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contents

July 01, 2011 l Volume 5 Issue 05

Cover Story Some make a living from it. Some say it destroys market operating prices, confidence in authorized distribution, and even vendor forecasts. We look at the legal and ethical aspects of parallel imports

24 NEWS Analyses

Channel Chief

Intel launches hybrid cloud for SMBs

Xerox aims for top printer slot

Redington, Ingram to drive McAfee’s SMB biz

Epson says think ink

Sanovi planning new pricing models

Sanjoy Bhattacharya Product Group Marketing Head, IT, LG India, speaks about the company’s future product and channel strategies

16 Special Focus In the pink of health Overall spending on IT in the healthcare sector is relatively small—but the growth is healthy and there are exciting opportunities for partners

18 Role Model

READ More Editorial 12 Opinion

Feedback

Channel Buzz

New Products

Shadow Ram

Get Personal

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Shooting for the stars Sudarshan Ranganathan started Veeras Infotek way back in 1992 as a tiny antivirus reseller. Today, it’s gunning for `100-crore topline

34 Tech Focus Top 10 IBM inventions As a way to celebrate IBM’s 100th birthday, we look at 10 technologies invented by IBM that have most impacted IT

starting line MUST

Read

Xerox aims for top printer slot Xerox India aims to be among the top two printer vendors in the next two years. Besides expanding its channel and strengthening its presence in central India, the company will release new products, introduce more SKUs, and involve its distributors (Global Infonet and Redington) in all its projects. The distributors will henceforth drive Xerox’s sales team. Explained Kuldeep Malhotra, Associate Director, Volume & Supplies Business, Xerox India, “The distributors will appoint dedicated Xerox managers for the drive. Till last year they had a limited role of managing logistics and providing credit support to partners across the country. The idea to ask the distributors to drive our sales team came during our re-structuring process. We wanted our distributors to engage with our Kuldeep Malhotra existing set of partners as well as use their own IT partner network as part of our GTM to penetrate tier-2 and tier-3 cities.” The company will also work with more subdistributors and resellers. “We will increase the number of sub-distributors to 200, and resellers to 1,000,” Malhotra informed. “An area of focus will be central India which we are struggling to penetrate.” Besides channel expansion, the company will release ten new products in the A3 and A4 printing categories. “Xerox India is bullish on the A4 segment. The company has already started conducting promotional activities and road shows to strengthen the brand,” Malhotra added. Xerox recently completed a road show in Bhubaneswar to strengthen its presence in the eastern region. It also showcased its portfolio of solutions in A4 mono and color lasers targeted at the SMB and enterprise segments. Prior to this Xerox conducted similar road shows in Guwahati and Chandigarh. Xerox recently tied up with a NSP that promises an average TAT of 24-48 working hours. n — Abhijeet Mukherjee

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Intel launches hybrid cloud for SMBs n SONAL DESAI

ntel has launched its Intel AppUp small business service in India. The service enables server manufacturers, software vendors and service providers to offer small businesses a subscription-based model for locally-hosted, remotely-managed server software on a pay-as-theyuse basis. The best part is that the data does not leave the customer’s premises. In turn, Intel wants its partners to provide IT consulting and management for small businesses with less than 100 PC users. Besides, partners can offer an online applications catalog and use this program as a foundation to create their own service bundles. While all the solutions will be hosted on Intel servers, the platform would support Windows Server 2008, the Tally server, and a cloud-based antivirus solution. “The management platform of the MSP is cloud-based, and an entry-level solution comes with Windows Server 2008. Intel will provide the server and the server software, while we will install the software and support the solution. But the customer has to manage the desktop or workstation on his own,” explained Durgesh Saqcena, Head, IT Solutions & Services, Xpress Computers. The hybrid cloud is a server box with virtual machines. This is an Intel IP, informed Suresh Ramani, CEO, Techgyan. “The box is essentially layers of management connected via the Internet. Intel launched the hybrid cloud in the US some time back, but is launching it in India only now.” While partners are upbeat about the technology and the services revenue they could earn by bundling offerings, the

“The platform allows small businesses to gain a flexible and scalable way to use IT by using Intel’s secure activation and usage monitoring” Vikas Aditya

Director, Strategy & Partnerships, Intel Hybrid Cloud Program, IDCG

pricing of the solutions continues to be a sore point. According to sources, each server box costs `1.5 lakh. “We have asked Intel to rationalize the price, but they are yet to revert,” one partner said. Even as Intel skirted a query on pricing, Vikas Aditya, Director, Strategy & Partnerships, Intel Hybrid Cloud Program, Intel Data Center Group, informed that the platform will allow small businesses to gain a flexible and scalable way to use hardware, software and services by using Intel’s secure activation and usage monitoring. “If they reduce the number of users the monthly cost goes down. If they don’t like an application they can cancel it with no penalties at the end of any billable month.” But some partners point out hitches in the offering. A partner unwilling to be named explained, “Intel is asking for a 3-year lockin, and I am not sure whether customers will agree to that. Intel has not come out with an exit strategy so far.” However, other partners are optimistic. They say that Intel will release 7-8 SKUs for the solutions, and that if positioned well, they can offer their own bundle of services and also charge for installation, customization and support. n

starting line MUST

Read

Epson says think ink Epson India is targeting 50 percent of all ink-based printer revenue in India through the launch of its new L series of inkjet printers. The vendor said that with its new range of printers it has broken records in printing affordability with monochrome printing costs at 10 paise per page and color printing at 20 paise per page. Last year Epson ran campaigns promoting the advantages of ink over laser. “The response has been overwhelming,” informed SM Ramprasad, Deputy GM, Epson India. “At the end of 2010 our marketshare in inkjets hovered around 20 percent, while our net revenue from the segment was 35 percent. With the launch of the L series, we are expecting our marketshare to reach 25 percent this year—and we should be able to capture 50 percent of all inkjet printer revenue.” Epson has launched two models—L-100 (standard) priced at `8,999 and L-200 (multi-function) priced at `10,999. It is also expected to launch a high-end photo-printer called L-800. SM Ramprasad The new models do away with ink cartridges and instead use ink bottles, each priced at around `375. “The competition is selling inkjet printers for less than a couple of thousand rupees, then selling cartridges at `1,500,” said Ramprasad. “We are clear that our model will be built on absolute transparency.” Ramprasad presents his cost equations. The L-100 will print up to 18,500 pages in draft mode before needing to be refilled. Each bottle provides the capability to print up to 3,500 pages in single color, and up to 4,500 pages in four-color. Most entry-level laser printers offer half-toners which provide printing capabilities of around 800 pages in the first run, while new toners offer up to 1,500 pages per toner. This is the market Ramprasad is targeting. The company will sell the products directly through its 180 Epson Accredited Partners. n — Ramdas S

