CRN August 1, 2012 by UBM India

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contents

August 01, 2012 l Volume 1 Issue 19

Cover Story The key trends in networking solutions and services, that will present significant opportunities to partners going forward

17 Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik

NEWS Analyses

Channel Chief

Lenovo’s strategy for commercial business

HP’s thin and light strategy

Drop in DGS&D deals

NEC to focus on upcountry markets 10 Websense to tap SMBs through cloud

Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India and Saarc, speaks about trends in the storage industry and the company’s channel plans

15 Market Focus Down but not out Retailers and sub-distributors have had a tough time in the past 6-12 months. Despite many challenges, they continue to be bullish about growth prospects in H2

Much below expectation

Above expectation

9% 11% 44%

36%

Slightly below expectation

22 As per expectation

Role Model

Hamara Bajaj Manoj Bajaj, CEO, CAS Computers, began by offering computerized accounting services, then together with his two brothers turned the company into one of the top retailers in the north east

Editorial 12 Opinion

Feedback

Channel Buzz

New Products

Shadow Ram

Get Personal

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Tech Focus Office 2013 reviewed Microsoft recently unveiled a customer preview of Office 2013, including new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and other modules

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ODSP 1250 US (2.1)

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Give your Ears a New Lease of Life

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starting line MUST

Lenovo’s strategy for commercial business

HP’s thin and light strategy

n RAMDAS S

Read

HP is upping the focus on the thin and light (T&L) segment in 2012, which comprises ultrabooks and sleekbooks. Notebooks presently contribute 70 percent to HP’s overall PC revenues. The company expects that by 2014 the T&L segment alone will contribute 40 percent of its PC sales in India. “We expect that by 2013-end, 15 percent of our shipments will be ultrabooks and by 2014-end around 35-40 percent. If it touches 40 percent, ultrabooks will contribute 50 percent of HP’s notebook revenue,” said Vinay Awasthi, Senior Director, Products & Marketing, PPS, HP India. The sleekbooks, like the ultrabooks, are thin and light with an extended battery life, compared to the standard notebooks, but are priced less than ultrabooks. “The objective of launching sleekbooks is to cater to consumers who want an ultrabook experience at an affordable price starting at `42,000. We launched sleekbooks a month ago and expect traction within the Vinay Awasthi next two quarters. We have also enhanced our ultrabook portfolio this year,” added Awasthi. The company plans to reach out to consumers with the new products through its network of over 10,000 resellers, 4,000 retailers in 425 cities, and 300 HP Worlds in 114 cities. In addition, the company will sell through e-retailers. HP plans to expand and increase its retail network to 500 cities and add 50 new HP Worlds by October. The company will offer post-sales support through ASPs spread across 178 cities. “We offer services like extended warranty and accidental damage protection to assure peace of mind to our customers,” Awasthi said. HP provides customer support programs such as Unique Protection, Protect Smart and Total Care backed by extended warranties. n — Abhijeet Mukherjee

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enovo India is chalking out fresh strategy to strengthen its commercial business by realigning partners, widening its product portfolio, and enhancing its GTM. There are also plans to revamp the Thinkpad range to commemorate 20 years of the notebook brand. Though Lenovo was ranked the No 1 PC brand in the country by IDC and Gartner for Q12012, the research agencies attributed its leadership position to the large Elcot deal to supply 85,000 notebooks. But Rahul Agarwal, Executive Director, Commercial Business, Lenovo India, argued, “Even if you discount the Elcot deal, when it comes to commercial business we are still the market leader. Since 2010, we have doubled our market share in the commercial business, and today have an overall share of 24.5 percent as per IDC. Our longterm goal is to be the No 1 PC vendor outside of large deals such as Elcot.” Recently there were allegations that Lenovo had reduced the backend rebates for partners focused on large enterprise accounts, thus reducing overall margins. Agarwal countered this and said that performing partners would actually earn more with the new rebate alignment. “Any change in the rebate alignment is purely reflective of our growth rates, and we want our partners to continue growing at a faster pace.” Lenovo had in early 2012 re-aligned its commercial business across verticals— Global, Very Large Enterprise (VLE), Large Enterprise (LE), Government and Education. Said Agarwal, “Irrespective of who the customer is, partners have some role to play. Even in an order such as Elcot—where we are billing directly because of

“We are perhaps not doing well in the large enterprise segment, where our share is less than 12 percent—but we will soon catch up” Rahul Agarwal

Executive Director, Commercial Business, Lenovo India

credit-line issues and margins— partners are involved in installation, delivery, post-sales support and telephonic support.” According to Agarwal, Lenovo enjoys market shares of 20 percent plus across VLE, Education, Government and Global. “We are perhaps not doing well in the LE segment where our share is less than 12 percent—but we will soon catch up.” Lenovo has also identified accounts for the relationship business and has aligned partners across these accounts. “We have around 200 global accounts, 1,600 accounts in VLE, 2,400 in LE and 4,000 in education. We have identified and named partners who will work on many of these accounts. Further, we are working with a definite list of partners for each vertical, and have set targets depending on the vertical and partner profile. For example, we have listed 90 partners for the education vertical.” Agarwal said that Lenovo would re-launch its server business, and would be launching thin clients under the Lenovo brand following the acquisition of Wyse (which had an OEM relationship with Lenovo) by Dell. Other products being launched include a small form factor PC nicknamed Tiny. n

starting line MUST

Read

NEC to focus on upcountry markets NEC has increased its focus on upcountry markets with a 2-pronged strategy for channel expansion. The company has introduced the NEC Preference Partner program to increase its AV reseller, VAR and SI partner base. The channel program entails a focus on sales enablement, product knowledge, training, certification and engagement with partners. To do this, NEC is conducting a 20-city road-show till September in tier-2 and -3 cities such as Raipur and Guwahati. “Last year we conducted roadshows in 13 metro and tier-1 cities. This year we are focused on tier-2 and -3 cities,” informed Abhilesh Guleria, Country Head, Multimedia Product Group & IT Platforms Group, NEC India. The road-show conforms to the company’s breadth strategy, whereby NEC wants to increase its reseller base from the current 100 to 150 in the next 2-3 months. To execute its depth strategy, the company has planned three solution-focused Abhilesh Guleria events for AV VARs and SIs focused on vertical-specific solutions in metro and tier-1 cities. “Our vision is to drive the one-NEC approach to empower our customers with holistic IT and networking solutions to meet their display, communication and security needs. The idea is to let VARs and SIs leverage on the wide range of NEC offerings,” explained Guleria. The company aims to increase its VAR partners from the current 20 to about 30, and SI partners from 20 to 25 by 2012-end. According to Guleria, the objective is to drive breadth and depth, but not at the cost of the interests of existing partners. NEC has 360-degree marketing plans to support the channel and create customer awareness. Besides print and online campaigns, the company is active on social networking sites. NEC is also investing to strengthen its services capabilities, and aims to increase its authorized service centers from more than 60 to more than 100 by September 2012. n — Amit Singh

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Drop in DGS&D deals n RAMDAS S

ccording to some partners, the falling rupee has reduced the contract-based business of the Directorate General of Supplies & Disposal (DGS&D) to less than 20 percent over the past six months. Despite vendors meeting with DGS&D authorities, there has been no resolution, they said. DGS&D contract rates allow state, central and PSU entities to purchase the products they need without using elaborate tender processes or qualification criteria. The only problem is that these contract rates are fixed just once in a year. Most rate contracts revised in April 2012 were signed by partners at `48-49 per dollar. However, the Rupee has depreciated substantially since then, and also recorded a historical low of `57, in June. “We have seen very little business happening because of this situation. State or central government offices cannot buy at a higher price so they have postponed purchases. Even orders from government schools have stopped because they have been buying based on DGS&D contract rates,” said Inderpal Singh, Director, Aman Technologies, Jammu. “Though the DGS&D market opened in April, the weakening of the rupee over the past few weeks is likely to throw a spanner in many customers’ purchase plans.” Added Manoj Bisht, Director, MK Infosystems, Delhi, “We have not taken any DGS&D deal for the last 6-8 months because there is little scope for value-addition and margins. Instead, we prefer to take turnkey projects which offer increased margins; many of the government departments are going the tender way as well. We expect a revision of DGS&D rates next month; only then may we

“We have not taken any DGS&D deal for the last 6-8 months because there is little scope for valueaddition and margins” Manoj Bisht

