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Mastek's Internet arm to be spun off as separate company

The Bombay-based Mastek Limited is planning to make its Internet software wing into a full-fledged company, JaalSoft.

The main product of the software wing, a part of Mastek's subsidiary in the US, Majesco Inc, is Jaal, a software for Internet and intranet applications.

Aimed primarily at corporate information systems organisations, Jaal helps build large network-oriented database applications.

Mastek decided to convert the software wing into a separate company to help the division raise funds to market its Internet products worldwide.

Launched in November, Jaal, needs about $3-5 million for such global marketing, according to company sources. Being a Java programme, Jaal is almost platform independent and works with most running hardware and software in the world. It was developed at Mastek's Pune laboratories.

Mastek is talking with venture capital firms in the US to fund JaalSoft, which will be a purely product-focused company.

Mastek's partners in JaalSoft are Sun Microsystems, Netscape, Oracle, Informix, Exodus, Progress and SCO. Jaal is already slated to be one of the products in Sun's network computer, JavaStation.

Jaal is among the first of Indian software for the Internet from Indian firms who, to date, have concentrated on writing parts of the code of software being developed elsewhere.

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