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01/07/2011 www.crn.in

Redington, Ingram to drive McAfee’s SMB biz n SONAL DESAI

cAfee, which recently introduced SMB specializations for its tier-2 partners in India, has put the onus of training and scaling-up the capabilities of the partners on its distributors—Ingram Micro and Redington. The company has an installed base of 15,000 SMB customers in India, but is eyeing the 150,000-strong market in the country. The SMB partners would be entitled to a 15 percent commission on deal registration, of which seven percent will go to the distributor and eight percent to the partner. If the partner bags an account from the competition, the commission goes as high as 30 percent. They will also be entitled to specialized trainings. Said Ambarish Deshpande, Director, Sales, McAfee, “There are two hours of Webex trainings each fortnight for solutions such as antivirus, DLP and intrusion prevention, besides skills in preand post-sales, pitches, etc.” The selection of the partners would be dependent on their customer base, financial strength, technical resources, etc. “Distributors will have to convince partners about the benefits of the SMB program. We will invest $35,000-$40,000 for various initiatives each quarter,” Deshpande informed. “The idea is to identify 30-35 partners per quarter, or around 150 annually. Since Redington and Ingram Micro each has around 40-45 offices in India, we want them to drive the SMB thrust. They will appoint dedicated account managers for these partners.” Snehal Shah, DGM, Security & Storage, Ingram Micro, informed that McAfee is now pushing licensing products through the tier-2 channel. “McAfee is keen on growing the SMB business.

“Since Redington and Ingram each has around 40-45 offices, we want them to drive the SMB thrust” Ambarish Deshpande Director Sales, McAfee

The idea is to reach across to tier-2 partners and tier-2 and tier-3 cities.” Shah admitted that pricing would be a detrimental factor since many security vendors are also targeting the SMB segment, but said that partners should leverage on the McAfee brand during sales pitches. “In such a scenario, McAfee sees a key role that a distributor can play. As of today, the business is limited to the top cities. The idea is to penetrate the next tier.” Added Sasikanth R, Head, Enterprise SBU, Redington, “Associate partners who close $5,000 worth of business are eligible for backend rebates. We have identified the partners from Class B and C metros, and are training them at our offices.” On the feedback from partners, Sasikanth and Shah said that partners are expecting vendor support for sales, product positioning, incentives for representatives, lead registration and special pricing. McAfee will provide the partners access to presentations, product news, etc through a Website—www.zinfy.com For a start, the company wants to focus on the education, manufacturing and retail segments. n

starting line Sanovi planning new pricing models n RAMDAS S

“We plan to have two pricing models for our DRM offering—one for small customers and one on a subscription model”

ith an eye on the mid-market and private cloud market, disaster recovery management (DRM) solutions provider Sanovi Technologies is planning to announce pricing models exclusive to this segment. The company wants more midmarket resellers to enter the business of DR, and is therefore trying to evolve pricing models that would suit the SMB segment. “We had a lot of success in the past with tier-1 systems integrators (SIs) such as Wipro, iValue and HP Services, and built strong relationships with them. Now we would like to work with regional SIs and mid-market resellers, and explore opportunities with them,” said Ashish Guha, President, Global Sales, Sanovi. However, while there’s interest

Ashish Guha

President Global Sales, Sanovi

among mid-market resellers as well as customers, the present cost of setting up DRM solutions is too high for many of them. (Typical costs range from $15,000-$2 million.) Most of Sanovi’s wins have been limited

to the BFSI, large enterprise and government segments. “Our solutions offer a framework approach, encompass every element of DRM, and are enterprise-class. We are presently considering two pricing models to increase our potential base of customers. One of them is offering a suite targeted at small customers, the other option is to look at a subscription model,” Guha informed. According to Guha, practically everyone needs some kind of DR solution, but it boils down to the issue of mission-criticality versus affordability. The company will come out with a new partner program in the next few months to tap the potential offered by the mid-market. Guha revealed that mid-market SIs such as Ontrack Solutions have already come on board, and that talks are on with other partners. n

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edit opinion The parallel puzzle dhaval valia

he debate on authorized imports vs. parallel imports is age old and is unlikely to go away anytime soon. At one end, you have IT companies (brand owners) who are intent on preserving their brand and business interests, while on the other end there are entrepreneurs who see no reason not to play the price arbitrage game to make good money. IT companies want to preserve their geographic interests— they have quarterly targets to meet, have to maintain healthy MOPs, and ensure profitability of their business and that of their authorized channel. One large shipment of parallel imports can hijack all of these and create instability in the marketplace— which could have a lasting effect on the company’s brand image among channels and consumers. All the same, parallel importers don’t see anything wrong in importing a shipment of products, complying with the law of the land and leveraging the price arbitrage to make quick bucks. The complications arise only when the brands are sold to end-users without informing them about the origin of products and their warranty terms, and in many cases, when the packaging is tampered with, often by sticking local MRP stickers. This amounts to fraudulent business practice. In such cases, brand owners have every right to proceed legally against parallel importers and those selling such products to end-users. If companies dealing in parallel imports want to co-exist in the market place they need to follow ethical and legal business practices. At every point in the demand chain they should clearly communicate the origin of products and the implications of selling and buying such products. IT companies, on their part, need to take responsibility for parallel imports. Significant pricing disparities in international and Indian markets will continue to create opportunities for the parallel channel. If that means reviewing their pricing structures, they should do that. Why should an Indian consumer pay 30-40 percent higher than the price abroad? Don’t we often buy the latest gadgets from Dubai or the US just because of cheaper prices? Another thing vendors need to do, if they are serious in curbing parallel imports, is to stem the source. Most such products enter India through vendor-authorized sources in other international markets. As a consumer, I recently bought a parallel-imported notebook charger (original) at 40 percent discount over the price the authorized partner quoted to me. The good thing was the reseller I bought from was transparent in informing me that this wasn’t an India-billed product and the warranty will be supported by his own company. Finally, the choice should be left with customers—if they are willing to pay premium for India-billed products or want to compromise on authorized warranty to get price benefit. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 12

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Volume 5, Issue 05

Managing Director Printer & Publisher Director Associate Publisher & Executive Editor Group Commercial Director Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Principal Correspondent Senior Correspondent

: : : : : : : : :

Sanjeev Khaira Sajid Yusuf Desai Kailash Shirodkar Dhaval Valia Salil Warior Ramdas S Sonal Desai Abhijeet Mukherjee (Mumbai) Amit Singh (Delhi)

Design Art Director Senior Visualiser Senior Designer Designer

: Deepjyoti Bhowmik : Yogesh Naik : Shailesh Vaidya : Jinal Cheda Marketing Senior Executive : Sejal Acharya Advertising Co-ordinator : Jagruti Kudalkar online Manager—Product Dev. & Mktg. : Viraj Mehta Deputy Manager—Online : Nilesh Mungekar Web Designer : Nitin Lahare Operations Head—Finance : Yogesh Mudras Director—Operations & Administration : Satyendra Mehra Sales bangalore Manager—Sales : Satish Kutty satish.krishnankutty@ubm.com (M) +91 98452 07810 Delhi Manager—Sales : Sanjay Khandelwal sanjay.khandelwal@ubm.com (M) +91 98117 64515 production Deputy Manager : Prakash (Sanjay) Adsul Logistics Assistant Manager : Bajrang Shinde Subscriptions & Database Manager : Manoj Ambardekar manoj.ambardekar@ubm.com Senior Executive : Deepanjali Chaurasia deepa.chaurasia@ubm.com