Director, MK Infosystems

look for any deal through that route.” Another challenge with DGS&D rates is that the rates are usually locked after heavy discounts off street prices. “Rates are 20-40 percent cheaper depending on the product line. Since the government business is huge, most vendors are prepared to work at cost or very little margin, hence when their input costs go up they refuse to take orders on DGS&D,” explained Ramesh Nair, CEO, Algol Systems, Bengaluru. Most PC vendors said there is little they can do since costs have shot up. “It is a sad situation, and I believe there was a group representation made to various government departmertments to review rate contracts. But the government rules are very clear, and we are helpless. There are several orders that the industry is missing out on because both vendors and partners are catious in bidding for new projects, fearing more currency volatility,” said Rahul Agarwal, Executive Director, Lenovo India. However, Agarwal said that Lenovo is committed to making deliveries of all its orders (including the Elcot order) that have been booked, despite inputs costs rocketing. n

edit opinion Volume 1, Issue 19

Observations from CLS 2012 dhaval valia

am just back from the 12th edition of the CRN Leadership Summit 2012 (CLS) which was held from July 26-29 at Holiday Inn, Goa. With 28 tech companies and 110 enterprise VARs with an aggregate turnover exceeding `8,000 crore, it was arguably the largest neutral channel forum in the country and possibly even in the Asia Pacific. CRN US does the biggest of them all—500 enterprise VAR delegates, five days, and over 55 tech companies. It was good to observe that despite the negative or cautious sentiments in the market, the mood among the delegates seemed upbeat. None of the 40-50 delegates I managed to speak to one-on-one ever spoke about the slowdown or its impact on their business. On the contrary most of them spoke about how they are moving to solutions and services with a reduced focus on their hardware-led business. Many of them shared the new solutions and services offerings they have or plan to launch. Vertical-specific and application-led solutions and services are key areas where many of these partners have invested in or are investing in. The talking point at the summit—apart from the CRN Xcellence Awards 2012—was the partner launch of AllTimeIT Solutions, a company formed by 15 leading partners to offer branded cloud and managed services. CRN has for long been a champion of partner collaboration and hence it was only fitting to have this unique initiative launch at the CRN Leadership Summit. The launch of AllTimeIT has ignited many imaginations and I expect this initiative to grow bigger and be successful going forward. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see similar collaborative initiatives in future. The other buzz was the live video streaming of the entire 3 days. We had 540 unique channel partners (770 viewers, including repeat visitors) from various parts of the country watching the event from the comfort of their homes or offices. The fact that we had 28 tech companies at CLS 2012 goes to show that in a slowdown tech companies rely heavily on channels. Interestingly, this time there were more vendor representatives present—125 compared to 110 delegates— further validating my observation. It was also good to see that many vendors chose to have delegate engagements which were substantive. A few did focus groups at breakfast, while some ran contests which encouraged partners to think about new opportunities and offerings. As for the CRN team, we returned with a lot of ideas about how to improve CLS and make it more relevant, effective and engaging for all stakeholders. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 12

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starting line Websense to tap SMBs through cloud n sonal desai

“With the cloud, we will be able to offer email and Web security solutions to SMB customers. We will introduce DLP to the portfolio by December 2012”

ebsense, which was till now focused on the enterprise and corporate segments, is now eying the growing opportunities for network security among SMBs. The company will take the cloud route to increase its SMB customer base. Explained Surendra Singh, Regional Director, Saarc, Websense, “We were always a large enterprise company and had products with enterprise-class features and capabilities. Naturally, maintaining such high-end technology is a difficult task, hence we chose to work with 50 select partners such as MIEL e-Security and Essen Vision for large accounts. That is changing with the cloud, and we will be able to offer our e-mail and Web security solutions to SMB customers.” For SMBs, Singh’s objective is to increase reference customers and present the referrals to prospects

Surendra Singh

Regional Director, Saarc, Websense

through videos and case studies. “We already have about 15-20 mid-size (1,000 seats) customers on the cloud. We need to add another 20-30 customers to the kitty and circulate these as referrals. The referrals would demonstrate the success stories to prospects and partners.”

With the renewed focus on SMBs, the company will appoint more partners. Although Singh did not provide a specific number, he said that it would be in triple digits. Plans are also afoot to launch DLP on the cloud by December 2012. “We will then provide endto-end content security solutions. The integrated solutions will be sold at half the price of onsite solutions. Besides the consultative role that we expect partners to play, they will be able to earn services revenue in terms of integration and maintenance. We will also encourage partners to launch white-label or co-branded services,” Singh said. According to Singh, in addition to online training, Websense presently provides onsite training once every quarter. It will now provide partners access to its internal cloud and resolve their concerns around cloud security. n

Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing www.crn.in

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edit opinion Steve Ballmer is back Steve Burke

or the past several years you got the sense that, for Steve Ballmer, heading up Microsoft had become something like taking a trip to the dentist. There was too much pain. And not enough pleasure. But that is not the case any longer. Let us just say that Ballmer has his choppers back. In an exclusive interview with CRN at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto earlier this month, you could see that there is something different about Ballmer these days. His competitive juices are flowing again. He is having fun. He has got that emotional kick that made him and Bill Gates, co-founder and Chairman, Microsoft, the perfect one-two punch. Gates would jab, jab, jab. And then Ballmer would come in with the sales muscle that would knock competitors to the mat. If you are looking for a reason for the new, reinvigorated Ballmer, look no further than Windows 8 and Microsoft’s sleek new Surface tablet. Ballmer has been brought back to life by Microsoft’s ambitious plan to tightly integrate hardware and software in its tablet. Nothing is out of the question for the new, more competitive Microsoft. Not even the possibility that it could build a smartphone competitor to Apple’s iPhone. The wild card in Ballmer’s re-emergence, however, could well be whether he gets actively involved in some of the critical sales channel decisions facing Microsoft and its solution provider partners. It is no secret that Ballmer has spent more time focusing on products in recent years. That is to be expected given that he is running a $70 billion company. But for my money, Microsoft’s strength as a channel power is simply not being leveraged to the fullest extent possible as it embarks on its Windows 8-cloud computingSurface revolution. The decision to not let partners sell the Surface tablet out of the gate and to require them to buy it from Microsoft.com or a Microsoft retail store is a mistake. In the interview with CRN, Ballmer talked about not ceding any ground to Apple. Apple is making deeper inroads into the channel every day. Microsoft has long been criticized for delivering a poor return on investment vs. other strategic vendor partners. What is more, some partners say, they do business with the software giant because of its huge installed base —not because they want to. As if to prove those partners right, Microsoft shows time and time again that it is simply not good at communicating sales strategies and changes. The haphazard way that partners were informed of the decision to discontinue Small Business Server is a case in point. It is almost as if Microsoft’s strategic partner initiatives are being treated as an afterthought. That is not good. Ballmer is back. There is no question about it. That could be bad news for any and all Microsoft competitors. But only if Microsoft gets its channel house in order. n E-mail Steven Burke at steven.burke@ec.ubm.com 14

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ISODA’s initiatives to avoid multi-level TDS The recent interview of Paresh Shah, Partner, PH Teknow and Head, Tax Team, ISODA over the software taxation issue was quite informative and cleared a lot of confusion. We appreciate the efforts made by ISODA, NASSCOM and other associations who represented our woes to the government. Although multi-level TDS on software purchase has been scrapped, the burden on partners to maintain the declaration and PAN information of the deductor remains. The government has been working as game-spoiler and has now complicated the taxation on IT products and services like domain names, website hosting, digital certificates, hardware service subscriptions and data/information subscriptions. This is

really sad. AP Iyer Via email

Edit: What is your Blue Ocean strategy? The recent edit in the July 01 edition of CRN was an eye opener. It highlights the opportunity that exists in the less-explored microverticals. The need is to come out of our comfort zones and explore the path less-traveled. Many of us do not explore new areas out of fear of failure, but my idea is that if your left eye fails, your right eye can still succeed and what you see from both of your eyes is vision. The failure actually enables learning; success gives energy. We need to have a balance of both that will empower us to put ourselves into unfamiliar zones and succeed. Rajnikanth Rajagopal Microsystems, Coimbatore

Send your feedback at editor@ubmindia.com or post your views on www.crn.in

Advertiser Index Company name

Page No Web site

Sales Contact

Smartlink

1 www.digisol.com

helpdesk@digisol.com

Smartlink

2 www.digilite.co.in

helpdesk@digilite.co.in

China Fair

www.chinasourcingfair.com/wbvi

5 www.lg.com

serviceindia@lge.com

Compuage-Odyssey

7 www.compuageindia.com

odyssey@compuageindia.com

IBM

9 www.ibm.com

response@in.ibm.com

Samsung

11 www.samsung.com

toner.helpdesk@samsung.com

KSG

32 www.cadyce.com

sales@cadyce.com

Trend Micro

avneet.kaur@trend-micro.in

Biz

34 www.indiaantivirus.com

sales@indiaantivirus.com

Canton Fair

info@cantonfair.org.cn

Kaspersky

36 www.kaspersky.co.in

www.chinasourcingfair.com/india

www.trendmicro.co.in

www.contonfair.org.cn

sales@sakri.in

channel chief “We are not over distributed” Industry veteran Anil Valluri recently took over as the President of NetApp India and Saarc. In an interview with Ramdas S, he spoke about trends in the storage industry and the company’s channel plans Your competitors in the enterprise storage market are making significant investments in customer and partner acquisition. How is NetApp planning to keep growing?

Why should partners align with NetApp?

First of all it is important to understand the genesis of different storage vendors. Take EMC, Hitachi and IBM—their storage paths originated from mainframecentric technologies. HP is Unix- and server-centric. Dell became a storage player through acquisitions. Among the top enterprise storage vendors, NetApp is the only company which focused on the network being the key driver for storage, and we started selling the concept of a Network Attached Storage (NAS) when the average network speed was 10 Mbps. Today our conviction has been justified—the entire industry which was betting on SAN is today rolling out NAS boxes. In fact we are an OEM supplier to some of our competitors. We will be betting on this industry leadership, and both our partners and customers are aligning with us.

There is the perception that NetApp is over-priced. Are you planning to change that perception? There will be a certain premium which customers need to pay for a superior technology which over a period of time ensures tremendous cost benefits. Our storage operating system ONTAP offers massive scalability that supports protocols such as FC, FCoE, iSCSI, pNFS, NFS and CIFS. If you need unlimited storage, unlimited snapshots, and de-duplication that gets you the maximum resources without compromising on performance, NetApp emerges as the top vendor. We have the best industry alliances with partners such as Cisco, VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, and have pre-certified solutions which offer the best performance. We believe that data needs to be immortal and should survive longer than the lifespan of the components that make the storage box. We believe that data should be infinitely scalable, and we have the best-of-breed unified architecture to offer seamless scaling. Data also needs to be intelligent, and that is where our storage efficiency and virtual tiering technologies help.

