sme channels july 12 issue

SME TREND /54

Blue Coat: SMEs Are A Great Opportunity for Blue Coat

SME BIZ /56

Delta: Time for Power Play in India

SME BIZ /50

Digilink: Flying High on SMEs’ Turf

Canon Losing Market /10PLUS

VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 05 | PAGES 64 | JULY 2012 | RS. 20/-

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

01

Natural disaster in various parts of the world followed by the acute shortage and steep price rise of HDDs gave a new life to

the languishing SSD market. So the product which was tagged for datacentre or high-value notebooks all of a sudden seen inside the

mainstream products. /34

MOVING INTO THE ERA OF

CONVERGENCE OF

TECHNOLOGIES TO PREVAIL

/42

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Advts.indd 4 18/07/12 10:21 PM

Advts.indd 14 18/07/12 10:28 PM

Ricoh India Charts Out Expansion Plan /10


PLUS

VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 05 | PAGES 64 | JULY 2012 | RS. 20/-

www.smechannels.com

BELLWETHER, NOT ANY

MORE…

EDITORIAL

SANJAY [email protected]

IN THE LAST issue we have discussed about the Indian hardware industry and domestic market how it is suffering from slowdown. This time the Indian software and services industry picture has been clear. Financial results of most of the companies have been out and all of them have achieved slow growth rate. The factors influencing the slow growth including slow US and Europe economy, slow growth rate of BFSI, telecom, manufacturing, etc. on the global scale will stay for a long time and there are chances of orders or contracts getting expired. Now the focus is again come back to the domestic market. People say it is slowdown time for the domestic industry. Slowdown and boom - both are phases of the same industry and it is an oppor-tunity. We are hearing a lot of manufacturing news in India. So this is the time to get the composer and think expediting the manufacturing and trading for India and to the countries in Middle East, Africa and Asian regions. Chinese manufacturing is going through a rough patch now due to bad global SKUs. On top of this there is a perception that the Chinese products are cheap. So the oppor-tunity for the Indian manufacturing is very good. Only thing India requires to position its brands or manufacturing in the global forums as value products. For Indian channel market also it is an opportunity to take breather and get ready for the next phase of growth. Inflation and price rise again are part of the growth one has to leave with it. You have made money in the high time and now if the market is slow try to invest in the areas which can lead you to future growth. Dollar price rise is certainly a concern but again one has to leave with it. Market will respond after a brief pause. You have to bring innovation to it also. If you take example from other industries includ-ing apparels, automobile, white goods, etc. today all the industries are running offer on the products and the shops or retail outlets which were almost empty of customers some time back could see a very good footfall. One can argue that IT industry cannot be compared with other industries as the margin is low but it has its own scope of innovation. My advice to each one of the channel partners is again - do not concentrate on the products. Think from the perspective of the customers and you can find out the solution…try to create an ambiance of trust among the customers. It might take a little longer to gain back the customers’ confidence but yes in long run you will be gainer.

OVERALL RATING

Seagate Backup Plus Storage

MY EXPERIENCE

SPECIFICATIONS

This external drive is available from 500

GB to 3TB at price point from Rs.5, 600 to

Rs.12,000 as MSRP with 3 years warranty.

FINAL WORDING

Available with Fortune Marketing, Backup

Plus Storage is really a useful product.

SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY Backup Plus storage device delivers the easiest setup, one-click backup and the ability to save and share content on Facebook and Flickr. It simplifies back up for consumers who want to protect their digital life.

The Backup Plus hard drive is specially meant for both Windows and Apple comput-ers. It is the first external hard drives to pro-vide backup for content on social networks, such as Facebook and Flickr.

The External hard drive features the new Seagate Dashboard backup. With just a click of an icon, computer files are replicated onto the drive. The feature also provides a single click path to save (download) and share (upload) personal photos and videos on Face-book and Flickr.

SME BIZ /48

Cisco: Taking The Game From Device To Network Level

LEADERS CORNER /52

SAP: SAP Bets Big onSMEs

SME CHAT /30

NEC: Will Soon Come Out With A Cloud Concept For SMEs”

SME CHANNELSJULY 2012

4

Edit.indd 4 19/07/12 9:51 AM

Advts.indd 2 18/07/12 10:20 PM

JULYCOVER

STORY

Moving Into the Era of SSDs /34

Natural disaster in various parts of the world followed by the acute shortage and steep price rise of HDDs gave a new life to the languishing SSD market. So the product which was tagged for datacentre or high-value notebooks all of sudden seen inside the mainstream products.

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra

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SME BIZDIGILINK /50Flying High on SMEs’ Turf

DELTA /54Time for Power Play in India

Editorial ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 04

Snippets ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 08

Security Corner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 26

Trend Setter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 28, 48, 58

Case Study ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 40

Partner Corner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~41

Leaders Corner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 52

Products ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~61

more inside

SME CHATAdvance Solutions /24“Matrix Products offer Quality and Reliability”

NEC India /30“NEC Will Soon Come Out With A Cloud Concept For SMEs”

Mindlance /32“Aims to Provide Perfect So-lutions to Complex IT Needs”

Wishtel /60“Manufacturing in India Pro-vides Better Quality”

contentsVOLUME 03ISSUE 05 2012

PLUSFEATURE: Convergence of Technologies to Prevail /42


6


Contents.indd 6 19/07/12 9:51 AM

Advts.indd 8 19/06/12 7:43 AM

Indian SMBs Show Traction for Cloud AdoptionIndia small and medium businesses (SMBs, companies with up to 999 employees) are increasingly inter-ested in adopting cloud services. There has been a significant shift of non-cloud channel partners towards offering cloud solutions.

The Cloud market is still at a very nascent stage in India – hence there is a differentiation within the Cloud partners’ network on the basis of relative state of evolution towards the cloud.

AMI-Partners has segmented the

cloud partner market into two dis-tinct groups: “Cloud Transformed Partners” and “Cloud Laggards”. Cloud vendors will be able to understand where their partners lag behind in offering efficient cloud services with the help of AMI’s latest

Siemens Enterprise Reports 75% Growth in SME MarketResponding to the accelerated growth in its small and medium-sized business (SMB) market and the growing demand for seamless business communications solutions, Siemens Enterprise Communications announced full integration of its OpenScape Office platform - an all-in-one, IP-based Unified Communica-tions solution - into VMware’s ZIMBRA and Apple’s Mac OS. The enhanced OpenScape Office also comes with a Business Applications Launcher.

These enhancements fulfill the demands of the company’s seven million-strong SMB users for deeper Groupware integration and seamless integration into business applications. Plus, as more SMBs globally embrace the use of Apple devices, customers require full support for the Mac OS. Sales of OpenScape Office increased 75 percent globally this year, following on from a 67 percent year-over-year growth in SMB business performance recorded last year.

cloud partner segmentation report. Cloud vendors can also identify what steps they must take to transi-tion to the next level.

Partners identified as “Cloud Transformed Partners” have taken the necessary steps to successfully sell cloud solutions. Only a very small proportion (less than one in ten) of Cloud Partners falls into this category. However, their earnings are triple those of their non-Transformed counterparts. They tend to be larger, with approxi-mately two-third of their revenues being derived from cloud solutions and services. These partners have a separate cloud services busi-ness unit and a dedicated cloud marketing team. On the other hand, the “Cloud Laggards” are mainly focused on reselling cloud services.

“Cloud Transformed partners are interested in feedback from Business Decision Makers (BDMs) as they have more established, deep-rooted relations with the firms they work with,” noted Arnab Bhar, Analyst at AMI-India. “Laggards, on the other hand, are looking at improved quality of solutions and enhanced customer services to attract prospective customers.”

There is widespread interest in and usage of remote managed services among Indian SMBs.


8

SNIPPETSfor more log on to smechannels.com

PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

snippets.indd 8 19/07/12 9:52 AM

Advts.indd 14 18/01/12 9:21 PM

Ricoh India Charts Out Expansion PlanRicoh India has announced aggressive expansion plans backed by its core philosophy of comprehensive office solutions, tech-savvy and eco-friendly products and services to meet emerging customer needs.

This expansion is a part of Ricoh’s strategy of strengthening of its business service infrastructure, providing businesses across the country with the tools and expertise to optimize business critical document processes and IT Services. In addition to the expansion of its services business, it supports Ricoh’s focus to expand its customer base and deliver products and services with high added value.

Speaking on the occasion, Tetsuya Takano, MD and CEO, Ricoh India, remarked, “The ability to change is a key element of a success-ful business today. Technology is changing at an unprecedented pace, and there is increasing pressure for customers to change along with it. At Ricoh, we are committed to helping our customers embrace change through innovation. Hence our belief “experience the difference”, giving the customer an integrated solution at an affordable cost. Our overall strategy and game plan for India is optimistic and we hope to triple our turnover by FY13.

”Through strategic acquisitions and organic growth, we are creating

innovative solutions that provide more

value and com-petitive edge for our

customers,” MICHAEL DELL CHAIRMAN AND CEO, DELL

MY POINT

Matrix Comsec Partners with InforMatrix Comsec has announced integration of its range of Hotel PBXs with Infor Classic Starlight Property Management System (PMS) to back its commitment to hoteliers, offering the flexibility to use their preferred PMS with Matrix Hotel PBX.

Matrix Eternity IP-PBX designed to meet the diverse communication needs of hospitality industry. It incorporates specialized hospitality module, third-party PMS and CAS support and many other utili-tarian and productivity enhancing features. It supports PSTN, GSM/3G, ISDN and IP networks; and contributes in streamlining the routine hotel operations with increased staff mobility and productivity.

“Matrix IP-PBXs are acclaimed by Indian and overseas hoteliers for its easy integration with third-party PMS and CAS. This offers Matrix a competitive edge over other costly Hotel solutions and we continuously work towards strengthening our position by offering integration with leading PMS software globally,” said Ruchir Talati, Product Manager – Hospitality Division for Matrix Comsec.

Cisco UC Release 9.0As end-user demands for premium mobility and collaboration solutions continue to escalate, and businesses seek cost-effective ways to deliver the technology needed to meet those expectations, Cisco announced a bevy of new services and capabilities for the Cisco Unified Communications Manager platform.

The services and capabilities are part of what’s called Cisco Unified Communications (UC) Release 9.0 and directly address many of the key challenges IT managers are facing today as they seek to “collaboration-enable” their employees both in the office and on-the-go.

Canon Losing MarketThe combined serial inkjet and page printer, copier and multifunction product (MFP) market in India totaled 6,95,128 units in the first quarter of 2012, a 3.9 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc.

When HP remained the leader in the India printer, copier and MFP market, with 58.7% share in the Q1 ‘12, followed by Canon with 12.7 % market share, Epson at 9.7 % and Samsung with 8.8 % market share.

When Canon became the biggest looser with 38.9 % loss to its shipment compared to the correspondent quarter last year and 8.8 percent over last quarter, Samsung gained the maximum with 42.4 percent over corresponding quarter last year and 2.2 percent over last quarter.

Netmagic Receives SAP CertificationNetmagic Solutions, pure-play managed IT hosting services company, is now the only SAP-certified providers of hosting services in India. More than 30 enterprises have already chosen Netmagic to host and manage their mission-critical, SAP solution-based environments.

As an SAP-certified provider of hosting services, Netmagic Solutions received certifica-tion from SAP AG for its ability to deliver hosting services with high-quality operational standards. To achieve this certification, Netmagic had to undergo an extensive audit by SAP. This audit was conducted to validate if Netmagic’s infrastructure and processes conform to SAP’s high standards and are suitable to host mission-critical environ-ments running SAP applications.

Cadyce: Your Net-work, Our PassionCadyce, a networking and lifestyle brand having a global presence, with its focus on solutions inte-gration and systems integration, aims to provide low cost, high quality products for technically minded people.

With a mission statement “Your network, Our passion”, the company aims to be a world leader in providing meaningful solutions that addresses business and operational needs and to create and enhance value to the customer’s business through continuous innovation. Cadyce’s R&D department continuously focuses its efforts on developing the right products for the market needs stated the company’s press release.


10

SNIPPETS


Advts.indd 13 19/04/12 11:34 PM

Dimension Data Wins Microsoft AwardDimension Data has won the 2012 Microsoft Country Partner of the Year Award for India. The company was honoured among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excel-lence in innovation and implementation of cus-tomer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Jon Roskill, Corporate VP (Worldwide Partner Group), Microsoft Corp. “Dimension Data has set the standard for delivering innovative Micro-soft solutions that meet the needs of customers. It is this commitment to excellence that will ensure our mutual success into the future.”

Emerson’s Double Bonanza for Partners

Emerson Network Power will reward its Network Solution Partners (NSPs) and Value Added Resellers (VARs) in India under the ‘Double Bonanza’ channel scheme for every purchase of a Knurr F Series Rack (42U, 800x1090) made between 15 June 2012 and July 31, 2012.

The offer has been tailored such that partners stand to win prizes on purchase of a single unit, and can avail bigger prizes on larger orders. Emerson Network Power has also introduced a special price for the Knurr F Series Rack (42U, 800x1090) for the duration of the scheme.

TE Connectivity Introduces DASTE Connectivity (TE) has unveiled Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) in India. The in-building and outdoor wireless systems enable mobile coverage and capacity in places where service providers and enterprises have difficulty delivering wireless voice and data services to their customers.

DAS are crucial to mobile operators for 4G service rollout plans because of the need to cost-effectively deploy small cells. While media attention is often focused on picocells and microcells as the keys to small cell deployments, TE contends that DAS will be essential to getting the maximum potential out of these small base stations. DAS is currently being deployed regularly by major service providers in stadiums, malls, hotels, universities, airports, and other venues, and they are the preferred solution when a structure or an outdoor area would call for more than one small base station.

ALCATEL-LUCENT ENTERPRISE PLACED IN VISIONARIES QUADRANTGartner has placed Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise in the Visionaries quadrant of its report, “Magic Quadrant for the Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure” published June 13, 2012 and authored by Tim Zimmerman and Mark Fabbi.

As stated in the report, “A vendor in the Visionaries quadrant has demonstrated the ability to increase the features in its offer-ing to provide a unique and differentiated approach to the market. A Visionary will have innovated in one or more key area of access layer technologies (e.g., convergence, security, management or operational efficiency).”

Stephane Robineau, Vice President, Networks Business, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, says, “We’re very pleased to be recognized as a key player in the latest Gartner Wireless and Wired LAN Magic Quadrant. Since launching our Application Fluent Network (AFN) vision in 2010, our Network team has continuously innovated, bringing award-winning solutions to market such as recently introduced OmniSwitch 6450.”

NETGEAR Enterprise Storage for SMBsNETGEAR extends its ReadyDATA unified storage family to the SMEs. The storage solution is an enterprise-class storage product that is less expensive and easier to use than traditional enterprise offerings. These new products feature native de-duplication, thin provisioning and unlimited snapshots, with support for SATA, SAS and SSD disk drives. ReadyDATA scales to 180TB capacity (five times larger than the current flagship model), and is the first product of its kind to include data replication as a standard feature.

ReadyDATA systems include a full set of datacenter-class storage capabilities, such as thin provision-ing, compression and de-duplication of block (SAN) and file (NAS) data, replication over 128-bit SSL connections for block and file data. It features certifications from VMware, Microsoft and Citrix.

BSNL Ties-up with Shyam NetworksKeeping in mind the need to provide better broadband penetration for the common masses, BSNL has tied-up with Shyam Networks for Winknet 14.4 Mbps 3G Pocket Router.

Enabling a BSNL 3G customer the Last Mile connectivity, Winknet is positioned as a networking and broadband connectivity brand for mass market and will drive Broadband/Internet access for the BSNL 3G user community, especially amongst youth of India said the company’s press release.

Nafis Kazim, Executive VP, Shyam Networks, said, “Our Mf50 3G Pocket Router will surely help towards providing seamless broadband connectiv-ity for those who are always on the move and need broadband connectivity. We are extremely happy to tie-up with BSNL for Reverse bundling arrange-ment. We are confident that with this Reverse bundling arrangement, we are going to rewrite the way 3G broadband connectivity is delivered.”

Winknet Mf50 3G Wireless Pocket Router is a High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) USB Modem. It is cost-effective mobile hotspot device working in GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/HSPA. Winknet Mf50 3G Pocket Router comes with the price Rs.5,800.

Stephane Robineau, Vice President, Networks

Business, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise


12

SNIPPETS


Delta Prepares Partners With Competitive Power

[email protected]

The power behind competitiveness

Wide range of highly efficient and reliable UPS up to 4000kVA

Delta UPS - Agilon Family Under 1kVA - 1-Phase line-interactive UPS

Delta UPS - Amplon Family Up to 11kVA - 3-Phase ON-line

Delta UPS - Ultron Family Up to 4000kVA - 3-Phase On-line

Delta UPS-Modulon Family Upto 480KVA -3-Phase On-line

Dealership enquiry solicited

Comguard Brings Array Software Application Delivery ControllersComguard Networks announces the availability of Array Networks APV 800 Series multi-tenant virtualized application delivery appliances and vAPV soft-ADCs. These products will give enterprises and service providers the ability to run multiple application delivery controllers across Array Networks hardware appliances or as virtual machines on commodity servers running VMware ESXi or Citrix’s XenServer hypervisors.

