require a large workforce and could happen with a few individuals thinking over a solution.

'For instance, i-Pod was conceived as an idea by a group of five bright people. Many a time, great products are those that are developed by a start-up,' Bhatia recalled.

Advising participants not to be disappointed by failures and risks involved in such projects, Bhatia said it was common to see nine out of 10 products failing in the Silicon Valley before one clicked.

'Don't be afraid of taking risks because behind every successful product there could be many failures, as evident from the history of product development in the Silicon Valley,' Bhatia said, asserting that a single success story could turn the tide.

'We need to see a few breakthroughs in this space as it happened in the Silicon Valley,' he added.

An innovative product must be one that addresses a genuine problem and offers an effective solution to the world market, Bhatia said narrating the success of Hotmail.com.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service