Chennai: Time to call it quits, seems to be the prevailing mood at Sify Limited. While the exit of R Ramaraj as the company's managing director and chief executive was officially announced on 18 July, 2006, along with the company's first quarter results, it is learnt that two senior managers - Ajit G Abraham, chief human resources officer, and Rustom Irani, chief technology officer - have already put in their papers.

Even after issuing a formal communication about Ramaraj's exit and Vegesna taking charge on 18 July, 2006, the company's website still states Ramaraj as the managing director and chief executive.

Two more - Rahul Swarup, president, enterprise solutions, and Durgesh Mehta, chief financial officer - are rumoured to have also decided to quit.

All of them are long time employees of Sify; Ramaraj had headed the company since it started operations. The exodus comes soon after Raju Vegesna became the company's chairman after his Infinity Capital Ventures acquired 31.61-per cent stake in Sify from Satyam Computer Services. Vegesna is now Sify's chairman, managing director and chief executive.

While Vegesna was not available for his comments on the exit of top managers, addressing the investors during a conference call, he said, "People exit based on their priorities. Like a basketball team, Sify has a deep bench, a great pool of talent." He also mentioned that the employee pay hikes would be based on performance. "We are looking at responsibility and performance based-incentive."

It has been a long and hard grind for Sify ever since its started operations eleven years ago. A high profile company with a Nasdaq listing and the acquisition of India World portals for around Rs500 crore, the company was not able to generate profits for a long time while suffering cash burns.

Initially focussed on dial up internet connection, Sify later changed focus and started targeting corporates. The new strategy started to show results with a reduction in cash burn and posting cash profit.

Looking forward During the first quarter Sify has reported a turnover of $28.74 million and a net profit of $1.36 million. Last quarter the company set up its fourth data centre in Bangalore and also acquired Globe Travels, a travel portal in the US for $2.5 million cash, stock options and performance pay outs.

According to Vegesna the organisation's priority is to expand the business with profitability. In addition, the company will start offering its enterprise services to overseas corporates, a market not looked at all these years.

Sify also started offering cable broadband connection and has around 1.90 lakh subscribers. "We are the largest private player in India," he claimed. In order to reduce the subscriber attrition, the company is planning to offer additional services and hopes to nearly double its subscriber base this year. Sify boasts of average revenue per user (ARPU) of around Rs330 against the industry average of Rs210.It is learnt Sify is also tying up with Midas Communication Technologies P Ltd, and is testing its services in a Chennai locality.

According to him, the three focus areas for the access media division will be entertainment (online games, broadband websites), e-commerce (ticketing, hotel booking and cars) and e-learning. The company has tested an e-learning project in Coimbatore and is being rolled out in other smaller towns.

Sify will also add 250 more cyber cafes this year to its existing 3,400.

Sify's subsidiary Sify Communications has received the foreign investment promotion board's (FIPB) sanction to invest money to get the national long distance (NLD) and international long distance (ILD) licence to offer internet telephony.