Evernote scouts for Indian tech partners
Silicon Valley start-up Evernote is scouting for partnerships in India as the notetaking app maker prepares to open its first office in its third fastest growing market after the US and China.
On his maiden India visit, Evernote chief strategy officer Ken Gullicksen told ET that the company is in talks with Indian software makers to forge strategic alliances.
"We are looking at increasing our investment in India," Gullicksen said. "We are doing a lot of research into looking at the best way to increase our investment in India." The company said it could follow its global model of telecom operator tie-ups in India along with partnerships with app developers. "In India, we are also looking at some non-conventional partnerships," Gullicksen told ET.
"We are working on a couple of ideas in India, which would be first launched in India and where people would be like 'oh wow we never thought of that'," he said.
In September last year, the company partnered with 3M to turn handwritten Post-It Notes into digital notes that can be saved, shared or viewed from anywhere.
Gullicksen said the company is looking at similar unconventional partnerships in India. Evernote already has OEM partnerships with Spice Mobile, Micromax and Panasonic in India. With this partnership, certain devices manufactured by these companies come bundled with three months free subscription of Evernote, which costs about $15.
The company has also partnered with Bangalore-based Innoz technology, which lets users access the web apps using just SMS and CloudMagic, a cloud-based offline search engine.
Evernote has over 25 lakh users in India and is adding about two lakh registered users every month.
In March 2013, there were only 10 lakh Indians using Evernote. Globally, the company has crossed 100 million users.
"A couple of years ago, there weren't that many smartphones in India and the ones that were in use were still not very good the screens were small, the performance was not very good. So, users were less likely to stick with Evernote as the experience wasn't that good," Gullicksen said.
Rapid growth of high performance smartphones coupled with affordable data plans in India has created a positive change for app development companies like Evernote, Gullicksen said.
"We are not focused on monetising in India at the moment," Gullicksen said.
"Right now, the only way you could pay for Evernote is with an international credit card. That thing alone pretty much says that we won't be able to monetise right now in India." The company would be looking at a tie-up with a local payment gateway to offer an option to pay through netbanking or debit card along with credit card in India.
Explaining why Evernote is relevant to today's knowledge workers, Gullicksen said, "Use of mobile devices, increased collaboration and remote working, and high web usage have changed the office work environment quite a bit and the 30-year-old office suite kind of definition no longer fits the way world works." "That's what has increased the opportunity for us to come and build something that is relevant for the environment today." "We are not focused on monetising in India at the moment," Gullicksen said. "Right now, the only way you could pay for Evernote is with an international credit card. That thing alone pretty much says that we won't be able to monetise right now in India."
The company would be looking at a tie-up with a local payment gateway to offer an option to pay through netbanking or debit card along with credit card in India.
Explaining why Evernote is relevant to today's knowledge workers, Gullicksen said, "Use of mobile devices, increased collaboration and remote working, and high web usage have changed the office work environment quite a bit and the 30-yearold office suite kind of definition no longer fits the way world works."
"That's what has increased the opportunity for us to come and build something that is relevant for the environment today."
Silicon Valley start-up Evernote is scouting for partnerships in India as the notetaking app maker prepares to open its first office in its third fastest growing market after the US and China.
On his maiden India visit, Evernote chief strategy officer Ken Gullicksen told ET that the company is in talks with Indian software makers to forge strategic alliances.
"We are looking at increasing our investment in India," Gullicksen said. "We are doing a lot of research into looking at the best way to increase our investment in India." The company said it could follow its global model of telecom operator tie-ups in India along with partnerships with app developers. "In India, we are also looking at some non-conventional partnerships," Gullicksen told ET.
"We are working on a couple of ideas in India, which would be first launched in India and where people would be like 'oh wow we never thought of that'," he said.
In September last year, the company partnered with 3M to turn handwritten Post-It Notes into digital notes that can be saved, shared or viewed from anywhere.
Gullicksen said the company is looking at similar unconventional partnerships in India. Evernote already has OEM partnerships with Spice Mobile, Micromax and Panasonic in India. With this partnership, certain devices manufactured by these companies come bundled with three months free subscription of Evernote, which costs about $15.
The company has also partnered with Bangalore-based Innoz technology, which lets users access the web apps using just SMS and CloudMagic, a cloud-based offline search engine.
Evernote has over 25 lakh users in India and is adding about two lakh registered users every month.
In March 2013, there were only 10 lakh Indians using Evernote. Globally, the company has crossed 100 million users.
"A couple of years ago, there weren't that many smartphones in India and the ones that were in use were still not very good the screens were small, the performance was not very good. So, users were less likely to stick with Evernote as the experience wasn't that good," Gullicksen said.
Rapid growth of high performance smartphones coupled with affordable data plans in India has created a positive change for app development companies like Evernote, Gullicksen said.
"We are not focused on monetising in India at the moment," Gullicksen said.
"Right now, the only way you could pay for Evernote is with an international credit card. That thing alone pretty much says that we won't be able to monetise right now in India." The company would be looking at a tie-up with a local payment gateway to offer an option to pay through netbanking or debit card along with credit card in India.
Explaining why Evernote is relevant to today's knowledge workers, Gullicksen said, "Use of mobile devices, increased collaboration and remote working, and high web usage have changed the office work environment quite a bit and the 30-year-old office suite kind of definition no longer fits the way world works." "That's what has increased the opportunity for us to come and build something that is relevant for the environment today." "We are not focused on monetising in India at the moment," Gullicksen said. "Right now, the only way you could pay for Evernote is with an international credit card. That thing alone pretty much says that we won't be able to monetise right now in India."
The company would be looking at a tie-up with a local payment gateway to offer an option to pay through netbanking or debit card along with credit card in India.
Explaining why Evernote is relevant to today's knowledge workers, Gullicksen said, "Use of mobile devices, increased collaboration and remote working, and high web usage have changed the office work environment quite a bit and the 30-yearold office suite kind of definition no longer fits the way world works."
"That's what has increased the opportunity for us to come and build something that is relevant for the environment today."
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