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edit opinion The tablet invasion Robert Faletra

ll of us are demanding more power in our mobile devices, and as we increasingly move toward desktop virtualization and cloud computing the potential market here is going to be very big. There are some real similarities to the early days of the PC industry when we had few standards and lots of compatibility issues as a result. But that was then. This time around the compatibility problems are more easily solved because of our ability to access tools and applications via the Web. Desktop virtualization and cloud capabilities will take this a step further, effectively negating compatibility issues in many cases. This means there is likely to be room for many more operating systems in the mobile device category than there have been in the PC market. To date, we are looking at five operating systems in iPhone OS, Android, Windows, WebOS and BlackBerry. Will the market support five or more? If the smartphone market is an indicator, then we can conclude yes, given that there are those five we have in tablet in addition to Symbian. Over time this could change in the tablet market, but we may see an open-source solution come to market as well before we see any consolidation. In the end, this OS war over the long haul is less important than it was in the PC market. One would think the OS with the best and most diverse applications in the tablet arena will win, but even this isn’t as easily determined in the new computing world as it was in the old. Desktop virtualization allows a much easier and cleaner way to deliver the applications most needed by the individual on multiple devices. What’s going to be important in my opinion is whether I can virtualize my PC desktop on the tablet, smartphone and any other mobile device in such a way that I can deliver the same productivity I get in the office as when I’m out in the field. This is quickly going to be a real and lucrative opportunity for partners, some of whom have told me they are already selling tablets at 200 a clip into some of their customer bases. The refresh rate for tablets is going to be much shorter than for PCs for the next few years as suppliers rapidly add features and functions to these devices as a point of differentiation. It’s time for solution providers to get serious about the tablet as a solution. There are applications for sales forces, insurance adjusters, package delivery carriers, doctors and other health care providers, the military and thousands of other deployments where computing power in a mobile device is a game-changer. If I were starting a solution provider business today, I would seriously consider building it around virtualization at the desktop level and integration with tablets. This market is seeing explosive growth and it has yet to really take off. n Email Robert Faletra at robert.faletra@ec.ubm.com 14

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01/07/2011 www.crn.in

Death knell for the TN channel The announcement of the Tamil Nadu government to float a global tender to provide close to a million notebooks to citizens is a death knell for the subdistributors and retailers in the state. As per the state government, the notebooks would be distributed to students in Tamil Nadu starting from preuniversity, under graduate and engineering streams free of cost. The annual notebook market in Tamil Nadu is roughly three lakh units including consumer and commercial segments. Of this, the consumer market is roughly 1.5 lakh units. The other problem this deal is going to create is the notebooks falling in the hands of hoarders. If one looks at the history of such government schemes meant for citizens, only

30-40 percent reach the target audience. The rest is pilfered by middlemen and land up in the open market thus damaging market stability. Resellers in TN can only wait and pray in this case. N Senthilkumar Chennai

Compuage on right path The interview with Compuage made for an interesting read. Compuage has been growing in strength due to the sound leadership and strategy of Atul Mehta. The responses coming from a distributor, not only provide us with an insight into Compuage’s strategy but also give us a helping hand in drawing our own future strategies. CRN should conduct more interviews of this nature. Sarang Desai Valsad

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

1-2 www.digilite.co.in

helpdesk@digilite.co.in

Samsung

4 www.samsung.com

support.india@samsung.com

BenQ

5 www.BenQ.co.in

sales.enquiry@BenQ.com

Compuage

7 www.compuageindia.com

info@compuageindia.com

Wipro

9 www.wipro.com

Sangita.nair@wipro.com

Eaton

11 powerquality.eaton.in/India.

EatonPowerQualityIndia@eaton.com

NEC

13 www.nec.com/express

enquiries@necindia.in

Alcatal

15 www.neoteric.co.in

smbsolutions@neoteric.co.in

ADATA

17 www.adata-group.com

Sap India

Symantec

21 www.symantec.com/en/in

Advertorial-APC

www.sap.com/india/channel/join

22-23 www.schneider-electric.co.in

Schneider

27 www.schneider-electric.co.in

Biz Secure

www.indiaantivirus.com

sales@indiaantivirus.com

Bsy Network

www.bsynetwork.com

srinu.i@bsynetwork.com

Quickheal

41 www.quickheal.com

marketing@quickheal.com

Dell

43 www.dell.co.in

dell_enquiries@dell.com

Mcafee

44 www.mcafeepartner.com/starrewards

channel chief “RDs will continue to be our backbone” LG has recently revamped the distribution for the IT business and has announced its re-entry into the notebook segment. Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Product Group Marketing Head, IT, LG India, spoke to Dhaval Valia about the company’s future product and channel strategies Competition in the flat-panel display market is heating up, with new players like Acer and AOC making major headway in terms of market share; Samsung, too, has been winning mind and market share. How has the IT division of LG performed amidst strong competition? We continue to be the market leader by a very comfortable margin in the flat-panel display market. In 2010, we retained the market leadership with 27 percent market share in the unbundled market, while in the overall market, which includes OEM sales (bundled), we recorded a share of over 14 percent. That is because we don’t account for OEM sales in the LG India figures. In unit terms, of the total 36.5 lakh unbundled units sold in the country in 2010, we sold 9.32 lakh monitors. The total bundled and unbundled flat-panel display market was estimated at 56 lakh units during 2010. In the ODD market, we continue to be a market leader and sold close to 23 lakh units in 2010. In terms of revenues, the IT business recorded `790 crore, at a very marginal growth rate over 2009. LG is eying business worth `885 crore in 2011.

What are the growth targets for 2011 for the IT business? IDC has forecast 14 percent growth in the flat-panel display market. We have projected to sell 11.25 lakh unbundled units in 2011 [which translates into 20.7 percent targeted growth]. Overall we have set a revenue target of `885 crore, and going by the performance of the first five months of 2011, we are well on track to achieve the target.

What is LG’s product strategy to retain market and technology leadership in the both the segments you operate in? On the ODD front, our focus is to grow the share of Bluray drives. In 2010, six percent of LG ODD shipments consisted of Blu-ray technology. In 2011 we see growing demand for this technology and, as a result expect it to

“In 2010, we retained the market leadership in flat-panel displays with 27 percent market share in the unbundled market” 16

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contribute 12-15 percent of the total shipments. In the flat-panel market, we have adopted a strategy to have a broader portfolio and plan to add more SKUs at every price point. Earlier we had 5-7 SKUs at any given point, but now we have expanded this to 17-18, and we will be further adding SKUs to take the count to 25. This helps us to take on the competitors head on. With a wider portfolio covering all entry-level price points, today we have the widest portfolio in the market. In addition our focus is on driving new technologies like 3D and slim displays. The third category we are bullish on is the monitor TV. We have launched two models—a 20-inch LED monitor TV HD-Ready at `8,990 SRP and a 22-inch full HD model at `11,000. We are seeing an increasing demand for such combo products from the upcountry market and, going by the units sold so far, monitor TV is expected to contribute nearly 6-7 percent of our annual [monitor] shipments during 2011.