“We started selling the NAS concept when the network speed was 10 Mbps. Today the entire industry which was betting on SAN is rolling out NAS boxes”

Technology leadership aside, we would like to believe that our partners are more profitable compared to the competition. We are not over-represented or overdistributed. In one particular case, for the same requirement, a customer had around 10 partners of a competing storage vendor pitching whereas we had just two. We have been told that our channel engagement policies are more transparent than others in the industry. However, the biggest reason that some of our partners cite is that we do not eat into their services business around storage. Today, for every dollar a customer spends on storage, there are 30 cents of storagerelated services—and all of that belongs to our partner. I have been told that other vendors insist upon partners to involve their engineers at all levels. We provide the partner with telephonic support, but all onsite services and systems integration opportunities belong to him.

Some partners believe you are focused on the larger national SIs. How are you planning to ensure there is enough room for tier-2 partners to grow? We are building our partner strength based on three factors—competence, coverage and capacity. The most important factor that would help a partner to grab a deal would be competence, and we are and have been making huge investments to ensure that our partners are trained and certified. We believe that the amount of investments we make as a function of the revenue delivered by our partners is one of the highest in the industry. Apart from training we offer them free demo equipment and help them set up PoC centers. Capacity is what differentiates a national SI from a leading tier-2 partner. Some of the orders are of large magnitude, and customers also consider the size of the SI and its funding capacity at the pre-bid stage itself. We are focused on increasing our coverage. As of today we are well represented in the large cities, and depending on opportunities we would like to sign up partners who can provide us coverage in other territories. We recently moved away from the regional sales model and have taken a pyramid approach to increase our coverage. Our partner development team members have all been aligned with key partner accounts, and they will be appraised on their aligned partner performance. With the new approach, a lot more focus is on tier-2 partners. Also, from a NetApp perspective, we would be happier

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01/08/2012

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channel chief to work with a mid-market reseller rather than a national SI who is partnering every other entity in the industry. We are looking for committed partners irrespective of their size. If they show true commitment and are willing to build competence, it will be a win-win situation.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;For every dollar a customer spends on storage there are 30 cents of storagerelated servicesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and all of that belongs to our partnerâ&#x20AC;?

What are your expectations from your partners? We tell partners that if you want to succeed you need to build competency. We want them to continue investing in certification and training, increase coverage, and position NetApp more aggressively. I would say that so far many of our partners have been leveraging on our strengths. Most of their wins have been because the customers signing up wanted to buy NetApp because many of them are global accounts. We now want our partners to go after Indian enterprises, government accounts and the white space.

Unlike other vendors you do not offer India stocks, or offer products on the MOQ model. Most of our business is solution-driven. It takes several weeks and even months of negotiation, customer education and planning, so no customer insists on immediate delivery. Anyway, we can deliver most products within a week out of Singapore.

What is your advice for partners to address the cloud opportunity better? The biggest adopters of the public cloud today are the smaller companies and start-ups. For a regular storage reseller, I do not see any of the business going away

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because of the cloud as mid-market and large enterprises are investing in private clouds. There are also interesting models evolving in the B2B space with customers willing to share infrastructure.

Are you betting on storage-as-a-service (SaaS)? It is an evolving business model. For back-up and disaster recovery, SaaS is a great option. We have already seen many customers offering it on a pay-as-you-go basis. Cloud-based storage is still not ready for primary storage because of latency issues. I do not see many partners building SaaS capabilities on their own; they would rather offer it as part of a solution to customers.

What is the partner opportunity in big data? Big data is evolving into one of the fastest-growing storage opportunities. We see big data as three sub-segments: analytics, bandwidth and content. I do not see much of a partner opportunity in the analytics space since this would need a partner to make significant investments in building capabilities in platforms such as Hadoop; it is better for them to align with an ISV and have a common GTM strategy. However, the other two sub-segments offer a huge opportunity. n

cover story

The key trends in networking solutions and services, that will present significant opportunities to partners going forward n SONAL DESAI & RAMDAS S

ore and more enterprises, globally and in India, which accept mobility and video as part of their culture, are asking their CIOs and network administrators to evolve the corporate network. The demand also stems from the changing industry dynamics and macro-economic factors such as adoption of virtualization and the cloud. In a January 2012 conference on network infrastructure, analysts at research firm IDC attempted to answer questions such as ‘How is mobility impacting enterprise networking from the edge and campus to the data center?,’ ‘How do Ethernet fabrics meet the needs of the virtualized data center?,’ ‘What are the key growth opportunities for unified communications with the emergence of social media?’ and ‘Why will application delivery products evolve into a services delivery platform?’ IDC concluded that the biggest developments in networking will revolve around build-out and the

adoption of next-generation IT in support of the intelligent economy. According to Lucinda Borovick, Program VP, Enterprise & Data Center Networks, IDC, “This year enterprise network predictions can be summed up in three words: mobility, cloud and video. In 2012 enterprises will invest $39.4 billion in network intelligence and network bandwidth upgrades to create a robust foundational network in support of these trends.” Nearer home, Frost & Sullivan (F&S) has predicted that the Ethernet services market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 32 percent over the next five years and cross `900 crore by 2017. Ravi Pandey, Industry Analyst, ICT Practice, South Asia & Middle East Region, F&S, said in an earlier statement that enterprises are going global, virtual and interconnected. “IP migration, the evolution of borderless enterprises, business continuity and DR,

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cover story “Software Defined Networking enables innovation through network virtualization. Our latest switches and routers are all SDNenabled”

“We estimate that around `2,000 crore worth of IPv6based opportunities exist in the government sector over the next two years”

David Ginsburg

Mahesh Gupta

Senior VP & CMO, Extreme Networks

compliance, regulations and convergence are the driving factors. Besides, the increasing use of applications such as telepresence, core banking, broadcasting, PoS, ATM and content also play a key role.” In this cover story, CRN takes a look at top 10 trends that are driving enterprise networking.

Software Defined Networking A technology that is riding the biggest wave today is Software Defined Networking (SDN). SDN can be described as a new approach where the goal is the separation of data and control planes using open standards such as OpenFlow. OpenFlow allows the path of network packets through the network of switches to be determined by software running on multiple routers; this results in better traffic management. A number of vendors including HP, Extreme Networks, IBM, Juniper, Brocade and Cisco have announced various initiatives. “SDN enables innovation through network virtualization. The network operating system provides a central point, and using well-defined APIs it’s easier for the network manager to write network access applications. Our latest switches and routers are all SDNenabled,” explains David Ginsburg, Senior VP & CMO, Extreme Networks. Earlier this year HP had announced firmware upgrades on 16 switches; this will allow existing users to upgrade free of cost to the new manageability features around OpenFlow and SDN. “We are betting heavily on OpenFlow, and by the end of 2012 almost all our managed switches will support OpenFlow. Deploying the OpenFlow standard enables enterprises to reduce the complexity of network devices and automate tasks by using simplified network management,” says Amol Mitra, Director, HP Networking, HP APJ. Some analysts even dubbed it a plot by major networking vendors to free the enterprise networking space from the grip of Cisco. “Gone are the days when switches and routers were running proprietary firmware. OpenFlow ensures a common software API standard that makes it easier for third-party application developers to write applications which make better use of the network infrastructure,” says Mitra. Ginsberg points out that SDN would ensure a host of opportunities for the SI keen to build valueadded services. “More open standards would enable channels to build services and even applications for their customers more easily irrespective of the network hardware deployed at the customer’s place.”

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VP, Borderless Networks, Cisco, India & Saarc

Migration from IPv4 to IPv6 From a pure revenue-generation point of view for partners, one of biggest opportunities over the next two years is migration services from IPv4 to IPv6, and the value-added services around security, access control and network management as a result of migration. In 2011 the world had run out of IPv4 addresses, and there have been no fresh allocation of new IPv4 addresses. Since then there has been a lot more commitment shown by governments, telco service providers and large Web application service vendors to ensure that migration happens faster, with 6 June 2012 regarded as a cut-off day for service providers to migrate. While there are no concrete market projections on the precise opportunities, the estimate for the Indian market is around `6,000 crore for the next three years. “We estimate that around `2,000 crore worth of IPv6based opportunities exist in the government sector over the next two years. Government departments are the most proactive, and there are incentives dished out for government agencies to migrate to IPv6,” says Mahesh Gupta, VP, Borderless Networks, Cisco, India & Saarc. This is a major transition, bringing increased risk and uncertainty as the knowledge of IPv6 is still very limited. This lack of knowledge, coupled with increased risk during the transition period, brings some excellent opportunities for partners to consult. Many partners have already set up practices. “We have just started an IPv6 practice, and by 2014 we see the practice providing significant revenue. The opportunities range from simple audits (to ensure all firmware is upgraded to support the new protocol) to running hybrid networks (where part of the network would be on IPv4),” says AL Srinath, CEO, Shell Networks, Hyderabad.

Migration to 10G/40G With prices on both 10G and 40G dropping, many of the older data centers are expected to upgrade. “We are expecting many server rooms and data centers to upgrade to faster speeds, and with the high performance computing market growing at faster than market rates, the adoption of 10G and 40G will be faster,” says Chiradeep Rao, Country Sales Manager, India, Extreme Networks. While average 10G port prices have dropped to around $200, vendors are not expecting LANs to move to the faster speeds. Almost all major server vendors have announced models that ship with a 10G Ethernet card either as a standard or an option. “All our 12th generation servers have 10G as an option. High bandwidth

cover story “Many have started exploring 10G switches instead of the traditional SAN fabric. The TCO of the technology is far lower than other standards”

Passive notions

Ashish Dhawan

Country Director, Enterprise, Juniper Networks

applications are driving the need of 10G,” says Sitaram Venkat, Director, Enterprise Solutions, Dell India. With iSCSI gaining more acceptance, storage networks have also started adopting 10G switches which are perceived to be much cheaper to deploy than traditional SAN switches. “Many organizations have started exploring 10G switches instead of the traditional SAN fabric. The TCO of the IP-based technology is far cheaper than other traditional standards,” points out Ashish Dhawan, Country Director, Enterprise, Juniper Networks. Infiniband is another technology that is gaining traction. “Customers are demanding zero hop between networking, storage and servers to reduce latency. Infiniband is what customers are considering in such cases,” Dhawan adds.