For cloud and managed hosting service providers these new virtualized appliances deliver tremendous advantages for offering infrastruc-ture services. The new APV Series appliances enable consolidation by packing more load balancers into less space, they come at less cost, easy deployment and maintenance. By deploying APV virtualized appliances, service providers can offer their customers services a right balance of on-demand flexibility, performance, features and price – while simultaneously lowering capex and opex and increasing profit margins.

WD DELIVERS NEW STORAGE SERVERS FOR SMBs

Western Digital has launched WD Sentinel DX4000, a complete network storage solution designed specifically to meet the demands of today’s small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs).

WD Sentinel DX4000 includes the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials operating system software and the Intel D525 dual-core Atom CPU. The WD Sentinel DX4000 is centralized shared storage and automatic server-based backup and restore solution, for up to 25 devices (PC and Mac) in a network. It offers complete data protection with built-in hardware and software redundancy for all of the connected devices in the network.

With capacities including 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, and 12TB, the WD Sentinel DX4000 lets small busi-ness owners expand small office server storage capacity as their business and storage demands grow. In addition, the WD Sentinel DX4000 small office storage server acts as the on-premise cloud storage for the SMB.

“The WD Sentinel is a one stop solution for the storage, backup and secure remote access needs of any SMB,” said Khalid Wani, Sales Director (Branded Business for India, Middle East and Africa), WD. “The ability to have on-premise, as well as secure remote access to a centralized storage server provides small businesses the agility needed for today’s mobile lifestyle.”

WD Sentinel DX4000 small office storage server is available at select retailers. MSRP is Rs. 64,499 for the 4TB solution, Rs. 69,999 for the 6TB, Rs. 89,999 for the 8TB and the Rs. 99,999 for the 12TB (local taxes apply). The WD Sentinel DX4000 is protected by a 3 year limited on-site warranty.

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

Former Boss of iOmega India - Praveen Sahai appointed as Vice President of Chan-nels for EMC India and SAARC.

EMC appoints Surajit Sen as Country Manager of its Backup Recovery Systems (BRS) division in India & SAARC.

Seagate has appointed Futoshi Niizuma as its new executive director of Sales for South Asia, ASEAN and ANZ.

Nexsan has appointed George Symons as Chief Strategy Officer.

A L Jagannath Joins LinkedIn from VMware

NetIQ names Steve Stavridis as PlateSpin

Product Marketing Manager for NetIQ Asia Pacific

Shyam Networks Appoints Zia Askari as Head B2B Marketing

WORLDWIDE PC SHIPMENTS GROWTH WAS FLAT IN Q2 2012WORLDWIDE PC SHIPMENTS TOTALED 87.5 MILLION UNITS IN THE Q2 ‘12, A DECLINE OF 0.1 PERCENT FROM Q2’11, ACCORDING TO PRELIMINARY RESULTS BY GARTNER, INC. HP. HP CONTINUED TO BE IN THE TOP POSITION.

PRELIMINARY WORLDWIDE PC VENDOR UNIT SHIPMENT ESTIMATES FOR 2Q12 (THOUSANDS OF UNITS)

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16


14

SNIPPETS


Dell Expands XPS Laptop FamilyDell has expanded its XPS laptop portfolio with the XPS 14 laptop. Joining the award-winning XPS 13 Ultrabook, the XPS 14 has the same beautiful, thoughtful design and craftsmanship in an additional screen size for consumers who desire connectivity, performance and entertainment, no matter where they are.

As part of Dell’s flagship XPS brand, this addition enables customers to choose the one that best suits their needs. The XPS 13 is highly portable and compact for today’s most mobile users, while the XPS 14 provides extended battery life and connectivity for those who need to go all day wherever they are. Both laptops have enterprise-friendly features to intersect the design and performance desired by consumers with the security and services required by IT departments. Additionally, The XPS 13 laptop is distin-guished by vibrant display with hardened Corning Gorilla Glass, and uses the latest Intel technology, such as the latest 3rd Generation processors, and Intel Rapid Start[ii], Smart Response[iii] and Smart Connect[iv] technologies, to enable users to be productive, connected and responsive anywhere.

VMware Features in Gartner’s Leaders QuadrantVMware has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2012 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure.

According to Gartner, “Virtualization penetration has surpassed 50 percent of all server workloads, and it continues to grow.” The report continues: “The x86 server virtualization infrastructure market is the foundation for two extremely important market trends that relate and overlap: infrastructure modernization and cloud computing. Virtualization is a fundamental enabler to IaaS, and will be used to establish private cloud services, public cloud services and interoperable hybrid cloud services.”

Fujitsu Launches LIFEBOOK SH531Fujitsu India has launched the compact Fujitsu LIFEBOOK SH531. Speaking on the occasion, Alok Sharma, Country Manager (Workplace Systems),Fujitsu India, said, “The Fujitsu LIFEBOOK portfolio offers a range of entry-level and more powerful, individual solutions. Fujitsu LIFEBOOK delivers high-est reliability, driven by a unique combination of German precision engineering and Japanese quality, supported by 30 years of experience. This unbeatable combination is now available ex-stock in India.”

“The Fujitsu client products with their promise of quality are available through a wide network of partners in the country. ” said Ramprasad Lakshminarayan, GM (Channel Business), Fujitsu India. The notebook is now available ex-stock in India and is available at price-point of Rs. 45,000.

DIGESTPORTRONICS UNLEASHES POWERFUL CHARGERPortronics has introduced its new portable power device called “Charge X”. It boasts of more than 24 additional hours of calling, an additional 120 hours of music, and 30 more hours of Wi-Fi or video and much more.

Portronics informed that inside the “Charge X”, there is a 5600mAh battery, which is nearly four times the size of most Smartphone batteries. It includes 2 USB ports to plug into any sort of devices, including Smartphone’s, Tablets, Gaming consoles, portable speakers, Bluetooth dongles, etc.

TRANSCEND UNVEILS SOFT-WARE SYSTEM CLONETranscend Information Inc. has announced a new software Transcend System Clone which is a feature of Transcend SSD Scope – advanced new software for Transcend’s Solid State Drive.

Developed for use with Transcend SSD prod-ucts, Transcend SSD Scope is new software appli-cation that makes it easier than ever to maintain a healthy and efficient SSD. SSD Scope brings together the latest technology in determining the condition and optimizing performance of an SSD, including S.M.A.R.T. and TRIM support, into a single user-friendly tool.

CITRIX POSITIONED IN THE LEADERS QUADRANTCitrix has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2012 “Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure” report by Thomas Bittman, VP and distinguished analyst.

The report evaluates Citrix XenServer, a key component of the company’s virtualization and cloud computing strategy. For its evaluation of the server virtualization market, Gartner highlighted that “vendor understanding and articulation of the strategic path for virtualiza-tion (expanding into the foundation for the future of infrastructure architecture and opera-tions, and extending toward cloud computing) is particularly important and differentiating.”

STRONTIUM LAUNCHES EVM 8GB DDR3 MEMORY MODULESStrontium Technology has unveiled its branded EVM 8GB DDR3 High speed DIMM memory modules for laptops and notebooks across India.

EVM 8GB DDR3 memory module consumes less power compared to two 4GB DDR3 modules. The company claimed that they have been tested on the latest Intel and AMD platforms. These modules are designed to support standard computing services such as Internet access, e-mail, file-storage space, other office applica-tions and many more.

It also features a 1333 MHz and 1600MHz operating speed for multitasking, web browsing and gaming. They are fully downward compatible and run at 1.5V for maximum compatibility. The 8GB memory would help users who need to work with large data sets. Users like CAD/CAM engineers, professional and gamers can now have the option to load 32GB in their desktops or 16GB in their laptops. It is a perfect solution for those who look for performance at lower price.

BPTP ADOPTS IBM PURESYSTEMSIBM has declared that BPTP Limited has adopted IBM PureSystems to streamline its IT infrastructure and improve the overall home buying experience for its customers.

BPTP selected IBM PureSystems for all of its processing and storage requirements. The flexibility, ease of use and scalability of PureSystems help the company to replace its existing infrastructure and create a virtualized solution around its existing SAP environment.

Vilakshan Jakhu, SVP and CIO, BPTP, said, “We chose IBM PureSystems because it seamlessly brings together all aspects of a traditional IT infrastructure that is server, storage and networking components ready to be managed on the cloud. Most importantly, the Flex Systems Manager ensures a centralized management of the entire IT infrastructure including the network, compute and storage layers.”

Alok Ohrie, VP (Systems and Technology Group), IBM India South Asia, said, “As one of the earliest clients, BPTP’s selection of PureSystems clearly illustrates the real benefits companies can achieve by tightening the integration of hardware and software. By freeing up resources typically committed to infrastructure tasks, BPTP will be able to focus on innovations that can improve their customer experience.”


16

SNIPPETS


When it is about your future,you trust the one who cares.

Who care most about your success? Who

care most that you stay connected? Like

you, DIGILINK had grown from a local

business to be the No.1 brand in India, and

we care about you coming along this path

of success with us. This is why YOU have

chosen us as your choice of structured

cabling solution for your business.

For over a decade, DIGILINK - with its own

R&D and manufacturing facilities located

in India - has been well-known as The Best

Structured Cabling Brand in India. Now, we

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Advts.indd 7 18/07/12 10:25 PM

HP to Simplify Cloud AdoptionCloud computing offers clients the ability to transform their IT infrastruc-tures, breaking down barriers to innovation. However, some businesses and governments still hesitate to adopt cloud solutions due to security and management concerns. To address these concerns, HP has introduced services designed to help businesses and governments adopt cloud.

HP is adding its cloud solutions portfolio in two areas. The first area puts common cloud techniques to work for design engineers based on HP’s own internal experience. The second area is focused on education with two new HP Cloud Security Alliance courses aimed at arming clients with the expertise to navigate potential security implications of cloud solutions.

HP has also developed Engineering Cloud Transformation Services which help to improve product time to market by using the cloud for engineering IT systems, offering a complete life cycle, from initiation to delivery.

Fujitsu Unveils ScanSnap S1300iFujitsu launches a new model of scanner named ScanSnap S1300i. Available for sale from June 25, 2012, Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i delivers a faster scanning speed of 12ppm (24ipm), a 50% increase in speed as compared to its predecessor the ScanSnap S1300. With the addition of the leading cloud application Dropbox and the ScanSnap Folder software feature, the S1300i allows users to directly scan, store and share their information easily with more cloud and software applications. The ScanSnap Connect mobile application which previously only caters for iPad and iPhone users to view scanned PDF on their devices is now also available to AndroidTM smartphones and tablets users.

The S1300i continues to deliver the intuitive scanning features such as automatic color detection, de-skewing, orientation and blank page removal to ensure that quality scans are produced easily.

HP Brings LaserJet Pro 400 M401 seriesHP has launched its new HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401 Printer Series in India. These Laser printers target SMB, mid-market, enterprise and government customers and feature printing, mobile printing capabilities, access to business printing apps via a large touch screen and web connectivity.

Mandeep Gupta, Country Category Manager (LaserJet Enterprise Solutions), HP Imaging and Printing Group India, said, “Businesses looking for a robust, scalable printing solution with cutting-edge printing technologies will find exceptional value in the new HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401 series. These printers are specifically designed to address the growing demand for productivity and mobility from the mid-sized and large businesses and government customers.”

These printer features 800MHz processor and 256 MB memory. The printer provides network productivity for the office set up, and best in class print quality with a print speed of 33 ppm. It allows organizations to access and print from web using business apps, accessible via color touch screen. It also features HP e-Print technology.

BOXLIGHT launches its new interactive projectors - ProjectoWrite2 series that meets the diverse requirements of business executives, academicians, etc.

The user simply needs to connect the Projector to a computer source, save the software and can interact within five minutes. This interactive and portable projector with an automatic search, sync and filter alert trio, can be mounted depending upon the space available ranging from 4” to 30” claims to achieve an image size of 48” to 300”.The pressure sensing interactive pen, full function IR remote with laser pointer along with a telescopic interactive wand enables better interaction with the image on screen and complete mouse control over it. Boxlight ProjectoWrite series have an increased lamp life of upto 3000/4000hours (standard/economy).The projectors are priced at Rs.79, 000 and available with 5 years Warranty on Projectors and 2 years on Lamp.

BOXLIGHT unveils

interactive projectors

QNAP TO GROW INDIA MARKETQNAP Systems, Inc, a Taiwan based professional storage company, is focussing on growing India market. Part of the strategy, the company wanted to appoint a national distributor, a number of SIs and solution partners. However, the company has tied up with Delhi-based national distributor Iris Computers and has three channel partners - two in Delhi and one in Chennai.

As per Ethan Wang, Regional Account Manager, QNAP, “We are No.1 storage vendor in terms of market share in the SME segment. And, we believe that India is a large market in terms of storage and it has a large base of SMEs too. Our priority is to tap the potential SME market and we will do it by engaging more and more channel partners.”

QNAP has shortlisted 300 SIs across India. And, the company believes that training and technical support are important part of its go to market strategy. As per the plans, the company would like to sell products through the distributors but the company will provide training and technical support directly to the SIs and channel partners.

So as per Wang, QNAP will grow its direct support team in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore from its present four techno sales teams.

Since the national distributor is already on board, QNAP will now focus on the solution partners and develop the reseller programme.

Ethan Wang, Regional Account Manager,

QNAP


18

SNIPPETS


v

For Sales enquiry: neoteric infomatique ltd

Regional Contacts:

North: Mr. Ajay Jan +91 987353119South: Mr. H Joesph +91 9845869719

East: Mr. Debabrata Bunman +91 8420193357West: Mr. Satish Naik +91 9987069069

FOR SMALLAND MEDIUMSIZE BUSINESSES

DISCOVER THE POWER OF ONE

Advts.indd 15 18/07/12 10:28 PM

McAfee to Keep Consumers Connected After Server Shut-offMcAfee has released a free tool to help consumers who may be infected by the ‘DNSChanger’ Trojan to stay connected after servers are shut down by the FBI on July 9th. The new McAfee tool, available on the McAfee website, helps users easily identify whether they have been affected by the malware and offers a free solution if they have been infected.

Domain Name System, or DNS, converts user-friendly website names into the Internet protocol (IP) addresses that computers use to talk to each other. When users enter a website name into their web browsers, their computers contact DNS servers. If users’ computers have the wrong DNS settings for the servers, they will not be able to access websites, send e-mail or use Internet services.

Gigabyte Launches Thunderbolt MoboGigabyte Technology has announced the latest Gigabyte 7 series motherboards. The company claimed that it is the very first to offer fully certified dual onboard Thunderbolt ports. It has the capability of connecting up to 12 devices and 3 digital displays. It also transfers 1TB of data in only five minutes.

Henry Kao, VP, Motherboard Business Unit, Gigabyte, commented, “It’s easy to see how our unique dual port Thunderbolt implementation simply offers more. We’re the only motherboard vendor cur-rently offering DIY PC builders the absolute maximum in terms of device connectivity.”

The company also informed that these motherboards are the first to be certified by Intel featuring dual Thunderbolt ports directly on the motherboard back panel I/O, with each Thunderbolt port sup-porting a maximum data transfer speeds with simultaneous bi-directional data transfer at speeds of up to 10Gbps - this means one can transfer a full HD 1080p movie in under 30 seconds.

OCZ Brings Agility 4 SSDsOCZ Technology, provider of SSDs for computing devices and systems, has launched its new Agil-ity 4 SSD series that delivers an ideal balance of 6Gbps SATA III interface speed, exceptional input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance, and enterprise-grade endurance and reliability all in a value-oriented SSD. Utilizing OCZ’s cutting-edge Indilinx Everest 2 controller platform (first introduced in the flagship Vertex 4 SSD series), Agility 4 SSDs offer a cost-effective alternative to other SATA III SSD solutions in the market making them ideal for mainstream entertainment, gaming, and mobile storage applications said the company release.

It is powered by its Everest 2 controller platform and delivers transfer rates of up to 400MB/s, and up to 85,000 random write IOPS. The dual core controller architecture also includes an advanced error correction code (ECC) engine, dynamic wear-leveling, auto encryption, and Indilinx Ndurance 2.0 technology that addresses and overcomes specific shortcomings of NAND flash memory to extend flash life well beyond the manufacturer’s rated program and erase cycle.

CANON CAMPAIGN FOR PRINTERSCanon India has launched its new consumer printer campaign around the PIXMA E series, a range of home printing solutions. The campaign, ‘Can a printer print love?’ emphasizes on creating awareness around the possibilities of printing.

Equipped with Creative Park, the PIXMA E Series printers allow users to create personalized cards, stunning 3 D paper art, scrapbook designs and tons of other wonderful things. These printers provide a platform for the Indian youth to express their true feelings in the form of visually attractive prints.

Dr. Alok Bharadwaj, SVP, Canon India, said, ‘The Canon PIXMA E series is the best thing that has happened to 1.3 million units inkjet printers industry in India. For Indian middle class households with school going children, it is big values add. We are positioning this category as a great enabler for users to express their emotions and feelings in a creative and fun way. We expect to grow our inkjet biz by 33% this year despite overall depressed business environment.”