LG has made major changes to its distribution strategy. Elaborate on the reasons for making those changes when your regional distribution model has been working effectively. Yes, we have optimized our distribution over the past six months. We have signed up Rashi Peripherals as the national distributor for three range of display products— Slim series, 3D series along with IPS monitor, and entrylevel 16-inch LED monitors—totaling around eight SKUs. Rashi will exclusively distribute these models. We have also partnered with Redington as a regional distributor for monitors in Mumbai, Nagpur, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, North Bengal and Guwahati. Among these regions, Redington will be exclusive in Mumbai, Nagpur, Jharkhand, North Bengal, Haryana and J&K. While our 200-plus regional distributor network is robust and delivering on targets, what we analyzed was that there were certain territories where we weren’t able to deploy enough credit in the market, as RDs have limited working capital. This hampered coverage and penetration in the smaller cities. Getting Rashi and Redington on board will help increase credit, stabilize the market operating price,

channel chief increase our penetration in upcountry markets and also connect with bigger partners. We don’t see much impact on the business of regional distributors with the inclusion of these two distributors and they [RDs] will continue to be the backbone for LG business.

“We will be launching the LG notebook portfolio within the next 60 days. We are already showcasing our products at channel meets”

What are the new channel initiatives that LG has launched recently or plans to launch soon?

our 3D monitors and monitor TVs. We have already completed the first phase deploying these zones in 350 stores, wherein we provide the retailer with a 5-rack unit to display the demo products with a Blu-ray HD projector to provide the full HD and 3D experience to customers. In all we have budgeted `12 crore toward marketing to promote the new category products.

Our focus over the next couple of years is to increase penetration in small cities. For this we have invested in a very ambitious and unique program, called System Builders Development Officer (SADO). Over the past 6-8 months we have deployed 175 on-field people whose job is to engage with the system builder community in small cities and towns in order to understand their needs, and to equip them with training on system building and LG products. The mandate for SADO is to cover towns where 50-100 PCs are sold in a month. Another unique program we launched recently is the SMS LG IT 53030 service. A channel partner or customer in any remote area having an issue or requiring information about LG products just has to send a SMS and, within 24 hours, our call center would contact them to understand their needs. The issue would be fixed within 72 hours. The third high-investment initiative is to create LG zones across 900 retail outlets countrywide demonstrating

When is LG launching notebooks and how different will your GTM be, considering that your earlier foray into the mobile PC category wasn’t successful? As our India MD has announced, we will be launching the LG notebook portfolio within the next 60 days. The preparation for the same is underway and we have already been showcasing our products at channel meets. Last fortnight, we did a channel meet in the north, where we displayed the 3D notebook, which received rave reviews. Our focus will be on the premium segment, ranging from `35,000 to `65,000. In all we plan to launch 10 SKUs, all with the second-generation Core i processor and OS preloaded. n

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01/07/2011

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special focus

In the Pink of Health Overall spending on IT in the healthcare sector is relatively small—but the growth is healthy and there are exciting opportunities for partners n SONAL DESAI

echnology spending in healthcare has come a long way. According to Springboard Research, IT spending in the healthcare segment in India is expected to grow from $274.2 million in 2009 to $609.5 million in 2013, which represents a CAGR of 22 percent. At 55 percent, hardware accounted for the largest proportion of the spending, followed by software and IT services at 25 percent and 20 percent respectively in 2009, as per Springboard figures. The firm estimates that spending on basic computing products is expected to increase over the next five years, as hospitals build and upgrade their IT infrastructure. Also, new applications such as tele-medicine and e-prescriptions are driving the need for technology in this vertical as never before. IT investments in software would further increase with growing focus on integrated billing and online availability of patient records across hospitals. Channel partners agree that IT spends have increased in the healthcare segment—the chief reasons being corporatization, expansion and PPP (Public Private Partnership) projects. “While small hospitals are tapping the public cloud platform, it is the large ones that are looking at end-to-end solutions to build IT infrastructure,” says L Ashok, MD, Futurenet Technologies. Much of the growth and opportunity, however, lies in the private sector. An AMI study found that private healthcare contributes approximately three-quarters of the total healthcare expenditure in India. Private organizations play a significant role in providing healthcare services, especially in the urban sector. They expect strong financial backing and managerial expertise for running their operations. With the growth of middle

The Opportunities According to a Springboard Research report, IBM, Dell and SAP are some of the key players active in the healthcare space in India, whereas Siemens Information Systems and Religare Technova are identified as emerging vendors. VMware is also actively working with its tier-2 partners for virtualization solutions. Through its AppUp service over the hybrid cloud, Intel, too, is promoting healthcare applications via tier-2 partners. Exponential growth, expansion and adoption of technologies across all strata of healthcare are providing partners with opportunities to resell hardware, supply software and bundle services. CRN presents some of these opportunities: Reselling hardware: According to Springboard, the major constituent of the healthcare sector IT market is hardware, which is forecast to increase at a CAGR of 13.4 percent from $86.2 million in 2006 to $161.7 million by 2011. Partners say that there is a big opportunity to resell hardware, especially thin clients to clinics, nursing homes and mom-and-pop pharmacy stores. Corporate gifting is also picking up, feels Ankit Desai, Director, CDP India. Pharma companies place bulk orders for laptops and tablets to be given as return gifts to doctors after seminars. Software: Springboard says that the packaged software market is forecast to increase at a CAGR of 31.3 percent. As per its research survey, 23 percent of the healthcare

“Small hospitals are investing in patient records, billing, and inventory management, the large ones are investing in advanced tech like imaging, MIS and data management”

“While small hospitals are tapping the cloud platform, it is the large ones that are looking at end-to-end solutions to build IT infrastructure”

Neha Jalan

L Ashok

Senior Associate, AMI Partners

class in India, there is a shift toward private healthcare services. The health insurance sector also offers great scope and reach for private firms, says Neha Jalan, Senior Associate, AMI Partners.