Application-aware Networking The need for application-aware networking devices stems from the explosion of bandwidth-hungry applications. Also driving the need is the exponential growth in the number of devices connecting to a corporate network. What further complicates the situation is that sophisticated multi-party applications use many traffic streams with very different characteristics and are network-aware so they can perform well on a variety of networks. “The backbone bandwidth has not kept pace with the app explosion and mobile device connectivity inside enterprises. This means that there’s not enough bandwidth to run all applications. That is where application-aware networking plays a big role. Network administrators are able to set rules according to the user profiles and applications they use to optimize the network performance,” says Gupta of Cisco. Vendors are expecting customers who have deployed Layer 3 and Layer 4 switches to adopt application-aware switches and routers as they plan a technology refresh. “There’s a large upgrade market for these products,” Gupta adds.

“Our channels are targeting customers who run SAP or Oracle. With our WAN optimization products these customers can benefit from added performance”

rends in the active networking industry, and server and storage computing, are influencing the latest tech trends in the passive networking industry. With the proliferation of 10G and 40G switching in data centers, there’s a lot of focus on switching from regular Cat 6 and Cat 6e cables to fiber. “Even 10 GbE connections over a single fiber pair are no longer a guarantee for being able to deal with the rapidly increasing flood of data. A pragmatic solution is to install parallel infrastructures. All you have to do is construct several 10 GbE links next to each other and thus simply realize 40 GbE and 100 GbE links. The corresponding standard, IEEE 802.3ba, has been defined since June 2010,” says Gaurav Ahluwalia, MD R&M India. However, the increase in the number of fibers has consequences for connectivity technology. 4-10 times as many connectors have to be accommodated at the ports; this has resulted in multi-fiber connectors. B Srinivasan, National Technical Manager, Leviton India, agrees that multi-fiber connectors are the connection technology of the future for parallel optical infrastructures in the data center. These MPO connectors are also referred to as ‘multi-fiber push on’ and ‘multipath push on’ connectors depending on the manufacturer. “Most manufacturers today offer MPO/MTP connectors in combination with OM3 or OM4 Gaurav Ahluwalia optical cables as factory preassembled and tested patch and trunk cables,” says Srinivasan. Since optical data transfer for 40/100 GbE makes tough demands on the connection technology, there’s also demand to guarantee a virtually loss-free transfer at all times. They far exceed what is stipulated in the standards, and have also been extended by exclusive parameters. The result is top-class multi-fiber connection solutions that make the assembly and operation of parallel optical 40/100 Gigabit links as easy and risk-free as single-fiber connections. Explains Srinivasan, “This technology makes scaling and migration to network operation with 40/100 GbE easier and more efficient. You can create the necessary infrastructure with a handful of basic components: pre-assembled trays, racks and trunk cables. Modular and scalable cabling systems help you to remain clear about the investment steps involved.” Another area network administrators are focusing on is ways to enhance security at the physical layer by using a cabling security system. “IT managers can lock appliances to secure the network from disruptions. Once locked, they cannot be accessed or unplugged, and can only be opened with a key,” says Ahluwalia. n

Even 10 GbE connections over a single fiber pair is not enough to deal with the rapidly increasing data. A pragmatic solution is to install parallel infrastructures

Jonathan Andresen

VP, Marketing, Asia Pacific, Blue Coat

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cover story “Whether it is VDI or server virtualization, enterprises are spawning virtual machines (VMs) across enterprises. Networks need to be aware of VMs”

“Unsecured WLANs can be a gateway of trouble for users and network implementors. Besides, hackers are always on the lookout for new ideas”

KP Unnikrishnan

Jayesh Kotak

Director, Marketing, Asia Pacific, Brocade

Context-awareness features have also been seen in application acceleration and WAN optimization product lines. Says Jonathan Andresen, VP, Marketing, Asia Pacific, Blue Coat, “Our channels are targeting customers who run SAP or Oracle, and with our WAN optimization products these customers can benefit from added performance.”

Network Virtualization Network virtualization allows IT to separate the logical provisioning and physical management of network resources. This enables the shift to automating orchestration of the network. Orchestrating the network speeds application delivery and verifies that all aspects of the policy are aligned to the application so it meets the user’s expected service requirements. “With virtual networking, the network can adapt to the needs of different tenants, users, applications, and devices,” explains Prakash Krishnamoorthy, Country Manager, HP Networking India. “IT no longer has to build and manage inflexible overlay networks to accommodate the need for wired, wireless and secure remote connectivity. Employees, contractors and partners have easy access to the information they need while security risks are more effectively mitigated.” The biggest driver for network virtualization has been the wide adoption of virtualization across enterprises. “Whether it is VDI or server virtualization, enterprises are spawning virtual machines (VMs) across enterprises. Networks need to be aware of VMs and allocate resources depending on the VM’s characteristics,” says KP Unnikrishnan, Director, Marketing, Asia Pacific, Brocade. This has prompted vendors such as Cisco, HP, IBM, Dell to develop single-stack solutions commonly described as Unified Fabric. These vendors have partnerships with mainstream virtualization vendors such as VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, and Cisco has separate partnerships on the storage front with NetApp. Vendors see a huge opportunity for upgrades, and they point out that customers are slowly learning that their networks are obsolete. “So far, major players in the market had proprietary networks which were inflexible and monolithic,” adds Unnikrishnan. “The network was slow and could not accommodate new applications or new architecture. Brocade is addressing this opportunity with our new standard Hyperedge Technology which provides a mix-and-match stacking and single-point management that delivers new levels of simplicity and manageability to the campus LAN.”

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President, Digital Infrastructure, Ashtech

Wi-Fi Proliferation Vendors are expecting exponential growth in Wi-Fi adoption in the next few quarters largely due to the proliferation of wireless devices across enterprises. “Apart from the fact that today smartphones and tablets are being utilized by enterprise users, enterprises are slowly adopting BYOD as a strategy to keep users happy, keep obsolescence low, and lower IT investment. This would mean the network should be able to handle more wireless users,” says Unnikrishnan. Gupta of Cisco says that the number of access points within a campus LAN is going to shoot up. “Since many users have up to three devices that are Wi-Fi enabled, I would not be surprised if the number of APs to users would be at one is to five from the current ratio of one is to 15 or 20.” Wi-Fi speeds are also catching up. “Many of the users have already started upgrading their Wi-Fi infrastructure. While the wired backbones have been supporting Gigabit speeds, many of the Wi-Fi connections are still languishing at 54 Mbps. The ratification of the 802.11n standard has also fueled the demand for wireless products. With the next generation 802.11ac gaining acceptance, we could even see users overhauling existing networks,” says Jayesh Kotak, President, Digital Infrastructure, Ashtech Infotech. “There are obvious trade-offs too because security risks often outweigh the benefits,” Kotak continues. “Unsecured WLANs can be a gateway of trouble not only for users but also for network implementors; besides, hackers and crackers are always on the look-out for new ideas to penetrate wireless LANs.” To address the challenge, Cisco, Ruckus, Fortinet and Checkpoint have all launched firewalls that identify and encrypt wireless traffic.

Business Video and UC With enterprises expecting a slowdown, the biggest investments are in massive Unified Communications (UC) deployments across enterprises. “Today, 50 percent of the projects are handled by our division. Travel and accommodation costs are escalating, and with UC customers are realizing the huge benefits in terms of cost savings,” says Uday Birje, Country Manager, Network, Consulting & Services, HP India. Birje says that HP is implementing most of its multi-location projects with the help of its partner network. “Over the past year most organizations have been increasing their spend on video conferencing. However, the need for 1-way or 2-way video communication is

cover story “Travel and accommodation costs are escalating, and with UC customers are realizing the huge benefits in terms of cost savings”

“The new Fortinet Dynamic Threat Prevention technology enables FortiGate systems to scan any protocol for malicious content or behavior”

Uday Birje, Country Manager, Network, Consulting & Services, HP India

Vishak Raman

Regional Director, Fortinet, India & Middle East

still largely dependent on the verticals that are deploying video as part of their overall strategy. BFSI, service providers and governments in particular have been heavy spenders on video conferencing,” says Vinod Nair, AVP, AV & Video Conferencing, AGC Networks. Business video has also been growing. “Video streaming is an emerging area. Marketers are getting creative with their campaigns and doing video direct mailers. As a result, video-on-demand and video streaming are hitting networks. As the concept gets more popular, the demand on enterprise networks will certainly increase. It is forecast that 60 percent of the network traffic will have a video component in the near future,” says Unnikrishnan.

