Phaneesh joins FutureSoft Board - Sarbpreet Singh to head Global Marketing - IP Business to drive business growth

Chennai 1st March 2003

FutureSoft, the Chennai based provider of communications and embedded software solutions, today announced that Phaneesh Murthy, Founder, Primentor has joined the Board of Directors of the Company. The induction of Phaneesh is part of FutureSoft’s strategy to define a new blueprint for the business. Phaneesh will be playing an active role in the company by providing counsel at a strategic level. He is also conducting a leadership programme for the executive management at FutureSoft.

Sarbpreet Singh, the former Vice President & General Manager of the MPLS core switching division at Lucent Technologies, has also joined FutureSoft as the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer to provide impetus to the sales and marketing efforts. This is in line with FutureSoft’s strategy to ramp up the business and acquire larger relationships with its customers.

Sarbpreet will provide the marketing and sales leadership to both the services and the products businesses. Sarbpreet brings with him 17 years of rich and valuable experience in selling products in the telecom sector in the United States and India. He has worked for companies like Lucent Technologies, AT&T Microelectronics, General Electric and ICIM.

The new initiatives are in line with FutureSoft’s goal of becoming the pre-eminent solutions player in the communication and embedded systems space.

Commenting on Phaneesh Murthy’s induction into the board Mr. K. V. Ramani, Chairman and Managing Director FutureSoft said “We are delighted that an eminent person like Phaneesh has joined our Board. The experience and knowledge that he brings to FutureSoft will help us build a very successful Intellectual Property based organization from India. We look forward to capitalizing on the huge growth opportunity provided by the IP business”.

In the IP business, the company plans to offer a bouquet of seven solutions over the next 12 months and these are expected to significantly scale up the IP business. The value proposition of its solutions offerings is well differentiated and unique. FutureSoft is different from its competition from the angle that its solutions are platform agnostic. The company’s customers have the flexibility of deploying these solutions with any operating system or chipset they desire to use.

On the marketing strategy, Mr. Sarbpreet Singh said “With its formidable Intellectual Property and top notch talent, FutureSoft is well positioned to become the leading solutions player in the communications and embedded systems space ”.

He further added that the company’s sales and marketing focus over the next 6 months would be:

• Creating a strong product management focus to drive the solutions business.
• Aligning sales execution with the acquisition of large clients.

The company has presence in the North American, European and Asia- pacific markets with seven offices worldwide. The company plans to open 2 more offices in the near term in Boston and Japan. Mr. Singh indicated that Asia was a good market for the IP business, while the thrust for the enterprise business will be in the US.

Key Highlights

• Phaneesh Murthy to give strategic direction to the company
• Sarbpreet Singh joins as Chief Marketing and Sales Officer
• To open offices in Boston and Japan
• Significant marketing and R & D thrust

Mr. Ramani concluded stating “Our strategy is to take FutureSoft to its next phase of growth by positioning it as a high value player creating IP and these strengthening initiatives will help us significantly in meeting our objectives.”