BRIEF NEWSSANDISK UNVEILS SUITE OF RETAIL PRODUCTSSanDisk Corporation has announced a suite of new retail products that includes four new USB flash drives and a high-performance memory card. SanDisk unveiled the new products in India to kick off a global launch. The suite of products includes SanDisk’s fastest, thinnest and highest-capacity USB flash drives, as well as, what it says the world’s fastest memory card for smartphones and tablets.

INFLOW TECH SIGNS-UP WITH AUDIOCODES AS DISTYInflow Technologies, a value-add distribution organization, announced its partnership with AudioCodes for the entire range of advanced Voice over IP and converged VoIP and Data networking products.

The company press release said that Inflow Technologies, A Westcon Group Company, operates on a unique “technology enabler” busi-ness model which ensures integrated solutions using best-of-breed technologies and services are delivered to end customers through 500+ channel partners across 12 locations in India and SAARC region.

BELKIN UNVEILS BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD FOR TABSBelkin India has launched Bluetooth keyboard for the Android Tablets and Apple iPads. The Bluetooth keyboard is designed to facilitate a convenient typing experience on at home, in office and on the go. The device comes with an integrated stand that props the iPad/Tablet up to the perfect viewing angle. It allows 6o hours of active usage and comes with a 2,000 hour standby battery life. Function-specific keys for copying and pasting text, moderating volume and controlling music makes the keyboard a perfect companion for tablet users.

UNISTAL RELEASES PROTEGENT PRO-TOTAL SECURITYUnistal Systems releases its new product Prote-gent PRO- Total Security. Protegent PRO- Total security Solution not only protects its user from viruses and internet threats but also from data loss problems. Protegent PRO provides two tier security with its modules i. e. CrashProof- Data Loss Prevention software and Protegent Total security. CrashProof is a data loss prevention software, once installed recovers the data against any kind of software/ logical crash. Its new heuristic technology saves the critical index images of the disk in a protected area while installing and updates them at regular intervals.

ADATA LAUNCHES COLORFUL LINE OF USB FLASH DRIVESADATA Technology has launched the DashDrive UV110, a high-value portable storage solution which comes in a range of four colors.

The housing of the DashDrive UV110 includes the handy features of a thumb-actuated sliding USB connector, and an integral strap hole for use with a lanyard or keychain. Furthermore, consumers will be able to choose models accord-ing to their favorite colors: navy blue, milk white, cotton candy pink, and caramel brown.


20

SNIPPETS


Advts.indd 6 18/07/12 10:25 PM

eScan Secures Mac UserseScan has launched eScan Anti-Virus Security in order to provide secured computing environment for Mac users.

Govind Rammurthy, MD and CEO, eScan, said, “Macs are as vulnerable to cyber threats as any other operating systems. Generally, IT users have an impression that Macs are less available to hackers due to their security technology. However, the OS has been facing a number of vulnerabilities lately and new vulnerabilities are disclosed regularly.”

“Earlier, with Mac OS having only about 10% of the market share, hackers generally did not intend to develop viruses that would only influence a smaller portion of the IT users. Over time, as the Mac user base is increasing, there is no doubt that it will become a tantalizing target. Hence, we now have eScan Anti-Virus Security for Mac that ensures that Mac users are safe from the evolving cyber threats,” he added.

Trend Micro Commences 30 City Road ShowTrend Micro has started its 30 city road show across tier 1 and tier 2 cities. The purpose of this road show is to educate channel partners about the Titanium range of Antivirus products and train the channel partner’ s engineers with Titanium product range. Titanium Internet Security is powered by Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, Trend Micro’s cloud-based security infrastructure.

The company declared that through this road show Trend Micro will help partners understand new opportunities for its product range-Titanium Internet Security. Trend Micro is also looking at expanding the number of new channel partners with a target of more than 5000 channel partners by the end of the year.

Kaspersky Lab Sees Mobile Zeus TrojanKaspersky Lab has discovered a set of malicious Android applications posing as security software. The malware is linked to the infamous Zeus Trojan, a common tool used in the theft of bank-ing credentials. The phony security applications were first observed earlier this month, and newer versions have continued to appear, according to Kaspersky.

“On the 4th of June 2012 we found 3 APK files of ~207 kb in size each heuristically detected by our engine as HEUR:Trojan-Spy.AndroidOS.Zitmo.a,” blogged Kaspersky researcher Denis Maslennikov. “All these applications are mali-cious and were created to steal incoming SMS messages from infected devices. SMS messages will be uploaded to a remote server whose URL is encrypted and stored inside the body of the Trojan.”

The company found three more APK files with exactly the same functionality on 8, 13 and 14 June. Altogether there are at least six files that pretend to be “Android Security Suite Premium”, but in actuality steal incoming SMS messages.

RSA has been named the worldwide leader in total revenue among identity and access management vendors by the latest IDC Worldwide Identity and Access Management (IAM) 2011 Vendor Shares report.

According to IDC, the IAM software market showed a significant economic recovery, and specifically in 2011, the market demonstrated a steady recovery. For the second consecutive year, RSA outpaced the competition capturing an industry-leading 12.1% market share for the 2011 calendar year and 11.7% year-over-year growth, according to the IDC report. RSA also released RSA Authentication Manager Express in 2011, a risk-based, on-demand authentication system for SMB and branch office customers as well software developer kits (SDKs) designed for mobile application developers to seamlessly integrate strong OTP or risk-based authentication into mobile applications without the need for a separate authentication device.

RSA Emerges IAM

Leader

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC LAUNCHES DATA CENTER SOFTWARESchneider Electric has introduced StruxureWare Data Center Operation v7.2, Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software that identifies underutilized and comatose servers enabling the optimization of IT equipment within the data center.

Updates to the Operation platform include the addition of IT Power Control, powered by Intel Data Center Manager (DCM), and the inclusion of the Cisco UCS Manager Plug-in.

“Businesses are increasingly looking to the data center for opportunities for optimization, which can be achieved through right-sizing and consolidating the physical infrastructure and optimizing the IT layer,” said Soeren Brogaard Jensen, VP (Solution Software), Schneider Electric.

“StruxureWare Data Center Operation version 7.2 provides crucial information for making key decisions on how to run data centers more efficiently. The platform provides data center managers with the ability to operate, monitor, analyze and optimize the energy usage of a data center all the way down to the server and CPU levels, gaining significant CapEX and OpEx savings and extending the data center life cycle in the process.”

StruxureWare Data Center Operation v7.2 helps customers optimize the IT layer of the data center by focusing on actual IT power consumption rather than nameplate ratings, and by reduc-ing the power and cooling required to support the IT layer.

The platform also provides an instant report on top power consumers, presenting data center managers with a list of servers that are likely candidates for upgrades, load sharing or retirement, as well as a report on underutilized and non-utilized servers, ultimately ensuring that server sprawl is reduced and ROI is improved.


22

SNIPPETS


Cyberoam has raised the bar in UTM product innovation by introducing Layer 8

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VARIndiaTHE UTTIMATE OF INDIAN VALUE ADDED RESELLERSVoice

Advts.indd 5 18/07/12 10:23 PM

How is Matrix positioned in the telecom market?

Telecom is an important factor in India’s growth story. Presently, telecom industry is poised to take a giant leap with introduction of latest techno-logical advancements. Opening of IP telephony in India would again revolutionize the market & bring more value to users. Matrix is a strong player. Backed by efficient R&D, manufacturing, distribution and after sales support Matrix over the years has created its own niche in the market.

Which vertical markets are you focussing on?

We are focusing on corporates, midsized com-panies and growing enterprises. Sectors like BFSI, pharma, hospitality, telecom service providers, BPO and ITeS are looking for tailor-made solu-tions for their growing communication needs. It is in these segments that we play the major role of telecom consultant, enabling them to increase productivity, enhance efficiency, simplify complex requirements and last but not the least control over telecom expenses.

What are the advantages of Matrix products vis-à-vis

others?We have been associated with Matrix since

the last 10 years.Matrix is an extremely quality oriented manufacturer; entire manufacturing happens in India. With key strengths like strong R&D, production, distribution and after sales support, Matrix has created its own niche in the market. Matrix products offer quality and reliability, comparable with all well established players in the market. Since Matrix itself designs and develop its products it has got an edge in cus-tomizing solution and offering efficient technical support.

Are you working with all the ser-vice providers?

We are doing a good business with service provid-ers. Our tie-ups with Airtel and Tata are giving good results and soon we are going to add more IP products with service providers. In future we have decided to work more closely with enterprise segment.

What is the mix of your business contributions to the overall

revenue?Out of our total business, 75% of revenue is gener-ated from the telecom market while 25% is from security market. So the majority of our buisness is tilted in favour of telecom business and we hope it will remain like this for some time.

What is your product road map?Road maps are always the lifeline of any

business. Our business focus has commenced form all traditional TDM PBX to IP-PBX, with an addition to different Gateways.

What kind of growth are you expecting this year?

With globally increasing pressures on cost, enter-prises are looking for solutions with better ROI. So we will also take the same path. With GSM –PRI gateway in our portfolio, we expect close to 30% growth this year. SME

“MATRIX PRODUCTS OFFER QUALITY

AND RELIABILITY”

PRAVEEN OJHA PARTNER, ADVANCE

SOLUTIONS

The enterprise voice market has always been dominated by MNC players but there are few Indian

companies which have created a dent in their market shares and Matrix being one of them. Talking to SME

Channels, Praveen Ojha, Partner, Advance Solutions, a channel partner, swears by the quality standards set by

Matrix. Excerpts.

“SECTORS LIKE BFSI,PHARMA, HOSPITALITY,

TELECOM SERVICEPROVIDERS, BPO

AND ITES ARE LOOKINGFOR TAILOR-MADESOLUTIONS FORTHEIR GROWINGCOMMUNICATION

NEEDS.”


24

ADVANCE SOLUTIONS SME CHAT

Chat-Praveen Ojha of Advance Solutions.indd 24 19/07/12 9:53 AM

Advts.indd 18 19/06/12 8:50 AM

TREND MICRO HIGH ON CONSUMER BUSINESS

AMIT NATH, COUNTRY MANAGER, INDIA AND SAARC, TREND MICRO

With cyber threats becoming super active, no organization or individual is spared from the attacks. It is not only the enterprises but consumers too who suffer huge losses due to the impact. Hence this is giving rise to the security market in the consumer segment.

IT for consumers may not be so attractive but security for consumers is surely an attractive term. The consumers are not only increasingly participating in the IT revolution but also playing a dominant

force in the consumption of telephony products. This is the reason why most of the security ven-dors are extending their focus on the consumers.

Since Trend Micro started its operation in India, it did not focus on the consumers; and was known more for its gateway protection software. But starting this year, the company extended its focus on to the consumers wiht the launch of its security product Titanium. The objective of the company is to grab the consumer market share and target the tier II and III towns because the company believes that the revenue from this seg-ment is large. According to Amit Nath, Country Manager, India and SAARC, Trend Micro, there exists a very large market for security because those cyber threats are not coming down; in fact they are galloping.

Nath maintained, “If you look at tier II and III towns, those towns are still behind when it comes to penetration both from PC prospective as well as from a security, if I look at some predictions that Gartner has made, we believe that security market will grow in 3-5 years, so there is a plenty of scope from security market to offer diverse things to the customer.”

Nath said, “Our strategy in India on consumer

side is to focus on tier II and III towns because the market will grow by 10-15% in these places. We are working very hard to make sure that in about three years, our volume contribution is at least 40% of the overall revenue right now it is only 10% or even lesser than that.”

Running infrastructure in a cost effective manner has become one of the crucial compo-nents in every organization. An enterprise CIO has to present justifications to the board about the capex requirements. So to get rid of all these ten-sions, enterprises preferred to go the virtual way.

Nath explained, “Whether you are operating in a physical data center environment or you are operating in a virtual data center, we have a sig-nificant product portfolio to drive. In fact, we are making terrific progress with one of the leading solution called Deep Security which is our global alliance with VMware where our solutions are integrated with VMware hypervisor.”

With 1500 customers across the cloud, the company is progressing a lot and on the con-sumer side a lot of investment has been made into increasing the channel strength. Nath said, “Our goal is to grab the market share in the consumer segment because for the last 3-4 years we have not been a significant players in customer market. But we have started understanding the market and did a very exciting launch in Mumbai for Titanium Internet Security to address the anti-virus and internet security market. We found out the right

feature, right promotion and the right price point to start building the volume segment in India which is one of the most strategic priorities on the consumer side.”

From a consumer perspective the company is working on certain objectives: First, to build sizeable attraction on consumer business to make sure that the company recruit 5000 chan-nel partners and secondly, grow the consumer business over the next 2 years by at least four to five times.

Being a US$ 1.2 billion company Trend Micro focuses aggressively on the consumer market as 35% of the revenue comes from the consumers’ segment. Nath added, “At heart, we are a consumer company and we want to replicate the number in the Indian market as well.”

India is a price sensitive market and Trend Micro believes that channel should make money to be focussed on any business. Nath averred, “I execute the right pricing not only for the custom-ers but also for the channel, it is a very good way to make sure that the channels sticks with you, so when we launched, we also made sure that part-ners understood the product.”

Finally...With focus on consumers Trend Micro is heading towards a high voltage competition with free wares and low priced products. Only time will tell how succesfful the strategy proves.


26

SECURITY CORNER

security corner_Trend Micro.indd 26 19/07/12 9:53 AM

Advts.indd 12 18/07/12 10:27 PM

Quality products, even at slightly higher price, give a clear cut advantage, which most often cus-tomers fail to understand. When the market condi-tion is good and finance not an issue, customers can take the risk of compromising with the quality but when the conditions are not it makes more sense to go for quality products to avoid hassles.

It is good to see that Indian IT channels industry is moving on a value path. It all started with the channel partners adding value and selling products. But with the growth in the market and acute shortage of skilled man power and lack of domain knowledge, the channel partners could not keep-up

with the pace. On the other hand, principals always wanted to make channel enabled without putting much pressure on their own system. So, there emerged a new breed of partners who called themselves value added distributors (VAD), they not only played the role of fulfilment of partners but also helped the prin-cipals to enable the channel partners. Similarly, the traditional distributors who had all resources realized the opportunity in VAD space. In the meantime, the bottom line for them was drying up, so they developed capability to address the opportunity.

This trend also influenced neoteric. It created a division which could hand technology products. Today, this division handles niche products including Apple, LaCie, Alcatel-Lucent, Autodesk, etc. Out of all these brands, most dif-ficult brand to position is Alcatel-Lucent because the company, mostly known for its service provider and high-enterprise offerings, has given the mandate to neoteric to broad base its channel business for SME/SMB market.

As per Anup Nair, Head of neoteric Technology Solutions (NTS), neoteric infomatique limited, Alcatel-Lucent has a lean team in India and they are focussed on large accounts/deals. On the SME side, they expect neoteric to play literally a vendor’s role in terms of marketing, demand generation and organiz-ing road shows, certifying the partners, product awareness creation, joint sales pitching, etc.

Nair says, “neoteric’s value added business was restricted to certain segments. Primarily we were into distribution business but now we have extended that

BY TEAM [email protected]

NEOTERIC ENRICHES ALCATEL-LUCENT’S CHANNEL STRATEGY

ANUP NAIR, HEAD OF NEOTERIC TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS (NTS), NEOTERIC INFOMATIQUE LIMITED

“THIS IS A THREE QUARTER JOURNEY FOR US BUT WE HAVE BEEN FAIRLY SUCCESSFUL. OUR STRATEGY HAS INCREASED STICKINESS OF THE VENDOR IN TERMS OF ITS DEPENDENCY ON US AND ALSO THE PARTNERS’ TRUST ON OUR CAPABILITIES.”


28

NEOTERIC TREND SETTER

Trend Setter_Neoteric.indd 28 19/07/12 9:54 AM

approach to the SME/ SMB market, which means that we are putting in lot of understanding and execution. Alcatel-Lucent is not a new brand for us. It has been with us since the last three years. Earlier we were selling Alcatel-Lucent to the partners; they were being trained on the products only, but for the last three quarters our strategy has changed. Now we enable the channel partners in a 360 degree manner.”

“We are telling the partners that they can go and pitch Alcatel-Lucent products and we will give them end-to-end services, which means we can come along with them while making sales calls and we can create solu-tion and PoC for them and even design Bill of Materials (BOM) and if required we can implement under their banner. Partners who are adopt-ing technology selling and do not have skillsets, our services gives them a lot of confidence. They know that there is somebody standing behind,” he maintains.

Of course the distributor wants that the partners should be self-sus-tained– at least after the initial few accounts – but until the partners do not feel confident neoteric remains on their back.

To make the partners self-reliant, neoteric certifies them on Alcatel-Lucent technologies. Even the customers’ engineers are certified by them. neoteric develops course material based on Alcatel-Lucent’s guidelines and has its own trainers. Under the brand Evolve, the company trains partners in its Mumbai centre and if required organizes onsite trainings.