Cloud Intelligent Networks After SDN, the biggest hype is around Cloud Intelligent Networks (CINs). However, unlike SDN, Cisco is fueling the hype more than all the other vendors. Enterprises, service providers, small businesses and governments are looking for cloud solutions to solve some of their business and technology challenges. “The CIN extends beyond the walls of individual data centers to provide peering and interconnect capabilities between data centers, and allows service integration, flexibility and agility for provisioning entertainment, information, and communication-based services,” says Gupta of Cisco. “Data center resources are securely joined together across the network using MPLS peering, scalable interconnections, and secure Internet gateway capabilities. With the CIN, providers can achieve highlysecure, logical and physical separation of services, thus helping to provide privacy and security for business and residential customers.” Other vendors are also rolling out strategies to take on Cisco, but are shying away from branding the solutions under the term CIN. HP for example has been promoting HP virtual application networks which essentially have the same objective. “Today the cloud is an integral part of enterprise computing whether it’s private, public or hybrid. Future network equipment will be manufactured to be cloudaware,” says Krishnamoorthy.

Dynamic Threat Prevention Trends such as BYOD, cloud computing and enterprise mobility have resulted in fresh security threats. “It is no more just about external threats; with multiple devices there are internal security challenges. For example, how do you authenticate a user and also deliver custom

security options depending on the device with which he has accessed the network and also his location?” asks Gupta. This has resulted in the need for generating dynamic access control lists. Uttam Majumdar, President of the Hyderabad-based Locuz Enterprises, advocates the need for a Universal Services Broker that would facilitate applications based on policies to end-users depending of the devices they use. UTM vendors have been pioneering the effort. “The new Fortinet Dynamic Threat Prevention technology enables FortiGate systems to scan any protocol for malicious content or behavior, take preventive action, and update attack detection and preventive actions dynamically from the FortiResponse Network,” says Vishak Raman, Regional Director, Fortinet, India & Middle East.

Auditing and Optimization Services Till around two years back, most network SI revenue was largely centered around deployment, cabling and management. Since then, more lucrative assignments such as optimization, auditing and reporting have emerged. “Today, in most implementations, we are able to drive healthy double-digit margins because of our valueadded services. There are both legacy and new devices in a network, and customers need to know how they are being utilized,”explains Subbramanya K, Director, Central Data Systems, Bengaluru. Cisco has been encouraging partners to provide services around auditing and reporting as the vendor believes that a better understanding of the network will encourage customers to replace legacy devices with newer technology. However, vendors are mainly promoting certified partners. “At the center of our newly fine-tuned Cisco Smart Services is a strategy for Cisco partners to diversify away from rapidly commoditizing maintenance services into higher value-added diagnostic and planning services and a build more reliable annuity-based revenue stream,” says Amitabh Patney, VP, Cisco India. Cisco expects 20 percent of its revenue to be generated through services in the coming years. HP feels the shift to SDN standards would help channels get more out of delivering value-added services. “The need for the hour is for open standardsbased programmable API like OpenFlow. Channels can build an armory of services to optimize their networking environment,” says Krishnamoorthy. n

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market focus CRN Channel Confidence Survey 2012—Retail & Distribution

Down but not out Retailers and sub-distributors have had a tough time in the past 6-12 months. Despite many challenges stacked up against them in the marketplace, they continue to be bullish about growth prospects in H2 of the current fiscal n AMIT SINGH & ABHIJEET MUKHERJEE

n this edition we present the CRN Channel Confidence Survey results for IT retailers and sub-distributors. In the previous issue of CRN—July 15, 2012—we analyzed the channel confidence of enterprise VARs. IT retailers and sub-distributors remain optimistic and expect a robust growth in revenue. Of the 122 retailers and sub-distributors who participated in the survey, 93 percent expect more than 10 percent growth in the current fiscal. However, according to most of the retailers and sub-distributors, the last six months have been below their expectations. Although 36 percent of the respondents said their growth in the last six months was as per expectations and 11 percent rated it above expectations, 53 percent said their growth was below expectations. This reflects a rise of about 56 percent in the dissatisfaction about performance as compared to the Channel Confidence Survey last year. “In the last six months we observed growth of about 10 percent which is way below our expectations. Although the JFM quarter fetched us 20 percent growth over the same period last year, the AMJ quarter was quite weak which lowered our growth,” says Naresh Wadhwa, Director, IDM Solutions. “The retail business has not been flourishing in the last six months mainly due to increasing prices,” explains Ketan Patel, CEO, Creative Peripherals. “Many vendors also pulled back their promotional schemes which impacted the retailers.” Nearly 35 percent of the respondents reported revenue growth of 10-20 percent in the last six months

against the same period last year. About 18 percent said they registered 20-30 percent growth, 7 percent mentioned 30-40 percent growth, 12 percent said 40-50 percent and about 11 percent recorded more than 50 percent growth. Nearly 18 percent of the respondents fell in the less than 10 percent bracket, and 9 percent reported de-growth. Many partners observed robust growth. Informs Vikas Kumar, Director, Microvision, “In the last six months we have grown about 40 percent with revenue of `2.1 crore against `1.5 crore in the same period last year. We attribute the growth to our focus on deep-selling to existing resellers and retailers as well as the inclusion of new brands.”

Business strategy On the business operations front, most retailers and sub-distributors focused on customer loyalty, added new products, and went in for aggressive marketing. In fact the partners’ focus on customer loyalty increased and overtook their desire to add more products. “Our focus was more on building customer loyalty; we offered 5 percent cash-back on the purchase of most brands and observed a doubling of sales in the offer period,” says Yatheesh Govind, Director, SAC InfoSystem. Kishore Makhija, CEO, Priyanka Computers, the Raipur-based sub-distributor, concurs. “We took our reseller partners for a 2-day trip to local tourist places and encouraged them to sell more through gift schemes. This contributed about 12-15 percent to sales.” New products also contributed to revenue growth.

performance in fy2011-12 Much below expectation

revenue growth in fy2011-12 Above expectation

Negative growth Less than 10 percent

18%

11%

More than 50 percent

9% 40-50 percent

11%

44%

2% 7% 30-40 percent

35%

36%

18%

Slightly below expectation

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As per expectation Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

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10-20 percent

20-30 percent Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

market focus impact of lfrs on business in fy2011-12

revenue growth expected in fy2012-13

More than 30 percent

Less than 10 percent

Negative growth

6% 2%

15%

50%

15% More than 50 percent

29%

20-30 percent

26%

10-20 percent

26% 10-20 percent

Less than 10 percent

30-50 percent

22% 20-30 percent

Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

“We included new categories such as accessories and consumables which contributed 15-18 percent to the revenue,” says Umang Mehta, CEO, Roop Technology. Adds Patel, “The inclusion of tablets contributed 10 percent to the revenue. With the inclusion of Apple iPads, this year we expect the contribution from tablets to increase to 18 percent. We also included smartphones which added 8 percent and headphones which contributed 2 percent.” “Aggressive marketing by vendors pushed our sales,” notes Kamlesh Darji, Senior Manager, Partner Development & Brand Promotion, Shani Peripherals. “While they provided the MDF for EDMs and brochures, we facilitated the availability at the local level.”

Product-led growth From the product point of view, desktop sales surprisingly led the growth in the retail market, followed by notebooks, peripherals and retail software. “Desktops still see high demand from students and SOHO customers, apart from enterprise customers. AIOs have also become popular and are generating demand,” says Sudhir Arora, CEO, Computer Gallery. While 55 percent of the respondents credited desktop sales for their topline growth, 49 percent credited notebooks. 35 percent said their growth was due to peripherals such as keyboards, mice and Web cameras, while 33 percent said that retail software accounted for their growth, 20 percent of those polled also regarded accessories, home networking devices and printers as contributors to their growth. “Due to consumer awareness (about the benefits of investing in genuine software) and our own channel engagement efforts, we observed about 18 percent growth

“Earlier, for people who wanted a device only for content consumption there was no alternative but a notebook. Now such consumers can opt for tablets”

Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

in our Microsoft business in the last fiscal,” informs Shyam Modi, Chairman, MC Modi & Co.

Growth projections Having braved a tough first half, the channel is optimistic about a better second half. While only 1.9 percent of the respondents predict negative growth and 6 percent see less than 10 percent growth, the majority expect modest growth. With a total of six retail stores and three distribution branches, Park Networks is targeting about 13 percent growth in the current fiscal. “Our retail stores contributed around `20 crore to our revenue in the last fiscal, and this year we expect more contribution from these stores,” says Ajaya Kumar, CMD, Park Networks. Supertron Electronics is also looking for modest growth. “We expect about 14 percent growth against our targeted 25 percent in the current fiscal,” concedes VK Bhandari, CMD, Supertron. Besides their focus on regular IT retail products, many retailers and sub-distributors are also diversifying their business by getting into solutions. “We have seen lot of traction for CCTVs in homes and SOHOs which has boosted our home networking product business,” remarks Darji. “Broadband connectivity is also a lucrative business, and is boosting the demand for routers and other networking products.” Home networking solutions on 3G routers are also getting popular. Informs Vaibhav Jain, Director, Jai Paras Infotech, a Dehradun-based RD, “Even in smaller cities home networking is doing brisk business. We sell around 250 3G routers and 200 ADSL routers per month.”

Priorities While retail software was the top priority in the survey last year, this time almost 54 percent of the respondents voted for notebooks as their No 1 priority. “Consumers are opting for notebooks because they have become necessary, more so for engineering, medical and management students. With more colleges opening every year, this number is bound to go up,” reasons Makhija. Retail software (such as antivirus, operating systems

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market focus product categories THAT BOOSTED GROWTH IN FY2011-12 Desktops

55% Notebooks

49%

Peripherals like keyboard, mice, web-camera Retail software antivirus, Windows OS Printers

35% 33%

20%

Home networking devices

20%

Options and accessories (USB drive, external HDD)

20% Broadband connectivity

18%

Tablets

18%

Netbooks

15%

Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

business ACTIVITIES THAT BOOSTED GROWTH IN FY2011-12 Focused on repeat business

58% Added new products

56% Aggressive marketing

53%

Tied up with new vendors

40% Added new services

24%

Cost cutting

22% Added more branches

18% Added new retail stores

15%

Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

challenges that may hamper GROWTH IN FY2012-13 Dollar fluctuation

70% Increase in cost of components and products

52%

Payment delays by customers

44% Vendors changing their distribution strategies

35% More customers buying from large format retailers

32%

Payment defaults

“The 26 percent depreciation of the rupee against the dollar in one year has been among the steepest declines among Asian currencies”

32%

Lack of customer financing schemes

24%

and gaming software) is another high priority for the channel. “We see the retail software business picking up because reduced prices of original licenses are driving down piracy rates,” says Harinder Salwan, Director, Tricom Multimedia. About 44 percent of the respondents voted for peripherals, services, and tablets and smartphones as triggers for their growth. “The trend is to have multiple devices at home; this is pushing the growth of tablets and smartphones, hence they have become a lucrative business option,” comments Arora. Adds Kumar of Park Networks, “I feel that tablets are going to impact the notebook market from next year. Earlier, for people who wanted to invest in a device only for content consumption, there was no alternative but to spend on a notebook. Now such consumers can opt for tablets.”

Challenges The appreciation of the US dollar has been the biggest source of discontent for the retailers and sub-distributors; 70 percent of them voted for it. “The 26 percent depreciation of the rupee (against the dollar) in one year has been among the steepest declines among the Asian currencies,” says Suresh Pansari, MD, Rashi Peripherals. All the vendors have been hit by the increasing input costs, and many of them have passed on the buck to their customers. “Most of the vendors have increased prices by 3-5 percent and up to 10 percent in some cases,” informs George Thomas, CEO, Aldous Glare Trade & Exports. This has affected the already-low consumer sentiment, as a result of which most retailers are observing a slowdown in their business. “Compared to the earlier 20-25 footfalls per day, we now get 8-10, out of which we are able to convert only two,” complains Milind Kulkarni, Partner, Techguru Computers, Nashik. About 44 percent of the respondents identified payment delays as a major concern. Most of the subdistributors are struggling with delayed payments and extended credit cycles. “The impact on capital rotation is huge because of delayed payments from resellers. Currently, most resellers are paying after 45-60 days, which is impacting our bottom-line,” grumbles Makhija. Agrees Kumar of Microvision, “About 20 percent of our payment transactions are taking 3-4 months. In a few cases, payments are delayed by almost a year.”

Negative customer sentiments

22% Competition from telecom retailers

20% Shorter credit cycle

15%

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Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

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“Compared to the earlier 20-25 footfalls per day, we now get 8-10, out of which we are able to convert only two”

market focus “Most of the time the onus of post-sales support falls on the reseller, and when we fail to satisfy customers they move to a different reseller” Many of the partners also mentioned payment defaults as a major pain area. “Payment default cases have increased by at least 10 percent,” according to Wadhwa. “Some of the retailers are finding themselves in such a financial crunch that they delay payments till court proceedings. Conditions are so bad that three retailers in our area have actually exited the business in the last two months.” Changes in distribution strategy by vendors are a major worry highlighted by partners. Sixty percent of the respondents said that the increasing number of LFRs in their vicinity was impacting their business. “There is a price difference of 5-8 percent and an element of touch-and-feel in LFRs that results in a significant loss of business. Many of our potential customers are moving there,” says Jai Prakash Agrahari of the Jaiprakash Group, a Lucknow-based RD. Adds PCP Shafi, Proprietor, Computer Site, “Many vendors, especially in the accessory segment, have taken the LFR route which is impacting our business. Some of the vendors are even taking the online mode with the influx of online stores like Naaptol and Flipkart.”

product categories that will boost growth in fy2012-13 Notebooks

54% Retail software (antivirus, Windows OS, gaming software, etc) Peripherals like keyboard, mice, web-camera

52% 44%

Services like AMC

44%

Smartphone and tablets

44%

Desktops

43%

LED Monitors

43%

Options and accessories (USB drives, external HDDs, laptop carry bags)

43%

Home networking devices like broadband routers Netbooks

41%

28%

Broadband connectivity

22%

LED/LCD/3D TVs Printers

20% 19%

Gaming consoles like XBox/PS3

Digital cameras and camcoders

Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

vendor support required by channel Maintain market operating price (MOP)

Expectations from vendors More than 68 percent of the partners want vendors to maintain the MOP. While the demand to maintain MOP has been at the top of their wish list for several years, the intensity of the demand has increased by more than 23 percent compare to CRN Channel Confidence Survey 2011. “MOP has been an issue for long, and has been always talked about by partners and vendors, but nothing substantial has been done in this regard,” says Kumar of Park Networks. Channel overcapacity is also an issue highlighted by partners, and it has seen a 19 percent increase in intensity. More than 56 percent of the respondents complained that vendors are not choosy about partners and have too many of them in the same location. According to Arun Kumar Dey, CEO, Computer Professional, Cuttack, “Vendors only seek their interest in the over-distribution of products; this eventually generates unhealthy competition among the partners and decreases their margins.” With margins dipping, the partners’ expectation that vendors should ensure more profits for them has registered 25 percent growth. This year 53 percent voted for this demand against 43 percent last year. “While earlier our margins were 5-8 percent, they have now reduced to 2-3 percent or even below that due to cut-throat competition. We expect vendors to maintain hygiene in the business by becoming choosy about their partners,” says Kamlesh Shah, Director, Care Office Equipment.

69%

Have limited partners in your city/region

57%

Ensure more profits

54%

Provide better post-sales support

44%

Consistency in channel strategy and programs

41%

More MDF support for developing new business

35%

Provide regular training

33%

Introduce more customer financing schemes

33%

Decrease prices of their products Pass more leads More qualitative incentives

30% 28%

24%

Base: 122 retailers and sub-distributors

Another issue: around 44 percent respondents want vendors to improve their post-sales support. “Customers today are very aware and demanding. Apart from good price they also want to ensure carefree postsales support. Most of the time the onus of post-sales support falls on the reseller, and when we fail to satisfy customers they move to a different reseller,” points out Ganesh Chintewar, Proprietor, Ganesh Com Services, Nanded. n

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role model

hamara bajaj

Manoj Bajaj, CEO, CAS Computers, began by offering computerized accounting services, then together with his two brothers turned the company into one of the top retailers in the north east n Amit singh

business that started on a 6-month trial basis with the stipulation to return the borrowed `40,000 within that period has now been transformed into one of the most renowned IT retail businesses of the north east. For Manoj Bajaj, CEO, CAS Computers, the journey till now has been like a dream come true. When he began in a small town like Tinsukia he could not have thought of achieving these heights. From a turnover of `1.5 lakh in 1994, the first year of operations, CAS Computers has come a long way, recording revenue of `15.23 crore in the last fiscal. The company has two retail showrooms—2,500 sq ft in Tinsukia and 1,500 sq ft in Guwahati. It also offers basic IT, networking and security surveillance solutions to SMBs and SOHOs in the region.

The early days Manoj, who has a diploma in data processing, worked as a data processor for a CA for two years before completing his BCom from Dibrugarh University in 1993. Starting a business was never an easy decision to make. However, he took up the challenge and started CAS (Computerized Accounting Services). “But most of the customers approached me to solve their IT problems, and I used to end up solving their problems for free. A friend then suggested that I should venture into the IT business,” recalls Manoj. He started by supplying computer accessories such as keyboards, mice, floppy disks, printer ribbons and computer stationery to SMBs and SOHOs as well as individual consumers. “We also tied up with Modular Peripherals, an assembled PC maker, to fulfil the PC requirements of our customers,” Manoj says. In 1996 CAS itself started assembling PCs and supplying them to SMB and SOHO customers. Manoj’s younger brother, Deepak, joined the business in 1996 and started handling purchases and payments. That was the time when the company started focusing on commercial sales. The company expanded into the networking solutions business when the youngest brother, Mukesh,

Riding on its focus on surveillance and networking solutions, besides its thrust on tablets and accessories, CAS is aiming at `20 crore turnover this fiscal 26

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Manoj Bajaj

with a diploma in networking, joined CAS in 1999. The company started leveraging on D-Link networking solutions for its projects. It also expanded its IT portfolio by collaborating with Wipro for printers and Godrej Pacific (now Ingram Micro) for IBM PCs, Panasonic, Godrej and NEC printers. “Along with our systems building and computer peripherals business, we executed several small networking projects with an average value of `1.5 lakh,” informs Mukesh. In 2000 CAS reduced its focus on the commercial business because of increased response from the retail side. “Moreover, the commercial business was troublesome due to delays in payments. We therefore restricted ourselves in the commercial business to solutions only,” says Deepak. To give greater thrust to its retail business, CAS tied up with a number of companies including LG, Compaq and Global Fax Machines. “Because we were among the few IT retailers and resellers in this region, many IT companies came forward to collaborate with us to expand their coverage,” notes Manoj. “In 2005 we slowed down on the assembled PC business and focused more on branded PCs, which

Role model

2012

2011

2008

2006

2000

1996

1994

for OND 2010. The company also were in high demand,” adds MILESTONES received the N-Dimension Award Mukesh. The company also began from Epson in 2010 and 2012 in collaborating with Samsung in recognition of its outstanding 2004. Started operations. Recorded efforts. Manoj sensed the growing annual turnover of `1.5 lakh importance of providing a touchand-feel experience to customers Future strategy Began assembling PCs under in order to take the retail business Riding on its focus on security its own brand name to the next level, and therefore surveillance and networking opened a 1,400 sq ft showroom in solutions—besides its continued Reduced focus on commercial Tinsukia in 2006. “The showroom thrust on notebooks and business enabled us to get more visibility accessories—the company is and increase footfalls. We were aiming at revenue of `20 crore in Opened first showroom in also able to convince customers the current fiscal. Tinsukia to spend more by experiencing CAS is currently executing the equipment. This enabled us to a networking project worth `20 Opened second showroom in quadruple our sales, and revenue lakh; this entails networking and Guwahati rose to `3.3 crore in FY2006-07.” implementing about 100 thin The company also collaborated clients, printers, projectors and Began offering security with Acer in 2006 and with Dell PCs. in 2007. The company has recently surveillance solutions Seeing great success with the included tablets from Samsung, Reached a turnover of touch-and-feel model, the company Apple, Sony, Acer, HCL and i-Ball expanded its showroom to 2,500 sq in its portfolio. “We have started `15.23 crore ft and opened a second showroom offering tablets from this fiscal, of 1,500 sq ft in Guwahati in but we are observing slow demand Started offering media tablets 2008. “The Guwahati showroom due to the high prices,” comments and accessories contributed about 33 percent to our Manoj. revenue of `8.95 crore in FY2008Sensing increased challenges 09,” says Deepak, who handles the showroom. from online retail, as well as the need to have a larger presence in the north-east, the company has plans to introduce an online portal in the current fiscal. Current business CAS, now run jointly by the three brothers, grew its revenue from `12.66 crore in FY2009-10 to `13.45 crore On the personal front in FY2010-11 and `15.23 crore in the last fiscal. The Manoj does not have any role model, but believes in company attributes the growth to the new showroom in his own abilities to attain newer heights. “For me, Guwahati as well as a tie-up with Sony. “The Guwahati impossible means a little longer,” he declares. Deepak showroom contributed about 42 percent to the revenue and Mukesh share his ideology. in the last fiscal. In addition, Acer, Lenovo and Sony Manoj and Mukesh are religious, and have done notebook sales also contributed significantly to the many pilgrimages to Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath, revenue,” informs Manoj. CAS started offering security Kedarnath, Puri, Vaishno Devi, Ajmer, Pushkar and surveillance solutions in 2011. It implemented a CCTV Vrindavan. Manoj carries kaawar from Sultanganj to project worth `2.5 lakh for Horujan Tea Company. Baidyanth Dham, and has done so for the last 11 years. Mukesh attributes the company’s growth to its Deepak prefers to visit places of tourist interest. In commitment to offer the best value-for-money and his free time he watches sports and Discovery channels. after-sales support. “We always ensure the best He is also fond of cricket, and organizes tournaments after-sales support to our customers by our service through the North East Computer Traders Association. department which has about 15 employees. We offer He currently drives a Hyundai i10 but aspires to have call registration, onsite visits, chip-level repairing, etc.” a Ferrari. The company has received many awards and Mukesh is fond of bikes. He currently has a Yamaha recognitions from vendors. It was recognized for its Enticer and wants to have a Harley Davidson. sterling efforts at the Samsung SI Meet 2009. Acer Deepak wishes to visit Switzerland, while Mukesh awarded CAS for its outstanding performance in retail wants to go to any island and to own a farmhouse in Rajasthan. Manoj seeks to retire at 55 and plans to do Sensing increased challenges from online pilgrimages after that. He is also associated with many orphanages and cow rehabilitation centers, and donates retail, as well as the need to have a larger generously to many such organizations. Deepak has presence in the north-east, CAS plans to been a Lion’s Club member, and participates in various charitable activities. n create an online portal in the current fiscal

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tech focus Thumbs Up: Office 2013 Enhanced For Tablets, Thumb Control Microsoft recently unveiled a customer preview of Office 2013, including new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and other modules, with a consistent suite-wide interface that is enhanced for use on tablets n Edward J. Correia

ith the Windows 8 launch now confirmed for October, Microsoft is giving Office customers a first and long look at the suite, which is rumored to be generally available early next year. Microsoft in advance of the release sent the CRN Test Center an Intel Core i5-based Samsung Series 7 Slate tablet with 4 GB of memory pre-configured with 64-bit Windows 8, the latest preview of Office 365 and credentials for downloading the latest Office app betas for review. What we found was a stable and responsive suite of apps with a consistent user interface that integrates more tightly with each other and with Internet-based storage and social networks. The first thing we noticed was that most of the new apps do not execute in Metro but instead run in Desktop Mode. Falling into this category are Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Access, Project and Visio, Exchange, InfoPath and SharePoint servers. Only the Lync and OneNote betas are Metro-style; Microsoft declined to comment on when other modules might follow suit.

Word 2013 Still, Word, Outlook and other Office apps fill the screen and appear and behave much like Metro-style apps when used in the new touch mode, which brings up special navigation icons and flattens the user interface to make it more finger-friendly. A new Read Mode in Word simplifies the experience of text consumption with automatic adjustments of column and text flow as well as the ability to quickly define, translate and look up words when an Internet connection is available, similar to an e-book reader. Other finger-friendly features in Word 2013 include

Word 2013 opens and edits PDF documents or uses objects from within to create new presentations; the default save format remains that of Word 28

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object zoom, which enlarges objects such as images, tables and charts with a tap or pinch. A second similar gesture restores the object to its original size. Word also now bookmarks the readerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last position and picks up right where you left off, even if it is on a different device. Of course, this only applies to documents being read from a SkyDrive account and not to documents being read in a non-Microsoft cloud repository. When used with SkyDrive, Word 2013 saves to it by default. This simplifies document sharing and real-time collaboration with other SkyDrive users and helps keep document versions under control. Wordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Track Changes feature can now be locked with a password to prevent unauthorized changes from eluding notice. In a pinch or by design, Word 2013 can be used as an online presentation tool, even if those viewing the presentation do not have Word. Documents can now be shared through a browser, and people can follow along as the owner scrolls through the document. Word can now open and edit PDF documents or use objects from within to create new presentations; the default save format remains that of Word. Alignment guides automatically pop up to allow precise placement of objects, and now images can be placed directly from Facebook, Flickr and other online sites without having to download and save locally first.

Excel 2013 Excel 2013 is now fully-touch enabled, allowing finger or hand gestures to move through spreadsheets, charts and graphs with one-tap object zoom. It contains many of the same interface enhancements as those in Word, including a touch mode, direct access and the ability to post to webbased image repositories, as well as simplified sharing and online presentation. There are also some fairly impressive whiz-bang features that simplify database population and the generation of useful reports and visually appealing graphics. For those who have done a fair amount of importing into Excel, you have undoubtedly had at least one encounter with the dreaded conundrum of having all the data go into a single column. Now, a feature in Excel

tech focus 2013 called Flash Fill takes care of that. As you manually correct the import, moving it piece-by-piece into separate columns, this impressive feature observes your activity and offers to finish the job for you. That’s right. Excel 2013 moves data that was incorrectly placed into a single column and automatically moves it to multiple columns. In fact, Flash Fill recognizes any repetitive behavior pattern and offers to replicate it without macros or scripts. Anyone who has used pivot tables knows that they can be fairly challenging to create. Now, a new feature called Recommended Pivot Table analyzes your data and suggests options for creating a pivot table that best summarizes the information in the current spreadsheet. And, a Quick Trend feature lets you pull up a historical chart and format it with more control and precision than in prior Excel versions. There is also a Timeline Slicer to further aid in visualization of data over specific time periods. For manipulating large data sets in real time, an add-in called PowerPivot makes Excel behave like an in-memory database.

PowerPoint 2013 As with 2013 versions of Word and Excel, PowerPoint 2013 doesn’t require people to have the app to view your presentations; Office 2013 docs can be easily shared, allowing others to view documents through any Web browser. To share a document, simply select Share from the file menu. This brings up a login for Windows Live. After logging in, a URL pops up that can be copied and pasted into an e-mail for inviting participants. In our tests, Web sharing worked perfectly with Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers. Safari was unable to join a presentation in progress. In the browsers, slides advanced almost immediately along with the presenters’; browser back buttons are inoperable. We weren’t able to find a way to bring up that URL again after a presentation begins, in case anyone wants to join late. Short of quitting the app, there appears to be no way to stop an online presentation once the show’s over. Microsoft has added lots of tools to PowerPoint 2013 to aid in the creation of presentations. For starters, a new start screen displays about a half-dozen attractive widescreen themes that can spark ideas for new presentations. As in Word 2013, a series of new or improved alignment guides help in the precise placement of art elements and other objects so that images do not appear to jump around from one slide to the next. Also new are master level guides, which appear when creating new slides from a master. When using SkyDrive, multiple people can collaborate on a slide show at the same time. PowerPoint now (finally) supports music as a bed for an entire presentation. Perhaps as long awaited, a new presenter view lets the presenter navigate through all available slides without effecting what is being displayed. This allows presenters to skip directly to a slide ahead or back using a visual grid without forcing everyone to also watch the replay. And, as in other Office 2013 apps, Facebook, Flickr and other cloud services can now be

Upon release, Microsoft will offer Office 2013 for download only. In stores, there will be a license key in the box, with downloads and updates coming from update sites direct sources for imagery. When connecting to a second screen or projector, PowerPoint 2013 automatically adjusts that screen’s settings and switches to presenter mode. And in case it gets the screens mixed up, a swap displays function reverses the error. Presenters can help an in-person audience focus on particular areas of a slide with a new click, or tap, to zoom, but Web participants see only static images.

Outlook 2013 Microsoft has worked hard to bring multiple data sources together seamlessly in outlook 2013. For example, when viewing an e-mail that contains an address, it plots the location on a Bing map. If the sender is someone in your organization, their presence info is visible, and a new peek feature lets you see further details about the person. Drilling further might show that person’s department, rank within the organization or your recent e-mail or instant messaging exchanges. If they are requesting a meeting, Outlook 2013 lets you peek at the relevant date on your calendar without opening the calendar app. Outlook 2013 can now be the destination not only for messages and appointments from Exchange but also from POP and IMAP mail systems and third-party calendars. It also can display updates from contacts on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social sites. Best of all, Outlook 2013 can install beside a current version of Outlook to facilitate pilot testing and phased implementations without effecting user productivity.

The Bottom Line As we have observed from the recent Windows 8 release preview, Microsoft is focused squarely at improving the tablet experience and taking desktop keyboard and mouse users for granted. The same appears to be true of Office 2013, which adds a touch mode in most modules, implements two Metro-style components and transforms its interface into a flatter, cleaner and more consistent Metro-like look and feel across the suite. Features such as the ribbon, peek and seamless Web and social network integration are there, sliding in and out of sight as needed. Meanwhile, Microsoft will offer the software for download only. There will be no more software discs. For software sold in stores, there will be a license key in the box in place of the CD, with downloads and updates coming from Microsoft’s store and update sites. Microsoft also promises a new, synchronized release schedule, with all modules set to release at the same time for all devices. Formerly code-named Office 15, Office 2013 is expected to be generally available in early 2013. n

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channel buzz Adobe concludes multi-city roadshow

dobe India recently concluded multi-city roadshows following the launch of Creative Suite 6. More than 600 attendees across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru who attended the road show included customers across design and print digital imaging professionals, cross-media designers, Web developers, VFX artists, videographers and students. The roadshow showcased the features of CS6 which offers an entire set of 14 CS6 applications and four Creative Suites, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium; and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection. Srihari Palanagla, Country Marketing Manager, Adobe Systems said, “These roadshows are an extension to Adobe India’s Creative Suite 6 announcement that helps drive innovation across creative markets. A recent FICCI-KPMG report states that India’s media and entertainment industry is expected to register a CAGR of 15 percent to reach `1,457

n Rajesh Patil, Chief Evangelist, Creative Solutions, Adobe Systems, addressing customers

n Srihari Palangala, Country Marketing Manager, Adobe Systems, talking about new products and technologies

n Attendees listening attentively to Adobe speakers

billion by 2016. The report further adds that Hindi and vernacular segments contribute to 60 percent of Indian print media industry.” “The roadshow on the whole was an informative, fun-filled marketing initiative that helped educate and

connect with the end-users. It offered a common ground to creative mavericks to aggregate and discuss the challenges and opportunities which certainly is a step towards building India’s creative economy,” added Srihari. n

TE Connectivity partner meet

E Enterprise Network recently organized a 5-day Dragon Delight Shanghai partner meet to educate and train partners on the technological developments and industry trends. Nearly 45 partners were taken to Shanghai. K K Shetty, Director, India &

Saarc, TE Enterprise said, “We have cemented a long lasting partnership with our partners. With a partner network of more than 1,000 we put a strong emphasis on helping them develop the business and tap into unexplored avenues. We believe our partners are the most credible

n TE Enterprise partners during the 5-day Dragon Delight Shanghai Meet

ambassadors of our company who can take our solutions to end consumers.” This year TE aims to increase partner engagement through various tools, resources and incentives programs. The company aims to organize a series of road-shows & techno-deliberative sessions across India and give partners an exposure to new age technology in data centres, office & home networks, FTTH and wirelss. “With our new range of products, we are hopeful of capturing a significant market share this time too. Through our partner program, we are aggressively reaching out to our partner community to address specific products/technology according to dynamic market requirements even in tier-2 and tier-3 cities too” added Shetty. n

To feature your company’s events in CRN, send write-ups with photographs to editor@ubmindia.com 30

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new products ViewSonic ultraportable LED projectors

iewSonic has launched LED projectors—the PLED-W500 and PLED-W200 that feature 20,000-30,000-hours, long-life LED lamps, 3D technology, 120Hz frame rates for 3D visuals, and can create 33-40 inch screens from a distance of one meter. The projectors come with USB connectivity, built-in Microsoft Office/PDF viewer and SD/SDHC card reader

that can display documents and play multimedia files without PC. The PLED-W500 comes in 214 x 164 x 42 mm, 500 ANSI lumens brightness, and 20,000 hours lamp life and weighs 1.18 kg. The 1.4:1 short throw ratio projects a 33 inch screen from a distance of one meter with native WXGA resolution and 2 GB of onboard memory. The PLED-W200 measures 130 x 126 x 32 mm and weighs 420 gram. The projectors PLED-W500 and PLED-W200 are priced at `61,000 and `44,000 respectively, come with 2- and 1- year warranty respectively for the lamps, and are available with Viewsonic authorized distributors. n

D-Link All-in-one Mobile Companion

-Link has launched its All-in-one Mobile Companion, DIR-505 wireless routers. Targeted at travelers and mobile device owners, the router includes USB sharing capabilities to share videos, music and photos from an external hard drive or flash drive with any iPad, iPhone or Android device. An Ethernet port allows users to connect to an existing network using a network cable along with a Web GUI configuration. The Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button allows one to add wireless devices. It can function as a router, access point, Wi-Fi hotspot as well as repeater. The device is priced at `2,299, comes with 1- year warranty, and is available with D-Link authorized distributors. n

IRA Thing 2 tablet

ishTel has launched its IRA THING 2—the 7 inch, multi touch capacitive tablet that runs on Android 4.0. It is powered by 1.5 GHz processor and comes with 512 MB RAM. IRA Thing 2 is available in 6 colours– black, red, yellow, pink, blue and white. Its TV app gives consumers an access to over 120 TV channels across various genres of entertainment like sports, kids, news, music, fashion & lifestyle and regional. The E-News app allows access to news from over 55 multilinguistic newspapers. The tablet has a 4 GB internal memory and can be expanded upto 32 GB. It comes with 1.3 MP in-built front camera. It is capable of displaying a HD content at 1080p. The tablet comes with a 3000mAh battery, which provides approximately 4 hours of standby. The tablet supports 14 Indian languages. In terms of connectivity it allows 3G and WiFi connectivity. IRA Thing 2 is priced at `6,500, comes with 2-year warranty, and is available with WishTel authorized distributors. n

Fujitsu multi-node server

ujitsu has launched Primergy CX400 S1 multi-node cloud extension server that requires only half the space of a standard rack server and offers deployments such as private cloud, high-performance computing (HPC) and large-scale virtualization. By halving the size of a standard server node, the Primergy CX400 S1 packs four independent physical servers and up to 24 storage drives into a standard 2U height compact cabinet. It joins the Fujitsu Cloud eXtension family alongside the full-size, 38-node Primergy CX1000 cloud server platform. The Primergy family consists of three interchangeable low-, medium- and high-end server nodes-the Primergy CX210 S1, CX250 S1, and CX270 S1 models-into its new half-width tray design. The base model with a single server is priced at `2.99 lakh plus taxes, comes with a 5-year warranty, and is available with Fujitsu authorized distributors. n

The products featured here have not undergone any benchmarking or testing. The trailers contain information provided by vendors and distributors. To feature your company’s products in CRN, send write-ups with photos to editor@ubmindia.com

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shadow ram GET

Is it (dis)advantage Surface?

ccording to tech rumor Website Semi Accurate, HP is likely to dump Microsoft OS from its tablet range. The site reports that HP may not be the only OEM distancing itself. Microsoft has wooed all major OEMs and ODMs for Windows on ARM devices, and the subsequent changes to OEM licensing to $90 is forcing many to rethink alliances. While the names of other OEMs have not yet surfaced, it is believed that Google with its open policy is emerging as a new ally. The tablet market has been a single horse race, with Apple garnering 85 percent market share, but Google has been catching up, and Microsoft has also shown promise. Meanwhile, Surface has received mixed reviews. In an interview with CRN.com, Steve Ballmer, CEO and President, stated that the Surface tablets would not be sold through regular distribution channel, but they will need to buy from the Microsoft Website or retail stores. “They cannot order from their normal distribution.” They can order it off Microsoft.com. But we are not setting up what I would call a typical distribution chain. What our partners choose to do is up to our partners,” he said. This is certainly not good news for enterprise partners. n

Personal

“I would take faster decisions” Sukhesh Madaan, CEO, Envent, is a veteran of 17 years in the IT industry. He has worked with Intel, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson and Hip Street. If not in the IT industry: May be in photography industry. I started my career as a service engineer operating on giant photographic machines.

Sukhesh Madaan

Biggest Passion: Traveling around the world.

Behind the wheels: It is a nightmare to drive on Indian roads. Gadgets I can’t live without: My smartphone. Weekends are for: Rejuvenating and spending time with family. Favorite holiday destination: Maldives for its serenity and exquisiteness. Hate the most: People not admitting their mistakes. Favorite Movie: Any light hearted movie which makes me smile. Favorite Stars: Amitabh Bachchan & Aamir Khan. Role Model: Every self-made, hardworking individual inspires me. Ultimate ambition: Making Envent a truly global organization. Wildest thing I have ever done: Sky diving from 15,000 feet. Thing I most want to do in life: Visit all the Seven Wonders of the World. If I became the PM: I would take decisions faster. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Amitabh Bachchan. One person I would like to meet and why: The great motivational speaker-Nick Vujicic. Deepest and darkest fear: Loosing the loved ones. n

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— CRN Network

RNI NO. MAHENG/2011/39915 Postal Reg. No. MH/MR/NORTH EAST/193/2010-2012 Posted at Patrika Channel Sorting Office, Mumbai Due Date 2nd, 3rd & 16th, 17th Of Every Fortnight