Rediff buys a stake in mobile applications company Eterno

Rediff.com has invested an undisclosed amount in Bangalore based mobile applications company Eterno which was founded by ex- Nokia employees, Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni.

Eterno's suite of mobile applications include IndiSMS- an application which allows users to communicate in nine different Indian languages, mainly Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil. The company also offers IndiMate, an SMS content retrieval platform, and Music Companion which lets users browse music on their mobile, and download music, ringtones and MP3 songs. The company's customers include Nokia, Vodafone, Airtel and Idea.

Venki Nishtala, chief technology officer, Rediff.com, said, "We are impressed by Eterno's ability to deliver innovative mobile applications in many different Indian languages."

Umesh Kulkarni, founder, Eterno said, "Rediff.com's minority investment will help us enhance our development infrastructure and further our efforts in providing Indian newspapers, magazines, radio and TV companies with innovative mobile solutions."