Nair adds, “This is a three quarter journey for us but we have been fairly successful. Our strategy has increased stickiness of the vendor in terms of its dependency on us and also the partners’ trust on our capabilities.”

The company does not sell Alcatel-Lucent products as boxes. The entire product including voice, data and UC products goes as a solution to the customers.

To explain the market and the partners about the value of Alcatel-Lucent’s solutions, neoteric along with Alcatel-Lucent has embarked on a six city road show.

Nair says, “Initially Alcatel’s partner base was limited so we wanted to expand to the next level. So this six city road show’s objective is to estab-lish Alcatel-Lucent’s presence in those cities by exhibiting the capability of its voice and data products and solutions. We send invitation to the partners so that they would come and see the solutions. Internally we have a team of PBMs and partner enablement channel managers, who after the road shows talk to the partners in terms of sales and business planning. And once the sign up happens, the partners’ resources get trained.”

From the market perspective, Alcatel-Lucent is strong in hospitality and health care segment and they will continue to be the leader in that space as they have customized application and ecosystem around the vertical industry. The company wants to replicate its success in other vertical also – especially in SME/SMB space.

As per Nair because of the products’ quality, the customers are very happy about Alcatel-Lucent’s products. People who are using it are talk-ing kudos about it. Therefore, the repeat order for the solutions is very high, but the pain-point for the company is less marketing activities and reach among the partners and customers.

Finally… Since Alcatel-Lucent products ask for support heavy involvement, it requires the partners to be dedicated for a long term. It cannot make it a sell-and-forget business; they need to dedicate certified resources and time on the brand, which is slightly difficult and different from other brands. In return, the company takes care of the partners by ensuring them better margin not only on products selling but also on services.


29

NEOTERIC TREND SETTER

Trend Setter_Neoteric.indd 29 19/07/12 9:54 AM

Why this sudden interest in SMEs in the market?

Earlier the companies major focus was mainly into telephony or UC, and SMEs did not feature in this focus because they were not seeing any revenues coming out of this segment. And the other reason being the conservativeness of the SMEs in terms of implementing the technology. SMEs had their own apprehension in terms of implementations on the IT front or the telecom, and were mainly going for the traditional tech-nologies. They were not able to migrate from whatever they were using to new technologies because of fund issues or any other constraints.

Mainly from 2000 onwards there has been a tremendous shift in technology and in terms of migration from the earlier traditional analogue, to digital, now 2G and 3G. Hence SMEs realized that they need to shift from what they had been using to the new technologies for two main things--First is cost saving and second, bringing efficiency into the business cycle. Companies and organisations started educating them and soon discovered that there was scope and SMEs were ready for this. All the organisations tried to focus and came out with products which were cost effective and could help the SME segments to improve upon.

What competitive sustainable edge do your products offer to

the partners?Our main focus for many years has been on SME and SMB markets. And we were manufacturing and designing the products based on their needs and which had to be cost effective. Now that we know the SME segment very well and based upon their needs we came out with a new concept ‘all-in-one’ box, which was launched a year back and is called SL1000. It is a kind of a product where you can have some UC solutions and some sort of IP segment hence there is a flexibility within the system. So the customer doesn’t have to throw out the old system and go for a new one.

Tell us about the traction among the SMEs when it comes to

adopting new technologies.Today, there is lot of awareness about UC and IP; and NEC has been very much active in holding seminars for the SMEs where we try to tell and suggest them how UC or IP can help their organi-sations to grow in terms of efficiency, inventories, travel cost etc. We have also trained them on how to improve upon ROI.

SME’s are coming out with getting attracted

towards UC applications. There are various appli-cations driven into the SME like messaging, talking mobility or the conferencing, so these applications are being driven into the SME and we are seeing a lot of traction.

What are the Channel initiatives undertaken by NEC?

We do lot of seminars, go to multiple cities where we call the customers and try to teach them and tell how we can help establish them. Demonstra-tions and road shows are held and try to target those customers and make them see how NEC can help them. We also try to understand their requirements. And based on today’s and tomor-row’s requirements we propose the solutions. That’s one thing. The second is since SMEs are being driven through the dealers, and since we have lots of dealers in each and every place, we train them on how to target the SMEs.

What are the main challenges faced by SMEs?

Lack of knowledge is the challenge they face because till two years back there was no focus on SMEs— neither from the organisations nor from even regulatory point of view. There was no initia-

“NEC WILL SOON COME OUT WITH A CLOUD

CONCEPT FOR SMES”

RAVINDER RAINA COUNTRY HEAD

(PRIVATE NETWORK SOLUTIONS), NEC

INDIA

SMEs have become the flavor of the market with every vendor coming out with products specifically targeted at this very important segment. NEC too manufactures

and designs cost effective products based on their needs. Ravinder Raina, Country Head (Private Network Solutions), NEC India in a tete-e-tete with SME Channels spoke

about NEC’s focus on the SME market and plans for the future.


30

SME CHAT NEC INDIA

Chat-Ravinder Raina of NEC India.indd 30 19/07/12 9:54 AM

“NOW THAT WE KNOWTHE SME SEGMENT

VERY WELL AND BASEDUPON THEIR NEEDS WECAME OUT WITH A NEWCONCEPT—ALL-IN-ONE

BOX.”

tive to improve SMEs through technologies. Also the SMEs were conservative in terms of imple-mentation of IT and lacked expertise.

Budget constraints and their mindset are the challenges that we still face today. But yes, slowly and steadily it is changing because of awareness.

Please elaborate on NEC’s roadmap.

We are on an expansion mode and will be adding more national partners for SMEs. On the market-ing side we will continue with the road shows, dealer seminars, trainings, advertisements etc. Apart from the four national partners we will be adding one more to the list.

Lasts year i.e. FY11 our market share was 29%. And the market-share that are targeting for this year from the SMEs is around 35%. As we have been rated number one we would like to continue for this year as well.

Apart from the above, as everybody is talking about the cloud we too are thinking about how we can bring the SME to the cloud. So this is now the target area for us and very soon you will hear NEC coming out with a cloud concept for SMEs. Last but not the least we want to introduce more applications and solutions for SMEs. SME


31

NEC INDIA SME CHAT

Chat-Ravinder Raina of NEC India.indd 31 19/07/12 9:54 AM

Tell us about the inception and growth of Mindlance in the Global

and Indian market? Mindlance’s journey into the world of Informa-tion Technology began when a few visionaries took up the challenge to provide innovative high quality IT Infrastructure Management Solutions at competitive costs. With this idea the seed was planted in 1999, when the company was incor-porated in New Jersey, U.S.A., after which the headquarters were set up in Hoboken, New Jersey. These small steps set the wheels rolling towards an enriching and rewarding journey.

As the expansion gained impetus, Mindlance spread its reach across more cities and countries. Development centers mushroomed across India and the Indian headquarters was set up in Banga-lore. The Indian centers now host the Data Center, NOC and Application Development Centers. The growing talent pool of domain experts enabled Mindlance to establish its presence as a leading IT Infrastructure Management Services provider in over 22 locations with a global head count of over 2500+ employees.

How is the company positioned in India?

Mindlance is a pioneering leader in professional IT Infrastructure Management and we add value

to businesses by bringing in expertise and an inde-pendent perspective. Mindlance aims to provide perfect solutions to complex IT Infrastructure needs and network maintenance across industries from Technology Parks, Corporate Houses, Public Infrastructure Projects, Hospitality Houses, to Telecom and Media Service providers. Over the past decade the organization has seen a spurt of development centers across the globe. India alone has witnessed setting up of 13 centers.

What is the core strength of Mindlance?

Mindlance has formed strategic collaborations with the world’s largest OEMs which enable us to give the best service to our clients. Our talent pool of domain-experts work on each vertical of a business’s various verticals with singular focus

and attention. With a knowledge base which is unparalleled in the Industry and continuous innovations we are able to ensure that our clients get optimum ROI and long term benefits. Innova-tion is the core strength of Mindlance.

What kind of challenges do you face in the market?

There are not many major challenges which we face, but building level 1 confidence amongst the prospects is a daunting task, but post delivery we have a record of 95% customer retention and always had happy customers coming back to us over and over again.

Are you also developing service capability?

Mindlance is very much a service integrator which believes in tailoring the solutions which very much fit the customers’ requirements.

What kind of activities are you focusing on to create brand

awareness?There are a lot of brand awareness activities we conduct such as advertisements both online and in media, PR activities, Events, etc. But we believe, our employees and customers make us and thus they are our best Brand ambassadors. SME

“AIMS TO PROVIDE PERFECT

SOLUTIONS TO COMPLEX IT NEEDS”

KAMAL SHARMA, GROUP CIO

& SBU HEAD MINDLANCE

From a humble beginning in New Jersey in 1999, Mindlance today has become one of the fastest

growing IT Infrastructure Management Company. SME channels spoke to Kamal Sharma, Group CIO & SBU

Head Mindlance to know about the secret behind the success. Excerpts.

“STRATEGICCOLLABORATIONSWITH THE WORLD’S

LARGEST OEMSENABLE US TO GIVE

THE BEST SERVICE TOOUR CLIENTS.”


32

MINDLANCESME CHAT

Chat-mindlance.indd 32 19/07/12 9:54 AM

Advts.indd 4 19/06/12 7:44 AM

For a long time now, the industry was been talking about the growth of SSDs and now it seems the time has arrived. As per IDC, worldwide solid-state storage industry revenue

has reached a record $5 billion in 2011-a 105 per-cent increase from the previous record of $2.4 bil-lion in 2010. The research house also expects the NAND flash SSD market to continue to expand in 2012--in fact, all the way through 2015.

Even IHS iSuppli Storage Tracker report from information and analysis provider IHS also pre-dicts that with a strong boost from Ultrabooks, global shipments this year of solid state drives (SSD) are expected to surge by 165 percent com-pared to 2011.

On the other hand Global HDD market is forecasted to grow only at a CAGR of 8.1 from 2011 to 2015 to reach revenue of US$ 32.1 billion, IHS iSuppli said it has already been hurt by vari-ous reasons –starting from growth of tablets to natural disaster, price rise, and even efficient cloud storage. Plus, the price of SSDs is coming down.

It is obvious that everyone now wants a piece of this booming market. The SSD market is already crowded with well-known vendors like Seagate, WD, Kingston, Intel, SanDisk, OCZ, Corsair etc. and new ones are jumping into the wagon like MSI. While MSI has been selling SSDs in some of its high-end laptops for quite some time now, until now they were provided by third-parties such as SanDisk.

Cache SSD shipments are further predicted to drive the SSD market says IHS iSupply. Not only this, it is said to turn into the primary reason behind the mainstreaming of the SSDs and is forecast to jump to 46 million this year, up from 17 million in 2011.

Well, all this translates into good business for the SSD vendors! “This represents a major growth opportunity for SanDisk. I don’t have the specific numbers for India, but you can see that this is an important technology for any major consumer market,” says Manisha Sood, Country Manager & Director, India & SAARC, SanDisk Corporation.

“This year Kingston has seen a phenomenal

growth in SSD sales figures and it will only get better in the months to come,” says Nidhi Sethi, Sales Director (Flash), Kingston Technology, India. However, the biggest challenge in the Indian market she says is the lower penetration of PCs, internet connectivity and other infrastruc-ture among the masses. The global market is more likely to be better informed of new technology and products as compared to the Indian market because of this.

For OCZ, SSDs now play a fast growing role in the overall storage market and the overall total addressable market (TAM) continues to increase fuelled by adoption by OEMs, the DIY market and the enterprise space. “We foresee a huge SSD market potential in India, as its IT infrastructure is gradually coming in place for general public. Faster bandwidth, more electronic stores, thirsts for finding information through internet, all these factors speeds up SSD sales in India,” replies Ankur Sarkar, Sales Manager, South Asia, OCZ .

Their superior performance, speed and durability make them a preferred choice over

Natural disaster in various parts of the world followed by the acute shortage and steep price rise of HDDs gave a new life to the languishing

SSD market. So the product which was tagged for datacentre or high-value notebooks all of a sudden is seen inside the mainstream products.

BY KARMA [email protected]

MOVINGINTO THE

ERA OF SSDs


34

COVER STORY SSD MARKET

Cover_Story.indd 34 19/07/12 9:55 AM

WORLDWIDE SOLID-STATE STORAGE

INDUSTRY REVENUE HAS REACHED A

RECORD $5 BILLION IN 2011-A 105% INCREASE

SOURCE: IDC

COVER STORYSSD MARKET

35SME CHANNELSJULY 2012


traditional hard disks. SSDs make tablets and ultra-thin notebooks possible through their small size, fast performance, reliability due to no moving parts and efficient power consumption. SSDs also enable consumers to improve the per-formance and extend the life of their desktop and notebook computers, boot their computers faster, load applications in less time and enjoy greater reliability.

Move over HDD, SSD is HereWhile SSDs were available long before the HDD shortage, they were mostly considered only by performance enthusiasts, industrial users, or companies willing to pay a significant premium in order to maintain cutting-edge storage perfor-mance. Today, SSD prices have dropped to the point where they have emerged as a feasible alter-native storage device, allowing SSDs to become accessible not only for early-adopting enterprise applications, but also to mainstream end users.

The Thailand flood followed by the massive disruption of HDD manufactures which triggered the HDD prices to soar provided the perfect situ-

ation for the rise of SSDs. Apart from this the rise in the growth of ultra books, tablets and smart-phones are further driving the SSD market.

Ultrabooks, notebooks, tablets, smartphones, most vendors agree, will act as major catalysts in the growth of SSD market. Kuldip Sengar, Direc-tor (Sales), Silicon Power (India), says, “Like many technology, the future of computers is heading towards, lighter weight, faster performance, thin-ner and more compact in size. With the demand of PC, notebook and particularly the uprising demand from ultra book will certainly drive the demand of SSDs.”

“The increased use of tablets and advanced smartphones also indirectly influences the SSD market, as these devices utilize flash-based storage and consumers have gradually become accus-tomed to the near-instant software loading and noise-free operation of these HDD-free devices, and in turn have begun to expect similar per-formance from their larger desktop or notebook computers,” says Angus Lin, Product Manager, Transcend.

With the advent of Intel’s Ultrabook standard

for high-performance, thin and light notebooks, the rate of SSD adoption in consumer products have increased. Its Ultrabook specifications con-tain strict performance requirements that call for the use of a powerful SSD in the system, either as a smaller-capacity cache drive in combination with a conventional HDD, or as a larger-capacity standalone system disk. It is important to note, informs Lin, that notebook manufacturers are not forced to adhere to Ultrabook specifications, and many use them as general guidelines to create “Ultrabook-like” products in order to save costs.

“With higher performance SSDs being used in more expensive full-fledged Ultrabooks, these lower cost alternative notebooks have the poten-tial to further widen SSD market penetration by leveraging low/medium performance SSDs to bolster performance to levels that are substantially higher than HDD-only models,” adds Lin.

Ultrabooks, it seems, is where many vendors

“THIS SHIFT WAS ONLY WAITING TO HAPPEN. THE FACT THAT PRICING OF NAND FLASH IS DECLIN-ING COMBINED WITH A GREATER AWARENESS OF SSD TECHNOLOGY HAS SPURRED THE GROWTH EVEN FURTHER.”NIDHI SETHI, SALES DIRECTOR (FLASH), KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY, INDIA

“THIS REPRESENTS A MAJOR GROWTH OPPORTUNITY FOR SANDISK. I DON’T HAVE THE SPECIFIC NUMBERS FOR INDIA, BUT YOU CAN SEE THAT THIS IS AN IMPORTANT TECH-NOLOGY FOR ANY MAJOR CONSUMER MARKET.”MANISHA SOOD, COUNTRY MAN-AGER & DIRECTOR, INDIA & SAARC, SANDISK CORPORATION.

“WE FORESEE A HUGE SSD MARKET POTENTIAL IN INDIA. FASTER BANDWIDTH, MORE ELECTRONIC STORES, THIRSTS FOR FINDING INFORMATION THROUGH INTERNET, ALL THESE FACTORS SPEEDS UP SSD SALES IN INDIA.”ANKUR SARKAR, SALES MANAGER, SOUTH ASIA, OCZ .


36



Advts.indd 11 18/07/12 10:27 PM

“WITH THE DEMAND OF PC, NOTEBOOK AND PARTICULARLY THE UPRISING DEMAND FROM ULTRA BOOK WILL CERTAINLY DRIVE THE DEMAND OF SSDS.”KULDIP SENGAR, DIRECTOR (SALES), SILICON POWER (INDIA)

are putting in all their eggs. Of the more than 25 million cache SSDs to be shipped this year, about 22 million units will be built into Ultrabooks, IHS predicts.

OCZ will be able to support Ultrabooks and notebooks with its SSDs which are designed to further enhance performance by booting faster, and read and write data more quickly informs Sarkar. He further adds that its SSD technology is also ideal for mobile devices which require smaller form factor storage solutions which also utilize less power.

“Moreover, in professions involving photog-raphy, music and film where employees have to work with heavy files, SSDs make things much easier. This shift was only waiting to happen – the fact that pricing of NAND flash is declining com-bined with a greater awareness of SSD technology has spurred the growth even further,” says Sethi.

