PC Range managing director Raaj Menon

At a time when many tremble at the manufacturing impact of China and India, SA-based businessman Raaj Menon sees only opportunity. The serial technology entrepreneur recognises that the resources of these burgeoning giants provide large shoulders to stand on for the national business he runs from his adopted hometown of Adelaide.

A serial entrepreneur

Raaj Menon is a digital dreamer and electronics entrepreneur: A self-made designer, developer and distributor of IT and home electronics equipment that assists the increasing convergence of technology and entertainment. Raaj’s mind is a creative cauldron bubbling with so many ideas that even his after-hours hobby, an Internet radio station at www.eye97.com, succeeded to the extent that it became a business venture in its own right.

In his day job, Raaj leads PC Range www.pcrange.com.au, a Lonsdale-based technology wholesale business that has made the Billion broadband router range the most recognised and successful brand in the Australian marketplace. Other initiatives he has launched include:

• SEODevelop http://www.seodevelop.com/, a specialist search engine optimisation business that offers its customers a money-back guarantee if it does not deliver the campaign results on the Google search engine.
• RoxyMail http://www.roxymail.com.au, a low-cost service that provides its customers with online access to a hosted email service with the full power and functionality of the Microsoft Exchange 2007 system
• OfficeRange http://www.officerange.com.au/, an Australian company that offers a comprehensive range of innovative promotional products and corporate gifts.

Raaj was also the driving force behind designing and launching ZIOVA, the word’s first HDMI-capable network media player, which could stream video-based content from the Internet on to high-definition television screens.

Born global

Raaj was born in Malaysia in 1962 and moved to India at age nine, when his family returned to their homeland. Eight years later, he left for the US to pursue a career as a commercial pilot. “I got my commercial pilot’s licence and, when I finished all my training, I became a flight instructor,” he recalls.

“I did that for a few years in the US, but there wasn’t a whole lot of money in that, so I decided to make a big change, to go from flying to the fast-moving IT industry. I’d always had an interest in computers from the early days of the Commodore 64 and was at the birth of the popular Internet, running a BBS (bulletin board system) back in the early 1980s.”

Raaj entered the IT industry, mastered the art of technology sales and built software games developer Megamedia Corporation into a substantial success, before moving to Australia in the late 1990s.

Raaj admits he is addicted to the Internet – the medium that introduced him to his South Australian wife. After they met through an Internet chat-line, he split his time between the US and Australia for several years before taking the plunge to move to Adelaide in 1997.

After a games development company he set up in Australia failed to woo a publisher, Raaj decided that the Internet still offered the best business game in town, especially with the take-off of broadband.

Raaj set up PC Range as a technology distributor in Lonsdale, a suburban industrial estate south of Adelaide, and secured a national distribution agreement with Billion Electric Co. Ltd.

Billion is a Taiwan-based corporation with a reputation for brilliantly-engineered broadband equipment. This alliance has translated into strong Australian sales for PC Range as demand for broadband equipment has taken off during the past decade.

This year, Billion cemented its reputation as Australia’s leading broadband modem brand after topping the Australian Broadband Survey for the third year in a row. Held by tech-savvy site Whirlpool, the Australian Broadband Survey for 2008 was completed and verified a total of 19,763 times during four weeks from December 31, 2008, to February 1, 2009. Full details of the Australian Broadband Survey are at http://whirlpool.net.au/survey/2008/.

The sound of success

As an audio purist, Raaj saw that the Web was a great place to play music, a hobby he took up to occupy his downtime at home. As a result, he now owns and manages an Internet-based global radio station EYE97.com which plays hits from the 70’s to today.

Around the world somewhere, someone is sharing his musical tastes – and they communicate through chat rooms on the station website. “I started the station as a hobby and now its takes up too many hours every night online, making changes to what I want to hear,” he laughs.

“It’s another case of designing something I really wanted for myself – and marketing it to others with the same tastes!”

Media assistance:

To request an interview with Raaj Menon, please call John Harris on 08 8431 4000 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .