In 2004, Shantanu Ghosh and Tathagata Dutta, the two founders of the company, decided to change gears and look at a brand new strategy and positioning of their PCs and the company. The outcome was the launch of the Amar PC in May 2005. Since its launch in Kolkata as Amar PC, Xenitis had gone national with Aamchi PC in the West, Apna PC in the North and Namma PC in the South. With success, the ambition to grow became more emphatic; the result was Xenitis venturing into new territories of TV news channel (Kolkata TV), and even two-wheeler and four-wheeler production.

But it was from late 2005-06 and early 2006-07 that things started going wrong: most probably, an effect of putting too many things in one basket. Finally on October 23, Ghosh and Dutta parted ways-the parent Xenitis Group headed by Ghosh now looks into the IT products business and is venturing into the auto sector. He says, " I have learnt my lesson, and though we had a bad Q1 due to internal turmoil, we managed three consecutive good quarters." Though results are below expectations, Xenitis closed 2006-07 at Rs 620 crore, up by 21% from last year. Ghosh, though expects, the IT business to generate Rs 850 crore in revenue this year.

New Look
There has definitely been a perceptible shift in focus of Xenitis business. The retail business (via Aamar PC), though still remaining, is now restricted more in the East. Instead, the company is focusing more on components manufacturing and acting as OEMs for all major PC vendors. It is also partnering with twenty-five players including the likes of Novatech, Supercomp, Supreme, Soho, Intercon.

"We are following the Chinese volume manufacturing model, whereby we plan to produce three lakh components per month," says Ghosh. The 20,000 sq m plant set up jointly with Unitek Computers of China, in Sugandha, Chinsurah now manufactures PC casings, and peripherals like mouse, keyboard, CD and DVD drives. There are also plans afoot to start manufacturing both CRT and TFT monitors as well as motherboards and memory cards. Even more ambitious is the plan to start mobile handset manufacturing by September of this year.

Like any successful Indian venture, Xenitis too attracted its own share of aspersions and mistrusts from the market. Particularly, doing the rounds during the initial heady days was one story that Xenitis might go the way of some other IT outfits like Caltiger or Super Computers, the ill-timed venture of former Karnataka chief minister, Bangarappa. The Caltiger story has eerie similarities-both, Xenitis and Caltiger, zoomed into the market with amazing levels of competitive pricing and showed high initial revenues.

However, for Caltiger, once the initial euphoria died down, it was realized that this model was not sustainable, and it gradually died a natural death. Many of the dealers in Ganesh Avenue, Kolkata's counterpart to Nehru Place and Lamington Road, too predicted a similar future for Xenitis and when it was going through turbulent times, many of them were going around with the 'told you so' kind of smug looks. But can Ghosh finally manage to engineer the complete turnaround? That's not just the most important question for Xenitis, but maybe for every entrepreneurial venture from the East.