SSDs and EnterpriseIDC is also expecting SSD shipments to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 51.5% from 2010 to 2015. The research firm further states that the rapid growth rate of the SSD segment is hap-pening in the enterprise in part because of drop-ping price points and also because the technology of solid state drives is improving.

As per S Sudhir, MD, Inspan Infotech, Chen-nai, “The prices of the SSD’s on an average been discounted by 49-55% since their debut. SSDs sales have been rapidly growing from some time in the global markets, whereas in India the momentum has just started and is increasing with the dropping prices of SSDs.”

Vendors have made great strides in lowering price points while also improving reliability and boosting performance compared with first-generation SSD products that were introduced a few years ago.

However, it is to be noted that SSDs introduc-

tion to market is not very new, it’s only that cus-tomers are now getting interested in this product due to the decreasing prices. “Industry profes-sionals have long been aware of the performance advantages of solid-state storage technology since its adoption in the high-cost military and enter-prise sectors,” informs Lin.

For OCZ SATA continues to be the largest por-tion of the market but is seeing growth in both SAS and PCIe SSDs in the enterprise. It has seen a lot of traction in the workstation and enterprise spaces for PCIe SSDs in particular where custom-ers require increased bandwidth, which would normally saturate other interfaces, and also desire increased density and greater manageability.

Sethi opines that it is always the better option for corporate as it ensures better performance and reduces their overheads. She is confident that within the next year or so, there will be more adoption of this technology not just by corporate but also by regular consumers.

“Consumer and Enterprise SSDs can be equally fast when it comes to bandwidth but they are ultimately designed to address two very differ-ent markets,” informs Sarkar. On the consumer side key requirements include performance, reliability, endurance and affordability. On the enterprise side these elements are also important but with the added measure of price per IOPS (Input Output Per Second). There are also unique challenges that enterprise clients face in terms of deployment, maintenance costs and having to deal with managing and complex storing data sets 24/7/365.

“There are also different interface requirements, for example SAS is much more prevalent in the enterprise space where drop in replacements into existing infrastructure or dual-port functionality is required,” he further adds.

SSDs have always been considered better than HDDs in terms of performance, durability and

faster execution. They also have a much longer life and will keep data more secure. The processing of data has always been better on SSDs. So it is no surprise that IT managers are increasingly look-ing at SSDs over HDDs.

With increased demands of server virtualiza-tion and cloud computing, IT managers are looking for even more ways to bolster their storage performance to stay ahead of the curve. Although high-speed performance is one of the key benefits of modern solid state drives, perhaps an even more essential factor for enterprise use is reliability.

“In the enterprise computing world, reliability, downtime, hardware footprint, complexity, and power consumption are all pivotal decision fac-tors, and have led IT managers to turn to SSDs as more efficient and reliable alternative storage solutions,” says Lin.

According to M A Mannan, Country Man-ager, Corsair Memory India, said, “SSDs are far more superior in terms of reliability, ruggedness, its low power consumption, high read and write speed and it is being preferred more against any other storage devices, safe for storing data. The pricing of SSD against HDD is coming down gently which is helping the IT managers to shift towards SSD.”

“INDUSTRY PROFESSION-ALS HAVE LONG BEEN AWARE OF THE PERFOR-MANCE ADVANTAGES OF SOLID-STATE STORAGE TECHNOLOGY SINCE ITS ADOPTION IN THE HIGH-COST MILITARY AND ENTER-PRISE SECTORS.”ANGUS LIN, PRODUCT MANAGER, TRANSCEND.


38



SSD is Here to StaySSD vendors believe that with consumers becom-ing ‘SSD conscious’, having being exposed to the benefits of the SSD performance, it is unlikely that they will go back to using HDD.

Senger believes that SSDs is here to stay on a long term because it brings value and perfor-mance together in one. “It offers different value than what hard drives offer. And as SSD prices fall, it’s only going to continue to expand its market share.”

Moreover, with Intel’s 2012 Ultrabook specifications, the use of either a caching SSD or stand-alone SSD is now a mandatory addition to mid-high range thin and light notebooks.

“We believe SSD supply and demand will intercept at 1TB SSD capacity. Next year will be a critical year for SSD, 1TB SSD price will be able to meet user expectation, when that time comes, we can be sure SSD will become the mainstream device for PC and notebooks,” says Sarkar.

While Mannan and Sethi too echo the same sentiments but rebuffs the whole theory that shortage of HDD had anything to do with the growth of SDD.

Sethi remarks, “I don’t think the shortage of the HDDs had much to do with the growing market for SSDs. Most of our SSD consumers are actually prosumers – they know what kind of performance and speed they’re looking for. They’re well informed and they choose only after researching well. Also, corporates that have opted for SSDs have done so because they know that the technology is far superior to HDDS. From our experience, once consumers use an SSD, they don’t switch back to HDD technology.”

Although the production of HDDs is fast recovering HDD average selling prices are not expected to decline to pre-disaster levels until 2014 as per IHS.

The Price WarAccording to Softpedia some of the large SSD makers have started reducing the prices of their products but the reduction may not be as strongly linked to the decrease in the NAND flash costs, but to the increased number of small “amateur” SSD makers that are “messing up” their market.

Corsair’s Mannan blames the technological development in NAND for creating price war and

not the small players. “The moment 20nm NAND is launched the SSD pricing will be dropped by 30-40% which will still fire up the price war among brands.”

Sengar clarifies that small players doesn’t necessary mean its products are lowly priced. He feels that when major players go for quan-tity sale: volume with aggressive pricing, com-panies run into the risk of price wars. “Right now it is not obvious in India due to the low adoption for SSD, people are comparing the price of SSD to traditional drives, so when it comes to buying most people are still choos-ing the comparatively cheaper hard drive,” he remarks.

“These companies out there address only one side of the market, either client or enterprise, and many SSD companies are simply rebranding products,” opines Sarkar.

For Transcend having an increased number of brands competing in the consumer SSD market also helps broaden consumer awareness of SSD products, especially through promotion across disparate channels to reach a greater and more diverse audience. If anything, the escalation of competition is having a positive effect on the SSD market.

SSDs Below $1/GBWill the end of 2012 witness the fall of SSD prices below $1 gigabyte as predicted by IDC? Lin informs that as of June 2012, retail SSD prices have already started dropping below US $1 per gigabyte. In particular, prices of mid-range performance SATA-III 2.5” SSDs built with cost-effective asynchronous MLC flash chips have dropped to as low as $0.77 per gigabyte. In the first half of 2012, SATA-III SSD prices have dropped roughly 30%.

“We are confident to say that the time for 1GB is less than 1$ will come early in 2013. And thanks to the whole new 20nm wafers, we can do 2TB maximum capacity from 16 flash memories. As long as the duration of block erase can improve on flash memory blocks, I believe it would be detonated an opportunity for SSD to become mainstream,” says Sarkar.

ConclusionThe market has got the taste of SSDs. Com-bined with lower price points, higher per-formance, and the deluge of Ultrabooks, smartphones and tablets is creating a perfect storm for the SSD vendors. Vendors like Kings-ton which has already seen an exponential growth of 110% in the SSD category last year, as compared to 2010; and in 2012, expect the sales to grow by at least 125%.

“THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF SSD, DROP OF PRICING ARE THE KEY FACTORS FOR THE GROWTH. THE TECHNOLOGI-CAL ADVANCEMENTS IN THE NAND SECTOR HAVE HELPED SSD CONSOLIDATE ITS POSITION IN THE STOR-AGE SECTOR.”M A MANNAN, COUNTRY MANAGER, CORSAIR MEMORY INDIA

“THE PRICES OF THE SSD’S ON AN AVERAGE BEEN DISCOUNTED BY 49-55% SINCE THEIR DEBUT. SSDs SALES GROWTH IN INDIA HAS JUST STARTED AND IS INCREASING WITH THE DROPPING PRICES.”S SUDHIR, MD, INSPAN INFOTECH, CHENNAI


39

COVER STORYSSD MARKET


MANUFACTURE OF FLEX-IBLE HOSES AND EXPANSION JOINTS SIGNS ON TALLY.ERP 9

Radcoflex is recognized as an innovator in the design and manufacture of flexible hoses and expansion joints for last

40 years. In Asia and Asia Pacific regions, Radcoflex manufactures in five countries and has four assembly plants within Aus-tralia, and supports sales offices through-out the region.

The Indian manufacturing plant in Chennai is the latest and most modern Composite Hose and Spring Pipe Sup-ports manufacturing plant. It has been in operation since 2005 in Chennai, India. It’s fully equipped to manufacture Com-posite Hoses from 1 inch to 8 inch upto 20 meter length for all the applications including Petrol, Chemical, Gas, edible oil and Hi temperature etc.

Radcoflex India caters to the demand of USA, UK, Europe, Asia and Middle East. Pipe Supports division at Radcoflex India started manufacturing in 2008. It manufactures all sizes of Spring Pipe Sup-ports and all designs. The marketing team of Pipe Supports serves the demand from all over the world.

Its field people are backed by engineer-ing, quality assurance and manufacturing team unmatched in the industry. Its hose assemblies offer end connections devel-oped and manufactured in-house using the latest Computer Aided Design sys-tems and most modern machine equip-ment available.

Since the company employs so many people working in multiple manufactur-ing facilities and is connected to mul-tiple clients, exchange of information was naturally on a real time basis. Secondly, making MIS and status reports available to the management during the early part of the month was also a challenge area. So the company tried to automate pro-cesses to enable the work force and make the reports available to the management

quickly. They adopted Tally.ERP 9 to help them to do so.

Mr. Anil Kumar, Managing Director, Radcoflex India, says, “With the stature of the company, we always wanted to enhance efficiency and productivity of the employees. Naturally we had a lot of busi-ness challenges in various deparments including production, quality control, reporting systems, etc. Therefore, apart from enabling our employees with IT, we implemented enterprise solution. We wanted cost effective and rugged tech-nology. In these circumstances we found Tally.ERP 9 as best suited.”

He added, “Once we implemented the solution, it was very easy to synchronise and migrate data. Of course we had evalu-ated two other products but found Tally is better than others.”

There are about 10 people using Tally and from the beginning till now and there has been no inconvenience at all. Of course large part of the ease is accredited to the Master Tally Partner, Parakram Infotec Pvt. Ltd. This company is proac-tive in its approach starting from updating

versions to adding module they make it seamless.

Mr. Nagarajhan R - Master Tally Part-ner (MTP), Parakram Infotec Pvt. Ltd., said, “The issue with Radcoflex was that they were using Tally without any custom-ization. Secondly, Mr. Anil Kumar was depending upon his employees to work on various projects. But he realised that he had to involve himself with the employees to get the things in the right direction. He wanted the MIS available at the right time. So he needed us to be involved and customize Tally.ERP 9 for him. So we got engaged with Radcolflex from the stand point of AMC and started doing custom-ization from last year and the company is seeing the benefits now.”

Today, Radcoflex uses Tally for most of the departments including accounting, materials inventory, production, quality control, delivery, stock reports, etc.

It took only 30 days for its staff to learn Tally and in one week they started using it. So the net result is the company could enhance productivity by optimizing the efficiency of the work.

CONTACTTally Solutions

AMR Tech Park II,

No. 23 & 24,

Hongasandra,

Hosur Main Road,

Bangalore – 560 068.

India.Tel +91 80

66282559; Fax +91

80 30228775; www.

tallysolutions.com

ANIL KUMARMANAGING DIRECTOR, RADCOFLEX INDIA

“Once we implemented Tally.ERP 9, it was very easy to synchronise and migrate data.”

BENEFITSl Easy To Migrate

datal Easy to Implementl Cost Effective and

Rugged Technology

CASE STUDY TALLY


40

Case Study-Tally-Radcoflex.indd 40 19/07/12 9:56 AM

THERE IS A LITTLE BIT

OF TALLY IN EVERYBODY’S

LIFE

In year 1991 after finishing graduation, Mr. Nagarajhan R, - Master Tally Partner (MTP) of Parakram Infotec Pvt. Ltd., wanted to get into accounting field. At that time his brother

referred him to M/s. JL Computer and Services , a Tally Dealer. Here he recceived hands-on experi-ence on Tally.

During his tenure with JL, he started getting committed and involved with Tally which created a rapport with CAs and customers. In the process he became so popular that people called him as Tally – Nagaraj. In 1994, he could see that there is a huge growth opportunity in Tall. It gave him confidence to start up a partnership firm with his friend.

Today, after so many years, Mr. Nagarajhan has become an expert in Tally technologies. He says, “We have developed solution for Education Institutions, manufacturing sector, project engi-neering companies, retail, etc. We have developed modules for apartment maintenance in Tally. We have experience in working on various industry verticals and have provided solutions”

But like every startup company, Parakram Info-tec had experienced its share of challenges at the beginning. Mr. Nagarajhan narrates, “We used to compete with local software developers who used to sit at customer’s location and develop the solu-

tion. Very few companies showed interest in Tally. Sales cycle used to take much longer time. But we tried to utilize all the windows of opportunities. We never missed any computer exhibition during that period and did cold calls every day. That helped us to acquire more customers.”

In the initial years, every single order used to give him a lot of excitement, happiness and sense of achievement but gradually winning accounts became a habit. And, Parakram Infotec went on bagging orders from biggies like Madras Cricket Club, Kun Hyundai, Melmaruvathur, Aadhi Para-sakthi Institutions, Indusind Bank, AdJ Group of companies, Madurai Meenakshi Mills and Madu-rai Meenakshi Mission Hospital, Tamilnadu Warehousing Corporation, CMDA, etc. A latest success of the company is bagging 100 Nos. order from Aachi Masala Group of Companies.

He added, “We have implemented the complete solution on Tally.ERP 9 at Woodpecker Furniture - Chennai, Integrated Tally with Sales force Auto-mation and Foundry ERP Software with Tally. We have converted data from Quick books to Tally for international client based in Dubai and also pro-vided complete customization on International trading and Distribution Company at Bangkok, Thailand. We have provided solution to Manufac-turing Company- Radcofelx at Sriperumpudur.

But orders from Middle East have given us pride and successful feeling. “

Traversing so many years with Tally, Mr. Naga-rajhan has almost absorbed the company within his DNA. So he says, “Tally is a value driven company which follows honesty and integrity as its pillars. It believes in ensuring partners’ success which has been the core strength of the company.

Tally being No. 1 for the past 2 decades, has been successful in meeting the current and future expectations of the customers. Especially the power of Simplicity matters the most in maintain-ing the leadership in the market.”

With a turnover of Rs.1.5 crores, Parakram Infotec as a company has been 100% dedicated to Tally. With an objective to grow 3X, Mr. Nagara-jhan, says, “I am completely satisfied and leading a fulfilled life. Whatever I do today on computers, all started with Tally. We are aligned with Tally’s growth and getting ourselves ready for Series B”

Finally…As a concluding note, Mr. Nagarajhan beautifully says, “We walk with Tally to achieve. There is a little bit of Tally in everybody’s life, So…If WE can’t, NOBODY can...”

NAGARAJHAN R - MASTER TALLY PARTNER (MTP), PARAKRAM INFOTEC PVT. LTD., CHENNAI

“TALLY IS A VALUE DRIVEN COMPANY WHICH FOLLOWS HONESTY AND INTEGRITY

AS ITS PILLARS”


41

PARTNER CORNER

partner_corner_Parakram-Tally.indd 41 19/07/12 9:56 AM

As technology progresses and

customers seeks to satisfy different

needs in one transaction, has led to

technology combinations or to put

it simply, Convergence. Today, it has

become a mainstream phenomenon and

the market is embracing the growing

convergence technology market.


CONVERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGIES TO PREVAIL

Lately, we are hearing a lot about convergence. Technologies are converging to bring together a myriad of devices to ease usability and increase effectiveness for the end-user. The form-factors are becoming more compact and portable with providing better processing, efficient storage and easy access

capabilities.Today, integration, convergence, whatever you call it, is happening all

around us from computing to smart phones and tabs. Datacenters are employing such technologies as they are running out of space and power. With Convergence, they can use the same device for multiple applications by implementing Virtualization and Cloud techniques.

Recently IBM announced a new family of data center building blocks called PureSystems with the aim to offer integrated systems. Or take Ora-cle’s Exadata, which has been in the market for quite some time now, and is a complete package of storage, servers, networking and software, which the company says is secure, scalable and redundant. Then there is the HP’s converged cloud solutions. The list is endless.

A precursor to most application developments today, the network industry too renders many convergence products like IP Surveillance with

42

FEATURE CONVERGENCE


Convergence.indd 42 19/07/12 9:57 AM

43

FEATURECONVERGENCE



in-built storage and centralized monitoring facili-ties, Network Attached Storage with Surveillance Station, Web Server, Multimedia Station, FTP Server, etc.

Storage consolidation, also called storage con-vergence is a method of centralizing data storage among multiple servers/devices.Scanner, copier and printer are becoming MFD while multiple point security products are becoming Unified Threat management (UTM) box.

“As collaboration becomes social, as user experience goes mobile, and as computing infra-structure and platforms migrate to the cloud, the convergence of these technologies will create the next big wave in the IT industry,” says Salil Godika, CSO and CMO, Happiest Minds Technologies.

So, does convergence encompass the merging of technologies, devices and networks? “No,” says Asheesh Pandia, Global Brand Manager, Tyco International, ON Canada, “Boiling ‘Convergence’ down to a simple, one-line definition is difficult because it is not only about merging technologies, devices and networks but it ultimately encom-passes user experience as well.”

“New dimensions of simplicity, integration and automation are what convergence means to the users, and eventually, true convergence would mean that customer’s device doesn’t define him anymore. To understand convergence as a process and way for development is important because it is a continuous and dynamic phenomenon. More-

over, with its role in socio-economic development, it needs to be observed not only from the technical standpoint but also from that of a ‘developmental’ one,” he explains.

Delving more into the meaning of convergence Subir Bhatnagar, VP & Global Head (Solutions), AGC Networks Ltd, says that there are three critical aspects of experiencing technology—the equipment or device, applications stored in serv-ers, network to access these applications. “While the servers are used for running these applica-tions, storage devices or systems are used to store information and data related to these applications. What convergence does he says is sync up all the three aspects and attempts to deliver a seamless experience which is also known as virtualization.”

The convergence market is large and growing as the customer today looks for business specific needs with minimal customization and provi-sion for future scalability in terms of technology and space. Being able to manage a business with centralized control and management is a basic requirement.

Commenting on the size of the market Bhat-nagar informs, “A report quoted the market size to be around $35 billion across the globe with a predicted growth of minimum 12%. But the way convergence is being adopted by enterprises and demanded by users I am sure the growth rate can exceed anything around 20%.”

Vendors agree that convergence does help in

making things simpler by making management uncomplicated with consolidation and centraliza-tion of data or services. Consolidation and cen-tralization widely contribute to lower TCO and save power thereby increasing ROI.

Subhashini Ramakrishnan, CTO, Dax Net-works, informs, “Apart from the fact that con-vergence may influence consumers to accept new technologies, it definitely delivers higher efficiency while reducing TCO. To be successful in the convergence market, one must understand the various bottlenecks of implementing such solu-tions now and the impact, and the turn it would make in the next couple of years.”

“Convergence helps customers to reduce their TCO on infrastructure management and support. Helps to implement solutions such as DR2Cloud and have multiple applications running on same device and easy to scale up and scale down based on demand,” says Sridharan Mani, CEO and Director, American Megatrends India.

“As devices are reduced there will be reduc-tion in power, less carbon emission and hence a greener planet. Turing off devices, instances, pro-cessor cores during off-peak demand time helps to save power and energy,” he adds.

Pandia sees Convergence as all about making things simpler, leaner and greener. With smaller storage footprint, lower cooling, lower power and simplified management, convergence reduces TCO to a great extent he affirms.

TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE

CONVERGENCE MARKET, ONE MUST

UNDERSTAND THE VARIOUS

BOTTLENECKS OF IMPLEMENTING SUCH

SOLUTIONS NOW AND THE IMPACT

AND TURN IT WOULD MAKE IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS.” SUBHASHINI RAMAKRISHNAN,

CTO, DAX NETWORKS

“IN FACT COST OF TECHNOLOGY

ADOPTION HAS BEEN JUST GOING DOWN

ONLY. THE LIFE SPAN OF DEVICE TOO HAS

SHORTENED AND USERS KNOW THAT.”

SUBIR BHATNAGAR, VP & GLOBAL HEAD – SOLUTIONS, AGC

NETWORKS LTD

“WITH VIRTUALIZATION

AND CLOUD TECHNIQUES, THE DEFECTIVE DEVICE

CAN BE MOVED OFFLINE BY HAVING THE APPLICATION INSTANCES MOVED TO A DIFFERENT

DEVICE TO MINIMIZE DOWNTIME.”

SRIDHARAN MANI, CEO AND DIRECTOR, AMERICAN

MEGATRENDS INDIA.


44

FEATURE CONVERGENCE


Advts.indd 19 19/06/12 8:51 AM

Hence over the years, the reliability of IT hard-ware has improved tremendously. Therefore, Pillai explains, most of the issues faced today are on the soft side like setting and configuration. Hardware failure is rare and hence manageable through replacement process due to low incidence.

“In case of critical applications or devices, provision for high availability must be kept in mind. Most products used in such environments have built-in redundancy and 99.99% uptime features,” reminds Ramakrishnan. “Care must be taken at the architecture design level to handle adequate redundancy. It is advisable to practice and have a disaster recovery plan in place. In fact many convergence products have multiple func-tions to serve as both primary/secondary devices individually.”

As per Mani, “Ideally, the device would employ techniques to avoid single point of failure with redundancies built-in. If not the case, the down-time will definitely increase. With virtualiza-tion and cloud techniques, the defective device can be moved offline by having the application instances moved to a different device to minimize downtime.”

With the consolidation of different devices cus-tomers more often go for products of more than one vendor but there is always the lingering fear of vendor lock-in among the end customers.

The market is replete with vendors accused of vendor lock-in both on the software and the

hardware side, though they may deny following such practices. But things might be changing. “Vendors have started to address the lock-in con-cerns of the end user already and they are coming up with investment protection plans,” says Pandia “Although the focus has to be more on the ‘service’ part of it, both buy-back and time or technology-proofing packages will soon be seen more often as vendors re-align their product and service strategies.”

Allaying the vendor lock-in issue Sunil Pillai, Co-founder and MD, iValue InfoSolutions, remarks, “IT has come a long way over the years. It’s rare to see offerings only form a single vendor for most requirements. Also the market is com-petitive enough not to allow any vendor take any unreasonable stand. Competitive upgrade programs are available from most brands to help customer switch from one vendor to another with least impact.”

He further adds that buying criteria should focus on relevance of the offering to address business and IT challenge. Brand and vendor should come after relevance in decision making criteria.

Today, most agree, that neither technology makers nor connectivity providers are married to a particular vendor. They all are following a multi association approach to maximize their market capitalization. “A lot in both enterprises and con-sumers is shifting from Capex to Opex model, just

to eliminate the fear of high cost of technology shift or upgrade. In fact cost of technology adop-tion has been just going down only. The life span of device too has shortened and users know that,” informs Bhatnagar.

Coming to challenges, the opinions differ all across the board. While for Ramakrishnan with the ease in use and accessibility for the user comes the concern for security and availability. As long as this is kept in mind one is ready to go. Also, proper management of applications across the WAN can help mitigate convergence challenges she says. For Mani the business continuity is critical. For him the biggest challenge would be to ensure that downtime is zero and RPO is minimum.

And for Pandia overwhelming demand for new policy frameworks, bandwidth, investment and standards for seamless integration are some of the key challenges. Besides, both organizations and regulators are faced with the vertical and horizon-tal integration challenges. “In terms of regulatory ecosystem, a competitive market would allow convergence to expand the most,” he opines.

Finally…So convergence is not a loose term any more. It is real and happening. The IT industry is already seeing the benefits of convergence but the fact of the matter is that the manageability is not yet tested though said to be worry freed. So time will tell how it stands in long run.

“THE MARKET IS COMPETITIVE

ENOUGH NOT TO ALLOW ANY

VENDOR TAKE ANY UNREASONABLE

STAND. COMPETITIVE UPGRADE PROGRAMS

ARE AVAILABLE FROM MOST BRANDS TO HELP CUSTOMER SWITCH FROM ONE

VENDOR TO ANOTHER WITH LEAST IMPACT.”SUNIL PILLAI, CO-FOUNDER AND

MD, IVALUE INFOSOLUTIONS.

“‘CONVERGENCE’ IS NOT ONLY

ABOUT MERGING TECHNOLOGIES, DEVICES AND

NETWORKS BUT IT ULTIMATELY

ENCOMPASSES USER EXPERIENCE AS

WELL.”ASHEESH PANDIA, GLOBAL BRAND MANAGER, TYCO

INTERNATIONAL, ON CANADA

“AS COLLABORATION BECOMES SOCIAL, USER EXPERIENCE

GOES MOBILE, COMPUTING

INFRASTRUCTURE AND PLATFORMS

MIGRATE TO CLOUD, THE CONVERGENCE

OF THESE TECHNOLOGIES WILL CREATE THE NEXT BIG WAVE IN THE IT

INDUSTRY.”SALIL GODIKA, CSO AND CMO,

HAPPIEST MINDS TECHNOLOGIES.


46

FEATURE CONVERGENCE


Advts.indd 2 19/06/12 7:45 AM

Shifting its focus from customers to partners Cisco is trying to change the game they operate globally, with its focus on ‘smart services’. Through its ‘Smart Service Initiative’ the networking company is building another portfo-lio for its channel partners to help them offer better value added services to the end-customers.

Cisco is going the full length to change the game they operate globally with its focus on Smart Services initiative. The proactive call has been under-

taken to build a better portfolio for its partners so that they further enhance the value they offer to end-customers.

The networking company is automating the services and bringing them at a network level. But the services are not agnostic of brands. It’s only for Cisco as due to legal reasons it is not authorized to monitor non-Cisco devices.

Cisco has made sure that every partner can avail the services. It is an open platform avail-able for the partner so that they give more value added services to the end-customers and thereby generate better margins for themselves.

Earlier, Cisco was very specific while selling break fix. But now they are taking the game from device level to network level. So the break fix option it is doing plays a device in the network which gives real time information about the net-work and that real time information is available to the partners.

As not all tier 1 and tier 2 partners have those capabilities to offer it, smart services are built into the offering so that the partners have a strong offering for the end-customer. It helps them get better margins and also gives them the visibility through the networks, so if there are devices that are end of support or end of sale can go and replenish them when the opportunity comes.

Amitabh Patney, VP (Commercial Segment


TAKING THE GAME FROM DEVICE TO NETWORK LEVEL

AMITABH PATNEY, VP (COMMERCIAL SEGMENT AND DISTRIBUTION BUSINESS, SERVICES SALES - INDIA & SAARC), CISCO SYSTEMS.

“I BELIEVE THAT THE LARGEST CHUNK OF MONEY CAN BE MADE IN SERVICES AND ALL OUR PARTNERS AGREE AND AND ARE FOCUSING ON IT AS WELL.”

and Distribution Business, Services Sales - India & SAARC), Cisco Systems, said, “We were by far the industry leaders in services in terms of break fix that we offer, offering that we had. We were clearly the market leaders in most of our other players being distant players. So that has been a very big initiative and are getting enriched results from the end customers and partners are happy with the offerings we are bringing in.”

Cisco has a device which monitors networks which is a read only access device, and hence poses no threat to the network. The device gives real time access to what is happening in the network. Further the device has real time inven-tory of what is sitting in the network. Through this the partner gives real time information to the end customer and has a better view of his own inventory. Hence proactive monitoring of devices is now possible.

The device can be either software or hardware. As software it can be downloaded and put on the network and device has to be connected to the network. Partners have access to the network where they are publishing the report.

The Smart Care offering is available only to the partners. Partners can go to the network and log in to Cisco; and in turn plump all his customers on that and he will have access to all the information. Smart capabilities have actu-ally gone to the level that if he enables smart call home on certain devices he can get an SMS or an email intimation. All these smart services are built into Cisco’s offering so that its partners have very strong offering to the end customer which is


48

CISCO TREND SETTER

Trend Setter_Cisco.indd 48 19/07/12 9:58 AM

nothing but value addition. This helps the part-ners make better margins.

If the partner is proactive in anticipating and identifying the problems he has an opportu-nity to sell more. Today’s customers are better informed and willing to spend the money if they see the value provided.

When a customer deploys any devices he would typically buy break fix services which is a paid service. It comes with a warranty of 60 or 90 days, which covers transit time and after that he starts getting break fix. But if a critical device goes down and the customers wants it to be replaced within four hours time, Cisco has set up ‘four hours depos’ across the country to service within the stipulated time.

Network is a complex living organism. There are multiple things that can go wrong either because of bandwidth or devices. Now within the network there are many devices from multiple companies and not just Cisco’s. If any problem arises Cisco provides the end customers with online support called TAC, where they try to isolate the issues. Once it is done they give them a break fix. Hence the answer for everything is not replacement. “Infact 80% of the problems that happen in network are because of software and not because of hardware failure,” says Patney.

Benefits to PartnersAs far as margins are concerned the partners can make a cool 20%-30% easily on services. Mar-gins are generally higher on services and not on devices. As services are predictable the partner can upsell the whole service because once the network is there then it is all about optimizing the network. To optimize the network people and processes needs to be put in place, suggestions have to be made and these suggestions can be done either by Cisco or by partners. To the end-customers it gets routed through the partners.

Till now Cisco talked about technical services currently at box level or network level. But there are certain specialized services that the custom-ers want. There are partners who have invested in CCIs, CCNs, but then there is a cost limitation and not every partner is at that level. In order to address them Cisco has come out with an offer-ing called Collaborative Professional Services.

In case of professional services that a part-ner might need he can come to Cisco and will be provided with the services, which are also extremely inexpensive. These services are not enterprise version or the high end version but are remote offerings help that it can give to the partners and sold only to the partner and not the end customer.

Hence it’s an offering dedicated to the partner and he can either sell it as a Cisco service or white label it and sell it as his own service.

Smart Care is targeted at the SMB market and for partners who are slightly smaller in stature from a capability perspective. But for both of them the offerings are similar about building the smartness in the technical services at the network level. And on this the partners bundle their own services and Cisco can also verify the audits.

For Cisco Smart Services and the Collabora-tive Professional Services are arsenal given to its partners so that they give higher value to the end-customer.

Cisco agrees that earlier it was totally com-moditized but being a partner led company it realized that if its partners are not making money and are not able to show value to the end customer, it’s a matter of time before competition will.

Size of Cisco services marketThere is a $200 billion opportunity for ser-vices globally though it may not be specific to networking services. But Cisco sees a big opportunity.

Today, Cisco offer services from top to bottom. The flavor of services changes but the intake of services of the high end enterprise customers is higher because of their higher dependencies on network. Apart from the break fix they need optimization services as their networks are huge. There are various audits that company has to keep performing so the high end customers will have higher level of services.

“But ultimately if you look at it from a box level these are investments people make in a network. They want to make it secure. They can’t buy these devices on a daily basis so they do employ us and even if it is a one to two box kind of a customer they do employ us for the services”, remarks Patney.

Channel EmpowermentBeing a partner led company it becomes impera-tive to scale these guys up as ultimately the expe-rience the customer gets is a Cisco experience and it is through its partners. Cisco understands that to give the customers a good experience it is extremely important to enable the partners hence comes the certification. Cisco undertakes lot of initiatives, programs, training, upliftments, re-training so that the capability is not lost. Today, Cisco boasts of programs like CCI, CCM becoming the industry practice. People use it as a curriculum today.

CCI, CCM certifications are actually done by

institutes but Cisco also has its own networking academy. There is a special division within Cisco called Net Academy which works on empower-ing partners who can give this as a service. NIIT is one of the partners which deliver this as train-ing to end-customers.

Under the Collaborative Professional Services Cisco has an offering called Knowledge Transfer (KT). Patney informed that KT is one of the most sought after offering after audits; and is also a big chunk of its sales. There are two levels at which KT sessions can be done. While Cisco does it at a larger level and Partners have to pay for this. Or they can buy one unit which could be a half day session.

The partners can also utilize the KT sessions by asking for remote support. Remote support becomes a KT as the partners tag their new employees on it.

Patney emphatically says training the partners and investing in them is the backbone for its suc-cess. It is specifically designed for the partners and not the end customers.

An SME customer need more services then probably the high end customer because the latter has in- house IT. Even though the capabil-ity is there but dependency for partner led ser-vice is higher in the SME segment. They would not be of the scale where they can employ their own IT staff. Their dependency is very high on the partner. Hence the service requirements from the end customers are higher in this seg-ment. The services could be either Cisco services or partner led service or a combination that goes to the end customer.

“I believe that the largest chunk of money can be made in the services and all our partners agree to it and realize it and they are focusing as well,” remarks Patney.

He opines that products tend to get com-moditized but solutions make the whole offer-ing much better. And solution is nothing but product and services together so that becomes solutions which is where the whole shift from product to solution led approach is what we he is seeing in the market.

Finally…For Cisco Smart Services is changing the whole game. And the number of partners who have enrolled has been phenomenal and are seeing the value; and customers, whether from the high-end or low-end pyramid, have started insisting on those services. Cisco wants to further harness this opportunity as this is what enables it to grow and hence will be a major focus area for the net-working company.


49

CISCO TREND SETTER

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It has been over a year since Digilink became a part of Sch-neider Electric. With the acquisition Schneider Electric now

boasts of a very rich portfolio of products and wants ts Digilink partners to take advantage of this opportunity.

BY KARMA NEGI [email protected]

FLYING HIGH ON SMEs’

TURF

Digilink has completed one year of its acquisition by Schneider Electric. GB Ravichandra, who earlier looked after the Alliances and Global Strategic Accounts for

APAC & Japan region at APC by Schneider Elec-tric, assumed the role of director sales, Network and Connectivity, Lifespace Business.