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MD, Futurenet Technologies

special focus “Hospitals have a lot of sensitive patient data. This necessitates the need for digital cameras and IP surveillance among hospitals”

“Our doctors access X-Rays, CT scans, electronic medical records on wireless. We are contemplating putting our voice communication on wireless”

B Shankar

Suresh Kumar

Director, Ashtech Infotech

respondents currently use or plan to use cloud computing, citing reduced hardware infrastructure costs as well as simplified resource and server provisioning as primary reasons for adoption. Old hospitals with aging infrastructure are renewing IT and driving growth for vendors and partners. For example, the Nanavati Hospital has replaced its rudimentary software with a new solution that integrates all departments and makes their information available on one screen. “Doctors and nurses now do not have to refer to papers for data on patient care. Everything is digitized,” says B Shankar, Director, Ashtech Infotech that executed the project. The Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad is another example of a hospital that has consolidated its infrastructure. Automation: Jalan of AMI Partners is of the view that hospitals are striving for total automation through integrated software such as a Hospital Management System/Hospital Information Systems (HMS/HIS). While small hospitals use the basic modules such as patient records, patient registration, scheduling, billing, monitoring and inventory management, large, multispecialty hospitals are also using advanced modules such as imaging, MIS and data management. Virtualization: The Dinanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune has achieved a server consolation ratio of 6:1. “The server provisioning time these days is half-anhour and the uptime is 99.99 percent. VMware started engaging with the healthcare ISV partners since an early stage,” says Ganesan Arumugam, Director, Partner Sales, VMware. HMRI—a PPP project in Andhra Pradesh—is using virtual machines. Says Durganadh Venkata, Vice President Locuz Enterprise Solutions, which implemented the solution, “Hospital and medical records are digitized and available on the Internet. Earlier, HMRI used ten physical servers. We created around 50 virtual machines and the physical servers are being used to develop and test applications and for other IT infrastructure requirements.” Wireless: SevenHills Health City, the first paperless hospital in the country, is using Wi-Fi extensively. “Our doctors access X-Rays, CT scans, electronic medial records, etc. on wireless,” says Suresh Kumar, GM, IT, SevenHills. The hospital has deployed 320 Ruckus access points (Zone Flex 7962 11n), two Zone Director controllers (the second one acts as a back-up to reduce downtime), and wired networking products from Cisco.

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GM, IT, SevenHills Health City

Trinadha Kumar, CEO, IP Tech—the Ruckus partner that deployed the wireless—says that his company took three days to configure the Zone Director. “The challenge was to identify the placement of the nodes,” he says. IP Tech, which earned Rs 2-3 lakh as installation charges for access points, will also deploy Wi-Fi phones for doctors, nurses and the internal customers for emergencies. The Manipal and Apollo groups of hospitals have also deployed wireless technology in some areas. RFID: Tracking patients and hardware in large hospitals becomes easy with RFID. “Patients with multiple ailments can be tracked to the respective departments by using RFID technology. It is also easier for doctors to identify reports and prescriptions as they can tie the digital file with the RFID tag on the patient’s wrist, notes Durganadh. E-medicine and Tele-medicine: Since these projects normally involve work with government bodies, partners have so far steered away from these projects. Also, there is no clear data available from analysts on the role partners could play in such projects. A partner explains, “Although the government projects are very big, there are a lot of stake holders such as the ministry of health, state government, the insurance sector, etc., so it becomes difficult to operate. However, certain state governments such as Gujarat and now Bihar are opening up avenues in the health sector and things are changing. So, we are looking at PPPs such as EMRI and HMRI where the scope of work and participation is well defined.” Other upcoming trends in the healthcare segment include IP surveillance, CRM solutions and video conferencing. Notes Shankar of Ashtech, “Hospitals have sensitive patient data and the volume of data is rising every day. This necessitates the need for stronger IP surveillance among hospitals.” The mushrooming of wellness and lifestyle clinics has increased the demand for CRM solutions. Using the detailed information from CRM solutions, experts are better positioned to keep their clients cared for and happy. Video conferencing is yet another trend picking up in the healthcare industry, partners say. While some partners have deployed a few boardroom solutions in hospitals, it is yet to be seen how the benefits will percolate down the hierarchy. Partners, however, are hopeful that doctors would leverage the VC opportunities to seek expert opinion of specialists globally to treat critical illnesses. n

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Advertorial Key Bill of Materials used in the solution

APC: SMB Data Centers offer huge business potential The huge opportunity in small and mid-sized data center business is widened as entry barriers have been further reduced by APC by Schneider Electric. Read on to know how APC along with its partner, Bengaluru-based Autopower, set up a data center for Weir India

eir India is a 140-year-old multi-national equipment manufacturer for varied industries including mining, power, industrial, oil and natural gas, thermal application and mineral processing. With operations across the globe, Weir’s India headquarters is at Peenya, an industrial hub in suburban Bengaluru. Superior hydraulic designs and use of wear, corrosion and abrasion resistant materials are the hallmark of Weir’s products. In slurry pumping, processing and control applications where the cost of ownership often outweighs capital cost as a priority, Weir effectively helps customers address issues as longevity, capacity, efficiency of operation, and maintenance.

Customer needs In 2010, the management of Weir Minerals in India decided to consolidate its IT infrastructure at its Bengaluru premises. The plan was to set up a data center that could host all mission-critical applications and data so that the infrastructure can be managed centrally, ensuring higher security and better efficiency of Weir’s IT department. However, there were two minor challenges: n The space allocated for the data center was less than 300 square feet. n The data center needed to be scalable and flexible, and if required, easily movable. “Our key goal was to set up a data center and consolidate our infrastructure. We wanted a truly scalable and flexible solution that would not be redundant as our business grew and as we added new applications,” says Girish Gowda, IT Head (Infrastructure), Weir India. While setting up a data center itself is a daunting task, convincing a client on one’s data center consulting expertise is even more challenging, especially for a mid-market reseller.

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“Initially it started as a large UPS inquiry. We realized that there was an opportunity to set up a data center, and passed on the query to the dedicated data center team at APC India. Gaining the confidence of the customer was relatively easy with APC’s superior brand, wide range of products, expertise, and pre-sales consultancy,” says Uday Menon, CEO of Autopower, a Bengaluru-based partner of APC by Schneider Electric. APC India addresses the rapidly growing small and medium data center market through an on-demand architecture called InfraStruxure that encompasses power, cooling, racks, security and management components as well as software systems. “Organizations struggling with the complexities of availability, server consolidation, virtualization and energy management can benefit from APC’s endto-end capabilities in planning, designing, building and management approach, while reining in capital

“We urge our channel partners to go after the data center business. APC will back our partners through every stage of data center implementation from pre-sales to deployment” GB Ravichandra Director, Enterprise Business APC by Schneider Electric

and operational costs and energy use,” explains GB Ravichandra, Director, Enterprise Business, APC by Schneider Electric. Solution A critical component of any data center is redundant cooling and power. Often, in small data centers a significant amount of space is allocated to cooling and power that otherwise could be utilized for racks required for servers, storage and networking equipment. Hence APC recommended Weir India to opt for Inrow cooling that takes up only half a rack. It uses one-foot of row space with no side clearance and can cool up to

Challenges 1 Need for a scalable, flexible architecture that can keep up with the pace of business 2 Small footprint hence required a dense solution for maximum optimization and utilization. 3 Options to relocate the data center, if needed, in future 4 Need a single vendor for the entire Bill of Materials.

