Our idea is to change it all to digital. Be it Culver Studio or anything—in America, a lot of these things are still analog. Digital is a disruptive technology and it will bring changes all around. It is changing the business in TV, movies, music, everywhere. So the existing infrastructure needs to be modified and most of these people have gone out of cash.
Same thing happened in telecom. A lot of companies that were into telephony went bust. Same kind of shift is now happening in entertainment. We want to be able to grab this opportunity.
At this point, what is attracting you to the M&E business?
Media is coming on mobile and Internet. It is the convergence of this technology and content that is attracting me. We see ourselves ready for entertainment because it is becoming an essential part of mobiles and of the Internet ecosystem. We are both in mobile and Internet, so we need to be in Enfotainment.
I put up so many factories—separate ones for PCs, typewriters, printers, copiers, fax machines. And look at what happened—all of them became one!
So we have to look at what is India in 2020. I have a great faith in India and the brown race from Israel to Indonesia. Because this race has now got wealth. Now oil is in this area, software is in this area, people are in this area. Three billion people, that’s half of humanity. The Americans, Europeans, Japanese and Chinese don’t even look at this area as a market for entertainment. When American movies are made, they think of this market as a 3% market. India is just 1%. They are willing to sell territorial rights for this area for just 3% of the total revenues.
You said you are now planning for 2020, but typically you don’t stay in a business for longer than may be five-six years?
But this will take time to grow. We entered telecom in 1985, the first call was made on our systems. We exited only in 2008. So by then new technologies will come. All this takes lot of entrepreneurship, courage and belief in your people. We are also talking about education as part of this business. Everything will be electronic.
In the gaming business, you’ll take the acquisition route? If so, when will you complete the first acquisition?
Yes, we will first acquire a big gaming company. We are working on it. We have hired Michelle Crames, who is a Harvard MBA from Los Angeles, to spearhead this business. This is also a company from the I to I region.
What is the total investment you will be making into the M&E business?
We are talking about a billion dollars in the next three years. There are a lot of people who want to invest with us—people who have made money with us in Xerox and other ventures.
So despite the current credit crunch, you don’t have issues in raising funds?
No, because we are putting in our own money as well. It is not fully leveraged investments. This environment is a good one for mergers and acquisitions.
What is your strategy for your existing businesses?
At Cellebrum, we are looking at putting everything that is on Internet, on mobile. Jobs.com, etrade.com, all of this we are putting on mobile. We have a large team working on applying Internet technology on mobile. For the Cellebrum IPO, we have refiled the application with Sebi as there were some objections.