IT firm Fiorano Software is in talks with the Indian Coast Guard to supply its software for the maritime agency’s proposed tracking system of ships.

Atul Saini, CEO of the Silicon Valley-based company told FC that the project by the agency involves all vessels at sea to send messages and have transponders. While the transponders will be supplied by a service provider, Fiorano has approached the Indian Coast Guard to deploy its solution to automate and connect the entire system.

In the aftermath of the 26/11 terror attack, the Indian Coast Guard is looking at beefing up costal security. It plans to have an identification and tracking system to help prevent unidentified ships from entering the coastal waters. Analysts suggest the entire project could cost a couple of hundred million dollars and take a few years to complete.

Fiorano recently won a $1.8 million contract from the US Coast Guard for similar deployment for their Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) system for homeland security. The privately-held company has been present in India since 1993 through its development centres (now in Bangalore and Hyderabad).

The firm has now decided to focus on the Indian market and has set up a dedicated sales team in Delhi to focus on government organisations including the army, energy, consumer durables and manufacturing segments.

Having won its first customer UB Group, Saini said, “The domestic market has potential for IT middleware, but a lot of education needs to be done before clients begin to actually deploy solutions in a big way.” ITC and ONGC are among the firms that Fiorano is presently in talks with. The firm is headquartered in California and has offices in Singapore, UK, Japan and Germany.