SY16K48H-PD

APC Symmetra PX

ACRD101

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NBPD0160

NetBotz Camera Pod 160

AP9335TH

APC Temperature & Humidity Sensor

AR3150

NetShelter SX Deep Enclosure

AP8953

Rack PDU 2G

AP5610

Digital KVM with VM

30KW (100,000 BTUs, 8.5 tons). “Traditional data centers use raised floors to set up power and cooling units. This naturally leaves lesser space for computing equipment,” explains Ravichandra. Inrow addresses the space issue while ensuring efficiency. In Weir’s case, “the overall efficiency of cooling also went up between 15 and 25 percent,” says Ravichandra. To ensure proper redundancy, N+1 Power and Cooling solutions were recommended. “APC’s Symmetra series, which is modular rack-mountable, comes with features such as redundant and hot swappable power and battery modules. It is highly manageable, and every element of the system including the batteries can be monitored,” points out Menon of AutoPower. The hot swappable feature in the Symmetra product-line has low MTBR (Mean Time Between Repair), and it takes a few minutes for a service engineer to trouble-shoot, fix and replace its parts. Also, APC Netshelter racks offer better ventilation, maximize air cooling, and have integrated power distribution—all adding up to better security and maximum utilization of space. “We used APC ISX designer that can help design a data center, and plan precise cooling, power and rack management irrespective of the size of the data center. The tool completely takes away the element of human error,” explains Ravichandra. Partnering with APC Market Research agencies such as IDC and Gartner Group estimate a market size of 140,000 to 160,000 servers in the country during 2011. There are also indications that nearly 10,000 server rooms need to be upgraded to a small data center over the next two years, and this represents a great opportunity for mid-market resellers. “The biggest advantage of partnering with APC is that you have a single vendor to help you set up a data center right from pre-sales consultancy to every component in the Bill of Materials—from the most complex coolers to smallest screws for a rack-chassis,” explains Menon. APC also provides training (which is chargeable) for partners who want to enter the data center and server room deployment business. “We urge channel partners to go after the data center business. The fact that data centers are complex and require a lot of expertise should not deter them from going after the business. At APC, we have dedicated teams that can help partners right from preparing a bill of materials to pre-sales consultancy and deployment,” says Ravichandra. Typically, APC Infrastructure solutions provide savings ranging between 10 to 30 percent of running costs compared to competition.

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cover story

Some make a living from it. Some say it destroys market operating prices, confidence in authorized distribution, and even vendor forecasts. We look at the legal and ethical aspects of parallel imports n RAMDAS S

ell’s Distribution Head, Sanjay Yadav, recently shot off a mail to select Dell partners stating very clearly that Dell India will not tolerate channel partners buying from parallel importers. Describing the practice of parallel imports as “totally unacceptable,” the e-mail from Dell reads: “Please note that warranty support by Dell is accorded only to those products that are purchased through Dell’s authorized channel or those that are transferred in accordance with Dell’s policies and procedures. Any products that are purchased in violation of the above will not be eligible for warranty support by Dell India. These products will also not be eligible for the Dell Gainz Program and Dell Empower Program.” At around the same time, there was intense speculation among channel partners that Samsung India was planning to take legal action against several partners who were known to have imported Samsung monitors and optical drives. While Samsung India officials remain tight-lipped, sources in Samsung’s authorized channels state that there would soon be action because the recent flood of parallel imports could not be ignored by either the authorized channels or the vendor.

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While parallel imports have been around for well over a decade, the problem usually affected only component vendors. However, in the recent past, not a single vendor has been spared; even enterprise vendors such as Cisco, EMC, IBM and HP have been affected by parallel imports. For example, recently, in the Bengaluru market, there was sporadic availability of Cisco and 3Com switches (branded prior to the HP acquisition) at prices 40 percent lower than market rates. This has forced the vendors to send notices to their channel partners or include new clauses in partner agreements. For instance, IBM recently updated its Business Partner Code of Conduct which governs IBM’s working relationship with its Business Partners and other business associates. Among the clauses added, an important one is on ‘Acquiring Products from Unauthorized Sources.’ The clause states: “Dealing in IBM products from unauthorized sources undermines the IBM Business Partner program and our commitment to serve our customers at the highest levels of quality and business value. Acquiring IBM products from unauthorized sources also represents a significant risk to you and your potential

cover story end-user customers because you have no assurance that these products are free of defects or alterations (or both) or if the product is counterfeit, which may affect subsequent warranty claims and customer satisfaction.” Parallel imports are not exclusive to the IT industry, but are universal across several other industries like automobiles, consumer electronics, branded cosmetics and consumer durables. There are several reasons why parallel imports occur, the primary reason being the price difference which exists in the same product line across geographies. The root cause of the existence of a business opportunity called parallel imports lies in the open freemarket policies followed by several countries which have resulted in spot markets being created for all types of commodities. Another factor is vendor policies; as a result of intense competition, vendors follow differential pricing depending on the market. “From my experience, vendor pricing is never universal though most vendors do try to have a uniform price list across geographies,” explains Sharad Srivastava, Chief Strategist & Director (Founder) at Grassroots Channels. “Intense competition in a specific territory often causes vendors to offer special prices or huge backend rebates which often get misused as the net pricing is used to find an export market across the globe by using trade hubs such as Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai.” Forward selling is another factor which creates varying prices in the global market. Forward selling is the process whereby distributors claim rebates from the vendor for a discounted price of a product by claiming that the stock is still in their inventory though they have already sold the product physically on an earlier date. This would allow a parallel importer to source a product at a much lower rate than what would be available to the local authorized distributor. Product lines such as Intel microprocessors, where there are clear dates on when the price change will happen and what the new price will be, often drive this pricing dynamic. Spot-market watchers sometimes notice prices moving southward as the date for a price change for Intel processors approaches. Occasionally, special prices are introduced to grow business in specific markets. Such pricing is often misutilized by distributors and resellers and these products often find their way to markets such as India. “Every global vendor has a mandate to grow business in

“From my experience, vendor pricing is never universal. Intense competition leads vendors to offer special prices/backend rebates, misused to find an export market” Sharad Srivastava

