iCMG's current focus is middleware transactions which enable Enterprise Applications Integration (EAI), and we are trying to create enterprise scale middleware products to cater to the needs of application integration using component based technology. We started out as CMG-Component Management Group, with an idea of creating a global network of technology people who believe in component based development. This was in 1998 when the world was still trying to figure out how to solve the Y2K problem and the Internet was not so popular. We formed iCMG's technology vision realising that in the next five years there wouldn't be any difference between a program, website or an application. We estimated that vision to take atleast five to ten years, but in the last two years itself we have seen it rapidly convert into a reality. Today the Internet has become the most useful example of distributed computing. Our technology focus is to bring middleware computing knowledge and a distributed computing environment- using the Internet as the backbone to create tools, services and products- to our customers.
iCMG's philosophy from the product and services point of view is to assimilate complex technologies like Corba, open source standards, software architecture and middleware transactions, and provide tools which are simple for people to use.

Middleware exists between the operating system and an application. Imagine talking to people from different countries in their respective languages who want to do business together. Earlier on, all these various segments of people developed solutions within themselves for their own use. But with the Internet coming in, in a big way, each culture had to realise that adopting the other's technology would only benefit them. In other words, their old proprietary or vendor centric solutions offered no interoperability at all and what they needed was an 'interpreter' who would understand them all. This is what middleware is all about, the layer that communicates between the underlying infrastructure and front-end applications.
It provides you a set of services (for example, messaging, transaction, process broker, adapters) enclosed in a package which operates like a middle layer OS that doesn't worry about what application you want to run on what operating system. It offers you the option of defining your own quality of service. An operating system provides you with computing power and an environment where you can compute, but it doesn't provide you with application power. Its like a calculator which doesn't distinguish the purpose of using its capabilities. All it does is put the numbers together.

Take for example a word processing program that has 160 features to offer a user. Of all those features a user would probably use only six to seven of the main ones like opening a file, editing a file, printing it out, and so on. To use these select features the user pays for the entire package. This can be compared to being convinced, that in order to eat what a restaurant has to offer one has to buy the entire menu. The day the user understands the lack of logic in this is when the way software is developed changes. That is component based technology. Research groups like Gartner and IDC have predicted that in the next three to four years 90 per cent of the corporates will adopt component based technology as a de facto paradigm to software development.
In terms of the Internet, component technology will enable the end-user to reap its full benefits. The Internet has grown from being the novel freeway to an essential business infrastructure tool, and its usage is going to grow thousandfold. To be able to sustain this huge demand, Internet applications require component technology, that will provide reliability, scalability and security.

We are moving towards an IT industry that is driven by transactions. Going back to the example of the word processing program, we will not have to pay for the entire package. Companies will consider only what they use as a transaction, so they will pay for ten transactions of the print function and four of the spell check function from one vendor, five transactions of an editor program from another vendor and put them all together for their own customised word editor program. What is required now is an infrastructure that enables all these different components to work together, and that is where the K2 Component Server comes in. It's the first of its kind, building an inter-operable container which enables different components and services to work together. It enables users with heavy transaction needs like portals and WAP services, with tools that help them manage the traffic.
The Component Technology Portal is basically a no-nonsense place for programmers to come together, and a developer-to-developer community for users of software components to interact.

Many corporates come to us for training which could cost them US $1000 a day in India and around US $5000 a day in the US. These training programs require a lot of logistics, time scheduling, manpower and high-cost. We also realised that if we introduce our high-end and innovative distributed computing products we need people who can understand them. That's where our Component Education Server (CES) comes in. The CES is the first of its kind globally where we are trying to introduce an automated version of corporate training in the high-end technology areas with cost efficiency. In a scenario where companies have projects spread across the globe and have diminishing time availability, it isn't feasible for them to invest in training programs which require the convergence of different people's time schedules or conduct programs for a few people at a time. The CES enables synchronous training for such corporates.
. It is an easy-to-understand platform for technologies like Corba and XML with a high level of interactivity through DVD, cable TV, intranet, extranet and Internet media. It incorporates instructor-lead live webinars or sharing of notes among course peers, which allows them to actually design and draw their queries and ideas. The package for Indian corporates comes in three options of one, three and six month user-permit licences, costing US $1000, 2000 and 3000 respectively. It's based on an ASP model where the single month licence is applicable for a limited number of five users, and the other two packages are open to an unlimited number of users. Over and above the basic cost of the packages, they have to pay for customised services that they may require. For example, if the corporate needs two instructor-lead webinars per week, that will be a separate cost because it will require extra webcasting and video streaming infrastructure. The corporate also has the option of tailor-made chat sessions and course content. Depending on their needs they plot out customised packages.
Right now the CES focuses on Corba and XML, but will extend its content in the areas of software architecture, design patterns, EJB and AP Server in an easy-to-understand manner. We have also introduced the e-consultancy service where we have defined possible problems corporates might have with their XML, Corba or EAI projects, the solutions to which are available at minimal prices, depending on the complexity of the problem. All the corporate has to do is identify the problem and we solve it for them. Everything is online and doesn't take more than 24 hours, which would usually take many months. This has been very well received by all our clients. We do still provide offline consulting as well for clients who need a mix of both.
The Corba course content has a run-time of 48 hours, and the XML course content has a run-time of 24 hours.

Both Corba and XML are for programmers, IT managers, software architects, project managers and people who are into programming, analysing design or architecture. Now that the cost barrier is quickly diminishing, most Indian corporates adopting these technologies are growing more open to such training.

The difference in cost of training with the CES is immense in terms of Europe and the US. Programs that would otherwise cost upto US $20,000 are now available for as low as US $4,000. So we are looking at these two segments as major market opportunities.

Since all the offerings and package details are available on the Net, time that would be wasted in initial communication is immediately reduced. The way it is built, it is component integrated and easy to put together. So all we have to do is choose the components, according to what the corporate wants, and put together a package. So it depends on the mail the corporate sends us stating their requirements. We strive to reduce the amount of human intervention as much as possible.

First of all, the client can choose exactly the amount of time they require to complete the course, in terms of number of hours. Second, after a survey we found that the amount absorbed in online learning was around 20 per cent for a reading environment, 50 per cent for a hearing environment and 70 per cent for a seeing environment. What we have done is integrated the hearing and seeing environment, leaving out anything reliant on absorbing heavy text content.
Surprise tests and questions introduce an element of competition as well. Users also have to complete time-bound chapter tests.

There are two types of certificates given. One is the completion certificate, and the other is the programmer certificate which is of three types-component developer, component architect and component integrator, depending on the online content courses and tests that have been passed. The tests are not of the objective variety. They incorporate in-built artificial intelligence for evaluation.