His earlier experience with channel comes handy here the only difference being that it fol-lows a regional distribution model. This model was followed in the erstwhile Digilink and has been continued here too. The rationale behind following this model he explained is there are cer-tain strengths in this distribution as channels here are little different compared to the IT channel.

With its business model based on leverage model the networking company wants to work very closely with its partners and encourage them to do a lot of system integration. They want the partners to grow so that they too grow in turn. Currently with 22 distributors there are no plans to increase the number as he thinks they are adequately covered.

It has varied products starting from ITB which

comprises of UPS and racks, electrical distribu-tion and it also does a lot of wiring devices and lighting. With such a rich products basket port-folio Schneider is encouraging the partners to use the opportunity and work with Schneider to enhance their business.

Keeping the above in mind Digilink by Sch-neider Electric recently rolled out a series of semi-nars named ‘Network 160- 2012’. To be conducted in approximately 55 cities across the country over a time span of four months, from May to August, it is inviting resellers and opening them to other kinds of products apart from Digilink’s.

The seminar focuses on the benefit that its resellers and dealers can accrue from the wider portfolio of products Schneider Electric’s manu-facturing capabilities. Hence now not only will the Digilink’s channel partners grow but so will the company.

In the first phase Class A cities were covered, followed by class B cities in the second phase. Here the first to be invited are the existing part-ners to celebrate the long association with the company. Neo partners are also being invited. The company is making sure that through the

Year of

operation in

India

: 1994

Global

Headquarter

: France

Key

Executives

: Olivier Blum, Country Head

& President, Schneider

Electric India; Dr. Satish

Kumar ,VP (Professional

Services) & Energy Efficiency

Ambassador.

Solutions : Power, Industry, Buildings,

Lifespace, Infrastructure,

Rural, Retail,

Number of

Partners

: : 5000 to 6000 channel

partners and around 210

cities covered

Website : : http://www.schneider-

electric.co.in

FACTS ABOUT


50

DIGILINK SME BIZ

SME Biz _Digilink.indd 50 19/07/12 9:58 AM

of the market. For the enterprise segment it targets hospitality, data centers etc. As for the SME it works with small SIs and help them become cer-tified cabling cablers and give them the required training. In the SOHO market that gets into the electrical market there is box mixing and box selling. So the value proposition for each of the customer is very well articulated so as to address each of the market.

Talking about channel strategy, Schneider works on a leverage model where all the layers of the market are addressed. They tell the channel the opportunities they need to bring and in turn the opportunities that Schneider will bring them to increase their revenues. Hence in this way they bring opportunities for channels and channels bring business for them, which adds up to bring-ing in higher business.

One of the corner stone of Schneider’s channel policies is to increase the profitability of the part-ners. Ravichandra explains, “There are two ways of covering. First is going as wide as possible and appoint more and more channel partners which many players in the industry do; and second is to increase the depths of the existing channel partners. Increasing the business of the existing channel partners and ensuring greater profitabil-ity. So we are not appointing national distributors or thousand of new partners but rather sticking to the partners we have and making their business profitable.”

With 40% of the business coming from SME, it is not only the major focus but also its strength.

With SME being a very important part of the strategy a lot of focus is being given on this seg-ment. Hence a new program has been brought in called the SI Loyalty program. Having identified thousand SI partners who are addressing this market, Schneider will address all these partners individually—talk to them, understand their cus-tomer perspective; and try to see how its solutions can work with him.

Coming to the cabling market Schneider is one of the leading vendors in the structured cabling market and this year it is expecting growth in the range of 5-6%. With Cloud driving the market, followed by huge infrastructure project especially driven by the government --modernization of airports, metros etc—which require cabling solu-tions pose a big opportunity for the networking company.

Finally…Digilink by Schneider Electric is providing its channel partners with a strong networking plat-form and opening them to more opportunities by familiarizing them with other products that Schneider’s portfolio carries.

road show the partners are enabled and look not just at the Digilink products but also at the varied products portfolio (APC and APW) and see it as an opportunity to sell more products and hence increase their business.

Talking about the success of the road show an excited Ravichandra says, “The events have been very successful and quite excited about it. In fact many of these channel partners personally came and spoke to me and my team and want to explore the new opportunity presented to them.” He fur-ther informs that many of its distributors who were earlier selling purely Digilink products have now started to sell APC and APW products too.

One of the objectives of this road show is to reinforce the whole relationship with Digilink and secondly, to reinforce the message on what Digilink stands for, what it means to the partners specifically best in class channel policies. Over the years it has won numerous awards for its channel policies and the close interaction with the chan-nel. It mainly has customized products specifically for the Indian market and also has the advantage of manufacturing locally.

With its channel policies well appreciated

among the partners even the margins are quiet healthy for the channels remarks Ravichandra. With most of its channel partners having been with them for the last 15 years, it is made sure that the channels are well taken care of, and they are healthy and happy doing the business.

Through its commercial policy the terms of business are clearly defined. A document is signed with the partners and they are given certain schemes and it is ensured that they meet certain targets in turn for some incentives.

Channel Strategy The channels are segmented into different layers. The enterprise segment rules at the top which comprises of government and pure enterprise. This is followed by SMB/ SME and lastly, SOHOs.

All these pyramids are addressed through the channels solely. On the Enterprise segment Sch-neider’s own sales team works very closely with the customers and when order is received it is routed through the channels. The SMEs/ SMBs are addressed purely throughh small SIs and regional distributors look after the SOHO business.

Products are clearly segmented to address each

GB RAVICHANDRA, DIRECTOR SALES,

NETWORK & CONNECTIVITY,

LIFESPACE BUSINESS


51

SME BIZDIGILINK

SME Biz _Digilink.indd 51 19/07/12 9:58 AM

SAP BETS BIG ON SMEsEnterprise solution was never thought of as a right product for the SME market but things have changed and the SMEs have enhanced their capability to be at par with the large enterprises in terms of their deliverables. This has forced them to implement enterprise solutions seriously.

SMEs are considered to be the backbone of the Indian economy, contributing to over 15%-20% to India’s GDP (SMEs contrib-uted 17% to India’s GDP in 2011

and likely to contribute over 22% in 2012 as per ASSOCHAM report). In this backdrop, SAP is also looking at SMEs as one of the growth drivers.

As per Venugopal Uppalapati, CEO, vCentric and a Silver Partner for SAP, SMEs have indeed started implementing various technologies aimed at improving efficiency and productivity of opera-tions. These companies have understood the fact that technology up-gradation is the only way to improve their quality and cost competitiveness. They have also understood that to survive, grow and win, they will have to continuously infuse the latest technology tools in their production pro-cesses and marketing and management functions to cut cost, gain efficiency and consistency.

As per Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Vice President (Emerging Business), SAP India, SAP is the leader in the enterprise application space with 3,850 SME customers in India. He says, “The emerging business today takes cognizance of automation benefits and how it acts as a game changing factor in business. A large number of SMEs today are second generation entrepreneurs who are willing to experiment and explore the IT horizons by

adaptation of new technologies.” SAP empowers the growing businesses by

helping them adapt to brand new innovations by leveraging its new five market categories including cloud, mobility, analytics, database and technology. Thus emerging businesses forms an integral part of SAP’s growth in India. As part of SAP’s global strategy, the company follows a multi-channel/multi-solution model to effectively address the diverse needs of small businesses and midsized companies.

SAP introduced a portfolio of solutions that “best fit” the individual needs of small businesses and midsize enterprise. These solutions offer choice of application, industry-specific function-ality and deployment option (on-premise and on- demand model). These solutions provide new business management extensions and services tailored to the distinct, industry-specific needs of customers. While consolidating its growth in its core ERP offering, SAP is also enabling the emerging business to adopt new technologies including cloud, analytics and mobility.

To take the solutions to the market, SAP has a well-established network of partners that provide regional and worldwide support for all SAP appli-cations to help fuel innovation with customers. Its partner ecosystem accounts for 85% of the emerging business deals. Mohapatra adds, “We

along with our partner ecosystem plan to pen-etrate deeper into the remotest locations in India. Our award-winning Partner Edge programme is a comprehensive business framework that offers partners marketing and inside sales support, on-boarding and enablement programs, training initiatives to make them self-sufficient.”

Over the period of time SAP has introduced a range of innovative solutions, particularly designed for SMEs to help lower operating costs, improve operational excellence, gain better busi-ness insight and grow their businesses. Some of these solutions like SAP Business One is a single application designed for small businesses. Streamlines end-to-end operations and provides

“It is time consuming though as far as implement is concerned, but SAP is definitely a required piece of software for SMEs.”KULJEET SINGH SETHI, CIO, AVON CYCLES


52

LEADERS CORNER

Leaders corner_SAP.indd 52 19/07/12 9:58 AM

instant and complete information across the entire business. The SAP Business ByDesign designed for midsize companies provides broad support for cross-industry processes, is customer-configurable to reduce IT expenses, and supports rapid growth at a predictable cost.

Some of the other solutions include SAP Business All-in-One, SAP BusinessObjects Edge, and Crystal Reports. SAP HANA Edge Solution is a recent launch in the in-memory space, it provides instant access to real-time infor-mation by simplifying the IT landscape.

SAP is believed to be pricy and time consum-ing. Mohapatra maintains, “The emerging busi-nesses in India today seek for solutions that would give them absolute value for their money. They are matured enough to envision the long term benefit that SAP solutions would offer to their business by improving scalability and operational efficiency. The primary consideration for emerging busi-nesses while deciding on their IT infrastructure is effective cost utilization and faster installation.”

He adds, “Our Rapid Deployment Solution is a pre-configured software package for mid-market customers that were designed to be implemented in just couple of weeks.”

There are many SME customers improved employee productivity and reduced operational

cost with SAP solutions. Avon Cycle is a Rs.450 crore company with 1,500 head count. It has a data centre. This company replaced Tally with SAP and when asked why the CIO of the company, Kuljeet Singh Sethi says, “Tally was not tightly integrated. Our back-end was totally open. Then we realized that we should build up a system.”

The company had of course also evaluated Oracle but found SAP a more stable product for manufacturing sector. He adds, “I can have as many application servers as possible. It is time consuming though as far as implement is con-cerned, but SAP is definitely a required piece of software for SMEs.”

Uppalapati says, “AVON had disparate IT systems being used to manage their business operations earlier. Our SAP team thoroughly understood their business processes and opera-tions, analyzed precisely to ensure the delivery of a right fit solution for business of AVON Cycles. Adapting to SAP standards and SAP Best Practices, with a well-planned and systematic approach, we could see success in realizing the best SAP solution for AVON in a record time.”

SAP currently engages 200 partners in India, which are responsible for 85% of emerging busi-ness deals. Besides, SAP has enhanced partner-ships on Subscription Based Hosting with IBM

for CRM Rapid Deployment Solution and with Wipro and Highbar (Infrastructure, Real Estate and Engineering, construction and Operations industry) for Business All-in-One.

SAP’s ambition is to deliver 100% of emerging business sales through the channel therefore, the company is working closely with its partners to achieve the target.

Mohapatra maintains, “One of the major dif-ferentiators of SAP’s channel strategy is that we are perhaps the only player catering to 25 differ-ent industries in India and also further broken it down to 22 micro verticals delivering preconfig-ured best practices with deep industry-specific capabilities to ensure a solid and cost-effective IT foundation for growth. We have chosen 10 poten-tial cities as our “Million Euro Markets” to expand our growth further.”

Finally…There is no doubt that in the coming years and considering the changing market dynamics, only those SMEs with strong technological base and willingness to restructure themselves will thrive successfully. As a CIO Sethi advises that a good enterprise solution is required to help grow the organization and it has to be implemented in the right way follow the best practices.

“Our Rapid Deployment Solution is a pre-configured software package for mid-market customers that were designed to be implemented in just couple of weeks.”PRIYADARSHI MOHAPATRA, VICE PRESI-DENT – EMERGING BUSINESS, SAP INDIA

“Adapting to SAP standards and SAP Best Practices, with a well-planned and systematic approach, we could see success in realizing the best SAP solution for AVON in a record time.”VENUGOPAL UPPALAPATI, CEO, VCENTRIC


53

LEADERS CORNER

Leaders corner_SAP.indd 53 19/07/12 9:58 AM

With the precarious power condition in India every busi-ness and every household today needs power backup of some form or other. Earlier, power back-up was associ-

ated with a desktop PC or work station, but today, every machine requires power backup.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA [email protected]

TIME FOR POWER PLAY

IN INDIA

The opportunity in India power backup market is very high. Not only all sensitive machineries need to be protected from unscheduled power outages but also from the

inconsistent power supply. Surge and flickers in power supply can easily disrupt applications in hospitals, oil and natural gas, aeronautics, etc. So the need of uninterrupted good power supply is always growing in India. Therefore, today the power backup market stands around Rs.3,600 crores and is growing at around 9% over previous year. In this market, UPS holds a major share.

In this situation, Delta Power Solutions is one of the large players in the power back up market. The primary strength of the company is its manu-facturing facilities in Rudrapur, Pondicherry and Gurgaon. It is a green factory and helps in local-izing and customizing solutions for Indian needs and conditions.

Suhas Joshi, Director, Delta Power Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd., says, “The Rudrapur factory has been designed and built using environmental conservation measures and it provides a healthy and safe workplace for employees. Dedicated to a greener world for a better tomorrow, Delta’s fac-tory in Rudrapur and Gurgaon established a new

benchmark for preserving the environment.”Besides there are two R&D centers in Gurgaon

and Bangalore and eight regional offices. Owing to its strong presence in India, the operation stands as a Centre for Technical Excellence for the entire SAARC Region. Besides catering to the Indian market, the company has a strong instal-lation base in several countries including Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

From pure market perspective, the demand for power backup is growing in all verticals including IT, telecommunications industry, OEM’s, BFSI, hospitality and many more, and the company is focusing on most of these verticals. With about 17% of demand-supply gap in power generation, the power backup sector is crucial for business continuity in all of the above verticals. The largest and the fastest growing vertical happens to be IT which is fuelled by the evolution of data centers deploying more number of servers due to growing e-commerce, IT enabled services, BPO and KPO services.

So in this growing market, Delta is not only focused on providing technologically superior products but is also dedicated to a greener world for a better tomorrow. Delta has experience of more than a decade in designing, manufactur-

Year of

operation in

India

: 1971

Headquarter : Gurgaon

Key

Executives

: Prashant Pendurkar- National

Sales Head: Channel &

Distribution

Robin Roy- Product Manager

Vikas Owdhbal- Business

Development Manager

(Industrial)

Krishna Sharma- Business

Development Manager (IT &

Telecom)

Ankita Chowdhury- Marketing

Communication

Key products : UPS & Data Centre products

Geo Presence : Kolkata, Mumbai, Gurgaon,

Cochin, Pune, Bangalore,

Hyderabad, Chennai

No. of

Employees

: For UPS division, over 140

in India

Website : www.deltapowersolutions.

com

FACTS ABOUT


55

DELTASME BIZ

SME Biz_Delta.indd 54 19/07/12 9:59 AM

Come & Join

Uninterruptablethe Growth,

Come Aboard , Join A Winning Partnership

Advts.indd 9 18/07/12 10:35 PM

WHAT IS YOUR MARKETING AND CHANNEL STRATEGY?Delta focuses on the needs of the industry. For ensuring wider geographical cover-age and providing professional support to our clients, we have partnered with local companies that are certified to sell and support Delta UPS in different parts of the country. We work with our reputed channel partners to ensure that we provide clients with the highest levels of service. Our channel network is widely spread all across the county. Delta aims to reach out to maximum number of people through its marketing strategies. As a part of the strategy we organize regular seminars and events for the customers as well as channel partners.

FINAL QUESTION

Similarly, SME is the biggest market for smaller kVA online UPS, primarily 1-15kVA. This market has been growing year on year and should continue to grow in the coming times also. Joshi maintains, “Our channel partners have helped us increase our breadth and depth in SMEs. And we shall continue our focus on SME segment. Delta’s focus is to tap more tier 2 and tier 3 cities.”

Usually channel partners are only known as box pushers and do not provide any technical assistance to the customers in UPS segment. But Delta’s Channel Partners not only does sales but also provides solution to the end customers and assists them on their technical queries. “Our part-ners go through extensive product and industry training. In addition to offering products, our channel partners create custom solutions for our customers’ specific business needs. From training services, to one-seat implementations, to com-plete solution makeovers, our trained solution providers adapt to the unique business challenges of our users,” says Joshi. Delta regularly organizes technical training for its partner’s to upgrade the technical skills of the service team of the channel partners.

Delta intends to reach customers through all possible mediums. Reach them directly through its regional network as well as through its distri-bution network. Therefore, its business partners play a key role in the process. Delta has a pronged strategy for channel business, which is to expand the reach across the country as well as consolidate current channel business. Global Infonet and Grainger distribute Delta UPS products from 600VA up to 30kVA ratings all over the country.

Delta has a good number of Channel Partners’ based in all India to help reach out to end custom-ers with shortest possible time. Delta also offers the entire range of Online UPS Solutions from 1 kVA to 4000 kVA that is entry to high end level directly to the end users. The typical strength Delta channel might exceed 50 power business partners for UPS with several power resellers under them.

The customer satisfaction is very important and also a very critical aspect of business for Delta. Attaining a customer is not much of a challenge but maintaining a happy and satisfied customer is indeed a big task. Joshi concludes, “Today’s cus-tomer is very demanding. Hence providing best customer satisfaction and after sales support is the key to retain a customer. We keep on exploring best ways to support our customers. Delta Power Solutions has excellent service network spread across India offering 24x7x365 online/ on-site, support managing customer critical complaints, achieving highest customer satisfaction with nearly zero equipment downtime.”

ing and marketing uninterruptible power sup-plies (UPS) globally which helps introduction of superior technology products and provide energy efficient and reliable solutions for a wide range of applications in home, office, data centre and industry segments. Delta has an impressive instal-lation base with regional support centers all over India and the SAARC region.

Data centre is one of the largest markets for the power back up, Joshi maintains, “Enterprise growth and IT equipment have become so closely

linked that planning and building a high perfor-mance data room is one of the most critical issues for IT managers today. The expert teams at Delta MCIS have developed a new generation of data center infrastructure solutions: InfraSuite. The goal of the InfraSuite business is to provide opti-mal data centers solutions that help companies reduce TCO and outperform the competition. Delta InfraSuite includes power systems, racks and accessories, and environmental management systems.”

SUHAS JOSHI, DIRECTOR, DELTA

POWER SOLUTIONS (INDIA) PVT. LTD.


56

SME BIZDELTA

SME Biz_Delta.indd 55 19/07/12 9:59 AM

SMEs ARE A GREAT

OPPORTUNITY FOR BLUE COATLike many large enterprises, SMEs also require WEB security and WAN Optimization because they need to go

global and their productivity and efficiency has to match with the expectation of the customers.

AMBARISH DESHPANDE, MANAGING DIRECTOR –

INDIA SALES, BLUE COAT SYSTEMS INC

Today, the entire world is moving towards IP and digital technology. Products are being sold and pur-chased online. Records are saved and shared online. Physical bound-

aries of countries and continents do not hold much relevance to the businesses and professions. People work remotely from homes and leisure retreats. Students can take admission and partici-pate in studies online, government utility bills are raised, shared and remitted online, critical docu-ments related to one’s inheritance, property, etc. are saved digitally. Similarly, all the banking and finance transactions happen online. Manufactur-ing and designing aided services happen online. This has been possible because of access to various applications through internet on a secured and optimized manner.

The scenario, one can say, is the precursor or trailer of the real event. The day will come when the entire transaction will happen online and people will not have to see or touch anything physically. They will have some physical points of reference or demonstrations.

To make the above scenario a reality, there is a clear need of collaboration and optimization of

multitenant technology architecture along with secure application delivery service. So access to the service at an optimized manner is important so also security.

In this scenario, Blue Coat is sitting at a cru-cial juncture of the technology transition that is between virtual and real. A 15 year old company, Blue Coat is known in the industry for its caching technology, with CacheFlow as the name of the company. Today, the company has changed its name but not its focus.

Ambarish Deshpande, Managing Director – India Sales, Blue Coat Systems Inc., says, “This company was started 15 years back by the name of CacheFlow but over the period of time as the industry changed, the name changed to Blue Coat Systems with an enriched capability. And today, we are the leader in Web Security and WAN Optimization.”

During web 1.0 time people were requiring

caching to get the web pages and contents locally. But the scenario changed when web 2.0 came in and sites became dynamic. With this, Blue Coat changed its strategy and made sure that the customers got fantastic experience of contents availability in the fastest possible manner and in a

secure environment.Blue Coat Systems made sure that not only

outside contents coming into the networks are taken care of but also the contents coming from customers’ own servers are delivered at the fastest possible manner. Apart from this, the company also made sure that contents residing in cloud are also delivered in the same fashion.

Ambarish adds, “We are the only company in the world, which offers Web Security and WAN Optimization both. A very large number of For-tune 500 companies are using our Proxy, Caching, Wan Acceleration and Web Security solution in the world.”

Today, in India a lot of companies are also using Blue Coat WAN Optimization technology. A lot of banks are moving from legacy applications to dynamic applications. They are using WAN Opti-mization to enable their employees to access these applications from their data center.

Even Indian government wants to give access to their employees for various applications, like banks and other enterprises. A lot of people are trying to access applications using smart devices including Android devices, iPads and iPhones, so it is becoming very important for enterprises to


57

SME TREND

SME Trend-Ambarish Deshpande of Blue Coat.indd 56 19/07/12 9:59 AM

create that backend infrastructure and Blue Coat is ready with those solutions.

Ambarish maintains, “We are gung ho about both these markets – Web Security and WAN Optimization. Any organization who is using enterprise applications is our potential custom-ers. So the larger the organization the need of our solutions is more.”

Having said this, Blue Coat also has custom-ers in the SME segment. In fact SMEs are real potential today. Ambarish adds, “We have a cus-tomer (logistic company in India), which has 25 branches and uses our solution. This company updates online every delivery their agents make. Someone from the company access the applica-tion from their data center and feeds in the infor-mation so that when the customers go on line, they track the delivery status. They realized that this is part of their business if they are able to give the customers better experience.”

Besides retail industry, education sector, telco, BFSI, manufacturing and brokerage companies are adopting the WAN Optimization solution aggressively because of increased inter branch voice, video and data exchange. Therefore, WAN Optimization market in India is expected to touch

US$ 30 million in 2012.While WAN Optimization is a critical compo-

nent to the overall enterprise strategy, Blue Coat’s USP is to provide better RoI. As per Ambarish, “The RoI is six months if they use our products for 3 years. A lot of our customers are proxy cus-tomers in India. They see that we have a strong background in caching. We can clean malicious contents on the fly. We have fantastic categoriza-tion of internet. It obviously helps them to decide on investing on our technology. So we are lever-aging our web security market and getting into WAN optimization marketing aggressively.”

GTM StrategyThe company is 100% channel driven company. In India there are two distributors i.e. Computer-links and Virtual Netcom Pvt. Ltd. When Com-puterlinks is the global partner, Virtual Netcom Pvt. Ltd. brought Blue Coat to India. Each of them has 10 people for sales, pre-sales and inside sales. So Blue Coat virtually has 20 people. These com-panies carry demo appliances to the tune of 30-35 pieces each.

Further, these distributors are aligned with a multiple tier of channel partners. The first layer

comprises a battery of 12 managed partners including Wipro, HCL, IBM, HP, Dimension-Data, etc. Apart from this, there are three catego-ries of partners. At the top are Elite and Premier, who carry the technology and create PoC at the customers’ end and show the value of the technol-ogy. Finally, at the entry level are Authorized part-ners who are 40 in number today and are present various strategic geographies.

Support and Service As far as support is concerned, Blue Coat is com-mitted to its customers and partners. There are three levels of support. The second level is offered by its Blue Touch Support Partners or BTSP and the third level is provided by the company itself.

The interesting part with Blue Coat is its BTSPs, which is different from others. The BTSPs pro-vide the company infrastructures like toll free numbers, minimum number of certified head counts, etc. For example DimensionData and VFM Systems & Services (Value For Money) are two BTSPs apart from being channel partners. They provide level-1 and level -2 supports. They get additional margins on support selling. They even get better margin to retain people. But these partners are monitored very closely by Blue Coat in terms of what level 1 and level 2 support calls have come to them, how many of the calls they have attended. Finally, the company ranks them; if they score 90% out of 100, they become entitled to get rebates and if they do not score the requisite number, Blue Coat reserves all rights to cancel their engagement as BTSP. However, both the partners sitting out of south of India are doing fantastic job for Blue Coat but looking at the huge geography of the country, the company wants to add a couple of partners more in North and West.

From the partners’ perspective, Blue Coat busi-ness is really very encouraging as the margin is high compared to other products. When the Elite partners get 39% discount, Premium partners get 35% and Authorized partners get 25% discount. On top of it, if one is BTSP, then that partner gets additional 5% discount. Ambarish, says, “We strongly believe that if our partners get good margins, they will be in a position to support our customers.”

Finally…Given the situation that all the applications are pushed to the remote servers and cloud environ-ment, it is not only the large enterprises but even SMEs today need faster and security content and data delivery mechanism. So WAN Optimization solutions and Web Filtering will have greater role and Blue Coat as a leader will surely have a greater market share.


58

SME TREND

SME Trend-Ambarish Deshpande of Blue Coat.indd 57 19/07/12 9:59 AM

Advts.indd 3 18/07/12 10:21 PM

What is your strength in manufacturing?

We have over 1 lakh device manufacturing capac-ity and we drive manufacturing efficiencies, inventory, lead time and cost reductions in the manufacturing operations through quality orien-tated and lean operating principles. n Component/Module manufacturingn Printed circuit board assemblies (PCBA)n Sub-assembliesn Full product assembliesn Testingn Systems integrationsn Packingn Repair & Refurbishment

Why did you turn to tablet manu-facturing in India and what kind

of advantages do you find vis-à-vis importing from China and Taiwan?Manufacturing in India provides some better quality control and faster deliveries. In case of importing from China and Taiwan, we have often seen quality issues and high rejection rates, around, 3-5% which in case have to be refunded.

Against the same, we can do faster refurbish-ments of boards and components here in India.

How about supply chain? Talking about supply chain, we manage

our own supply chain through sourcing agents from China, Taiwan, Korea. Some of the com-ponents like batteries; LCDs are directly being sourced from manufacturers.

In terms of market for tablets what is the potential in the

domestic market?Tablet market is evolving and growing at a phenomenal rate and it has been observed that market for tablets has a great potential in Indian domestic markets. Also, need for forecast in India has just emerged and we see good volumes in the current financial year.

In the overseas markets which countries are you focusing on?

The regions that are getting focused in the over-seas market are: Middle east, Africa, Central Asia, Latin America and Australia.

What is your strategy to distrib-ute in market?

Strategy distribution through related distribu-tors who have muscles of distribution in service support.

How about support, do you have any RMA and support strategy

in place?

In India, we are servicing our products from 400 outsourced locations. These locations are having capabilities to repair the devices on site.

Brief us about the designing and R&D of products.

Wishtel with its associates possesses in depth expertise and vast experience with real time embedded systems and development tools. We have team of over 40 engineers to offer design and engineering services.

What are the taxes and duties levied on you on importing com-

ponents. What kind of benefits you seek from government of India?We pay close to 16% taxes and duties for import-ing components .We would like to have a consid-erable amount of duty benefit on import of raw material and electronic components to make our products competitive, visa-a- visa cheap imports from China and Taiwan.

Whether dollar exchange rate has affected the manufacturing.

If yes, what is your course of action to negate the impact?Dollar exchange rate has certainly affected the manufacturing. We have not expected this drastic appreciation of US dollar. SME

“MANUFACTURING IN INDIA PROVIDES BETTER QUALITY”

MILIND SHAH CEO, WISHTEL

India is not known as a great manufacturing place as far as IT is concerned. But there are some optimistic brave hearted people who think positive and want to

change the scenario. Milind Shah, CEO, Wishtel is one of them. Despite all odds, he wants to carve a niche in the tablet manufacturing space. SME Channels spoke

to him to know about his strategy. Excerpts.


60

WISHTELSME CHAT

Chat-Milind Shah of Wishtel.indd 60 19/07/12 9:59 AM

VIEW SONIC’S ultraportable and energy-

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VIEW SONIC LED PROJECTOR- PLED-W500

QNAP TS-EC-1679U-RP is the Ultra-high per-former 16-bay 3U rackmount NAS server with ECC memory for high-end SMBs. It can yield up to 64TB storage capacity using 4 TB drives and features optional 10GbE net-working and 6Gb/sec SATA interfaces, achieving incredible 2,000 MB/sec and 200,000 IOPS throughput; delivering sustained ultra-high performance suitable for demanding data center & high-end SMB environments. It also serves as both IP-SAN (iSCSI) and NAS and can be easily utilized in different business and enterprise applications such as backup center, disaster recovery, file sharing, virtualization, and video editing storage. As far as its physical form factor is concerned, it feature cable-less disk drive backplanes, hot-swappable power supply, and cooling fan modules for maximum reliability and uptime.

With pre-isntalled Linux 2.6.32. OS, the NAS server comes with 2 layer greenlamb motherboard with 4 GB RAM available on board and 3 slots are blank for expan-sion. As far as graphics is concerned it has up to 1 GB PCI Express and PCI extended express available. It has 2 SMPS with 450 watt each. As far as interface are concerned it has two USB 3.0 ports, 2 eSATA and 1 HDMI port along with other usual ports.

The Intel Xion E3 1125 processor is equivalent to second edition of Xion and it carries the BUS speed of 1022 and its capacity is 3.01 GHz. The processor works on 95 W TDP. The system bandwidth is 21 GB/s. The LAN Cards are avail-able in Pro manner (10/100, 100/1000). It can also be used in multimedia set up. 2 PCI express slot with extended GPU facility for load work like rendering, etc.

Further, it comes with VMware, Citrix and Microsoft Hyper-V for virtualization and cloud applications and can also works as multi-media server. Finally, giving the price and functionality of the product, the NAS server is ideal for the growing mid-market.

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QNAP TS-EC-1679U-RP TURBO NAS


61

PRODUCTREVIEW

Products pages.indd 61 19/07/12 10:00 AM

D-LINK

WD

D-LINK ALL-IN-ONE Mobile Companion (DIR-505) is an innovative product for travelers and mobile device owners. It provides the features of a standard wireless router without the bulk and allows anyone to quickly deploy a wireless network wherever an existing network is available. The Mobile Companion also includes USB sharing capabilities that enable users to share videos, music and photos from an external hard drive or flash drive with any iPad, iPhone or Android device.

About the size of a mobile phone wall charger, the Mobile Companion can create an instant Wi-Fi network with a range of useful features designed for today’s mobile professional.

An Ethernet port allows users to easily connect to an existing network using a network cable along with a simple web GUI configuration. Further it can be configured as a switch, Router, Access Point, Wi-Fi Hotspot and Repeater.

n Price: Rs.2299 Warranty: 1 year Contact: Divya Shetty, Email: [email protected]

D-LINK ALL-IN-ONE MOBILE COMPANION DIR-505

WD RED HDD FOR SOHO NAS SYSTEMSWD RED HDD is an innovative SATA hard drive specifically designed for home and small office NAS systems with 1-5 drive bays. The HDD features NASware technology, designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime and to simplify the integration process. This new product line addresses the unique environment of NAS and the growing demand for affordable, reliable and compatible storage that reduces customer total cost of ownership. WD Red hard drives also feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology, which significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. In an exclusive for WD Red cus-tomers, WD is offering free premium 24x7 dedicated support and a three-year limited warranty.

WD Red hard drives integrate seamlessly with WD NAS solutions and are qualified to work with a wide array of WD OEM partners. Further, it is available Compatibility-tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for power and performance, WD Red hard drives are available in 3.5-inch and in three capacities i.e. 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB.

n Price: US$109, US: $139 and US$189 for 1 TB, 2TB and 3TB drives respectively, Warranty: 3 Years, Contact: Srinivas Sampangi, Tel:: +91-9880293193 Fax: +91-124-4971610, Email: [email protected]

DIGILITE

DIGILITE NETTOP PCDIGILITE Nettop PC DL-425H is one of the five DIY PCs. The Small, flexible and highly practi-cal PC is ultra-compact, conserves energy, saves work space and offers total cost of ownership.

To maximize space, this PC offers a unique design that can be mounted on a stand or attached to the back of vari-ous displays with a VESA mounting system. The Nettop can convert an existing TV into a Smart TV and comes with 2G DDR2 memory.

Like other Nettops of the company, it also offers full-HD entertainment and fast Internet browsing. This is equipped with USB 3.0, n-series Wi-Fi, Gigabit LAN, Digital audio, Power internal speakers and Card reader. HDD capacity up to 2TB, RAM up to 4GB.

Finally, this is ideal for digital signage and kiosks. Also, it works as media player for advertising and information screens in locations such as hotels, airports retail stores and hospitals. With low power consumption and small size, the Nettop-PC can be configured for use in a server based computing environment.

n Price: DL-425H, Rs. 9,950, Warranty: 1 year, carry in. Contact: Anant Chaturvedi, Email: [email protected]


62

NEW ARRIVALSPRODUCT

Products pages.indd 62 19/07/12 10:00 AM

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#5213 (FP-NetKey Cabling System India).qxp 1/19/2012 2:03 PM Page 1

Advts.indd 4 20/02/12 8:37 PM

SMEChannel 150212 Size:22x31(bleed) 21x30 (Trim) 19x28 (Type)

64

RNI No.: DEL ENG / 2010 / 3192 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-1/4145/10-12 Data of Printing: 19 & 20 of Every MonthData of Posting: 22 & 23 of Every Month

Advts.indd 10 18/07/12 10:27 PM

sme channels july 12 issue

Documents

high time

indian manufacturing

slowdown time

domestic market

indian channel market

long time

chinese manufacturing

domestic industry