Chief Strategist, Grassroots Channels

some territory or the other. For Corsair, India is a critical market, and we have special pricing for India which is lower than the rest of the world,” says MA Mannan, Country Manager, Corsair India. “If the country did not have a high import duty, India might have become a global source for parallel imports.” Prices to OEMs are often 5-25 percent cheaper than the distributor transfer rates for the same SKU or product model depending on the vendor and the product line. This is an accepted policy as OEMs with their larger volumes expect preferential treatment if the vendor needs to be on the OEM’s vendor list. But OEMs sometimes dispose of large amounts of inventory, especially components that make their hardware, and such goods are often sold at less than market prices. These goods are sourced by parallel importers who then resell them. Stock clearances are very common at the end of holiday seasons in every geography, and such clearances are often at prices that are 30-40 percent cheaper. Such inventory often gets lapped up by parallel importers. The recent spottings of older Dell models in the Indian market are because of the availability of older SKUs of Dell which were cleared by one of Dell’s Far Eastern operations at very low prices as part of inventory disposal. A common thread that connects these factors is vendor policies, and a number of channel partners say that vendors need to show less aggression toward channel partners who indulge in parallel imports and instead focus on keeping their own house in order if they are serious about resolving the issue. “We feel vendors are fleecing channel partners, especially in India. The reason for parallel imports is the difference in prices and the lack of vendor interest in controlling prices irrespective of the reasons they may be citing,” comments PN Prasad, CEO of Microplus Computers and an advisor to CONFED-ITA. A look at the table (Price disparities: India vs. International markets) shows the prices of random

Price disparities: India vs. International markets Model

Overseas source

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Dell US Website (under a offer valid till June 28, 2011)

`22,000

`33,000 33%

HP Pavilion 6121TX 2nd Generation Core i7-2630QM, 4GB DDR3, 640GB HDD, Win 7 Home Premium, 2GB GDDR5 Radeon 6770M

Yantai, Taipei (under the offer valid till June 17, 2011)

`43,000

`52,300 19%

Dell Inspiron 14R, 4GB DDR3, 250GB HDD, Win 7 Home Premium

Dell US Website

`23,000

`30,200

`26,500

`40,500 36%

HP Probook 4308, Core i3 2.53GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Win 7 Pro The PC Shop, Hong Kong • •

Landing cost

Reseller Price

Price difference

24 %

Landing cost is inclusive freight, duties, and insurance costs at Bengaluru (approximately `55 per dollar conversion ratio applied) Price variance of 2 percent expected

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01/07/2011

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cover story products available in the US and Hong Kong from retail sources, and the prices of the same models in India. From this table it is clear that there exists disparity which ranges from 15-32 percent. Most vendors and distributors were non-committal about the price disparity, but were quick to point out that the damage which parallel imports cause is sometimes irreparable in the short term. “There’s little doubt that authorized distributors and committed channel partners suffer immensely as a result of parallel imports because even the news of the availability of products at lower than distribution costs affects market operating prices,” points out VR Kirubakaran, Sales Director, Micro Village Communications. Mannan of Corsair agrees. “I have seen cases where a distributor was even forced to buy some goods that came through parallel import sources to average out and cut

“I have seen cases where a distributor was forced to buy goods that came through parallel importto average out and cut down potential losses” ma mannan

Country Manager, Corsair India

down potential losses. For a vendor, parallel imports are a potential nightmare that can upset forecasts, targets, toplines and bottom-lines.” While there are no clear statistics available on the share of the market owned by parallel importers, the estimates range from 10 percent to 40 percent depending on the product line, brand and territory. Partners feel that

legal Opinion: Parallel imports are more or less legal S Krishna Kumar, a leading advocate and legal counsel for corporate entities in India and the Middle East, shares insights on where Indian law stands on parallel imports

arallel imports, when strictly limited to IT in the prescribed format, to the customs requesting and electronic goods, can be defined as an for suspension of clearance of goods suspected to importation of goods without an authorized approval be infringing IP rights. Such a notice is registered of the original manufacturer into the country, by the customs on execution of an indemnity bond where the product is imported paying all necessary and the brand owner has to indemnify customs customs and excise duties and levies. In other against all liability and expenses on account of such words, it’s an import of non-counterfeit branded suspension of imported goods. On registration, goods without permission of the brand owner. The import of all goods suspected to infringe the IP Indian legal system does not have implicit or explicit rights can be suspended and proceedings for laws as far as parallel imports (as defined above) are confiscation of goods initiated under Section concerned. 111(d) of the Customs Act and these goods will be Both the United States and the European Union destroyed. s kRISHNA KUMAR have laws that in certain ways protect parallel While this looks like a blanket protection for imports. brand owners against parallel imports, the importer In India, the Copyrights Act, 1957, the Trade Marks Act, can easily prove that there’s no infringement of copyrights—if 1999, the Patents Act, 1970, the Designs Act, 2000, and the the importer has not altered any of the product or the packaging Geographical Indication of Goods Registration and Protection of the goods imported. However, in case there’s clear indication of Goods Act, 1999 (cumulatively ‘IP Laws’) permit registration on the packaging that the goods imported are only meant for of copyrights, trademarks, patents, designs and geographical distribution in a specific territory, and not in India, the brand indication. owner can claim that the IP rights have been infringed, and ask India is a signatory to the Trade Related Aspects of the customs to confiscate the goods. Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which prohibits crossUnder the excise laws, all retailed goods must have an border movement of goods infringing IP rights. In compliance MRP tag, and manufacturers have argued that labeling of MRP of TRIPS, the Government of India has notified the Intellectual tags by a parallel importer amounts to copyright infringement. Property Rights (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rule 2007 (‘the However, this does not hold good, since the law states that the Rules’) vide Notification No. 47/2007-Cus. dated May 8, 2007. In manufacturer, importer and the packaging vendor can paste the terms of the rules, import of goods infringing IP rights without MRP labels on an imported product before it leaves customs. the consent of the rights holder is prohibited under Section 11 There are other legal loopholes a vendor can perhaps pursue. of the Customs Act. The rules lay down a detailed procedure for However, this would depend on the specifics. A vendor could regulations for prohibition of parallel import. claim damages that the parallel importer is not treating the Under the rules, the brand owner is required to give a notice, brand he has imported properly, like not providing good support to customers, which in turn is causing damage to the brand. However, everything is subjective, and would be decided based A vendor could claim damages that on proof submitted to a court of law. n

the parallel importer is not treating the brand he has imported properly, but everything is subjective

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The opinions expressed in the article are purely personal and based on the author’s point of view. This should not be constituted as a final legal opinion on the subject of parallel imports.

cover story the market share of parallel importers is higher in north India compared to the south and west. Opines Ashok Thakur, MD, System Integration and Infrastructure Solutions, New Delhi, “Almost 50 percent of the many categories of branded IT products sold in the northern region are imported through parallel channels. Consumers do not care about the source, and sometimes even large end-user organizations do not bother. This is

interview: Suresh Pansari, CEO, Rashi Are parallel imports illegal? Yes. I think it’s not just illegal, but it’s also very unethical on part of the parallel importer to piggyback on the goodwill a brand enjoys and take advantage of the hard work an authorized distributor has done in developing the channels. It’s very unfair to an authorized channel partner who’s trying to make money. In 2007, the Central government issued a notification which allows an IP rights holder to request the customs department to confiscate any goods that it feels infringes on the rights. In majority of cases, unauthorized imports do involve IP rights infringement, since the importer is convincing customers and partners that he has sourced the products which are supported or recognized by the original IP rights owner—which is the brand itself. In addition, many goods sourced through alternate channels, which are sold in India, are not meant to be sold here in the first place. Many vendors have taken the legal route to take on parallel importers but there hasn’t been any favorable verdict, and eventually, the matter has been settled out of court. Does Indian law have provisions to block parallel imports? To the best of my knowledge both Sony and Intel managed to get injunctions which allow only authorized importers to import. However, practically implementing this injunction requires the vendors to constantly monitor and work with customs officials, and this has not been very successful. We would want vendors to explore this legal angle, and see whether there can be a solution to the problem. Isn’t the root cause of the problem the large difference in prices globally? Yes. Vendors need to work in addressing this issue. However, pricing cannot be universal and will continue to differ by geographies. Most vendors don’t provide warranty support? Is that fair? It’s the prerogative of the vendor. As a distributor, we do not have much of a say in that. It’s once again unfair to expect a vendor or a distributor to support a product that has not been sold through them. n

Parallel import is not only illegal and unethical, but it is also very unfair to an authorized channel partner

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affecting the profitability of channels.” Meanwhile, vendors refuse to provide support for goods sourced through alternate channels. Yadav of Dell has explicitly stated that Dell India will not be responsible for the support of parallel imports. However an importer named in Yadav’s e-mail argues on condition of anonymity, “The products that we have purchased have been provided by a Dell subsidiary, and carry an

Steps to curb parallel imports

ased on the recommendations of some leading channel members, here are some steps IT companies can take to limit, if not stop, parallel imports:

u Find the source of the parallel import and see whether it

can be plugged. “We did face some problems initially with parallel imports. But we tracked the product to a country, and informed the local leadership there. They in turn sent a notice to the distributor who had sold the product to a partner in India. It’s difficult closing such loops constantly, but it’s an effort that all vendors need to take if they want sanity in the market place,” says MA Mannan, Country Manager, Corsair India. u Ensure that huge differences in global prices do not exist. Small price differentials will discourage parallel importers. u Ensure that no marketing or sales scheme can be misused to sell products meant for a specific geography in another one. This can be implemented with water-tight rebate claim controls, as well as by bringing regional flavors to schemes. Intel and Microsoft have found ways to curb parallel imports this way. u Implement audits that make forward-selling difficult, if not impossible. Vendors are recommended to use third-party auditors and go on random surprise visits to distributor warehouses for stock verification. u Ensure that in the warranty claims, the invoice from an authorized partner from the country of origin is required for claiming the warranty support. u Improve local warranty and replacement of the product

line. In most cases, a parallel importer provides warranty at his own cost. He factors in the cost of support and warranty in his profits, and needs to take help from an overseas source for replacements. If a vendor offers extremely good support, including replacements, it puts extra pressure on the parallel importer to match such service. u Provide unique packing and bundling for the Indian market. The offer should be localized, and any claims should be directly referred to individual end users, ensuring discounting at distribution or channel partner level. n

Vendors need to ensure that huge differences in global prices do not exist. Small price differentials will discourage parallel importers

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cover story How to spot parallel imports

any resellers unwittingly buy goods that are not sourced through authorized channels, and then raise arms against the vendor when it comes to support. Here are some precautions you should take when buying goods:

u Check the price. If you are getting a price that’s much lower

than what’s offered by an authorized dealer or distributor, then you must take notice. “A great price needs to be treated with reasonable suspicion. This could be an indicator that goods are not sourced through normal routes, or could even be counterfeit or remarked,” says Harikrishnan PK, President, ACKMADA, a Kerala-based channel association. u Check the packaging. The origin of the product, the MRP sticker on it, and other packaging details usually give away its origin. “If the price on the packing shows US dollar or currencies of another country, this should lead you to think that the product is not from an authorized source. Another dead giveaway could be the missing MRP sticker,” says Chetan Patel, Partner, Ocean Inc. u Checking with your local channel manager/distributor can often give you ample clarity about the origin of the product. u Another option is to check the warranty tags and service tags of the product, which should give the details clearly. Some vendors actually allow you to figure out the details through a Website. Another option is to call the service center or support line provided by the vendor. u OEM products are usually not imported or sold through authorized channels. These include components with joint labels of a PC vendor and the component maker. It’s highly unlikely that the product would not get any warranty. u If you have purchased a product imported through parallel

channels, take a written statement from the supplier for support. “It is a must to keep your customer informed of the validity of the warranty. You can be in a soup if the customer is denied warranty by the Indian arm of the manufacturer and he/she goes to a consumer court,” advises Harikrishnan. n

A great price needs to be treated with reasonable suspicion. This could be an indicator that goods are not sourced through normal routes, or could even be counterfeit or remarked

international warranty tag. I can produce proof for all the duties paid. How can Dell refuse to support my customers since we have not broken any law of this land?” Says Chetan Patel, Partner, Ocean Inc, Vadodara, who estimates that the share of parallel importers could be around 20 percent in his territory, “These players also keep some of the SKUs in reserve (two out of 10, for instance) in order to support the warranty cover that they provide at their own expense in the form of replacing components or getting them repaired.”

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“Vendors are fleecing channel partners, especially in India. The difference in prices and the lack of vendor interest in controlling prices is the main reason” PN Prasad

CEO, Microplus Computers

Mannan defends the vendors’ stand of not supporting the warranty of parallel imported goods. “A service center belonging to a vendor’s Indian arm is usually funded by the revenue accruing from local sales. The spares, manpower and infrastructure investments are usually directly proportional to the sales in the local market attributed to the local business. Since the goods sold by the parallel importer do not reflect in the balance sheet of the local arm, there should be no obligation to service the products.” Channels are divided about the legality and ethics of parallel imports. Most of them feel that there’s absolutely nothing illegal about parallel imports. “As long as the importer has paid all the duties, has not under-invoiced the product, is providing clarity on the source of the product, and in no way communicates to partners or customers that the product is sourced through authorized distribution channels, we feel that the parallel importer is doing everything legitimately and has the right to be in the business,” remarks Pawan Jajodia, past President, COMPASS, a channel association based out of Kolkata and catering to partners in the region. “This is the reason we had supported an agitation against Samsung in 2007 when the company issued legal notices to partners. To the best of my knowledge, no vendor has been able to prove with the law of the land that parallel imports are illegal. The day that happens we are clear we will not support any parallel importers.” Srivastava of Grassroots agrees. “To the best of my knowledge nobody has been able to prove that all types of parallel imports are illegal. But you can argue that it’s unethical because the parallel importer is taking advantage of the goodwill of an established vendor and the investments which the vendor has made in the Indian market.” Toshy Mathew, the President, AKITDA, Kerala, has a different take. “The legality of parallel imports does not really matter. What matters is that partners should not be left high and dry in case of support and warranty issues. We see no problem in supporting a parallel importer as long as the channel community’s interests are protected.” Parallel imports play an important policing role against abusive price discrimination and collusive behavior based on private territorial restraints. “There’s no doubt that parallel imports play a role in being a price-leveler, otherwise a brand can misuse its popularity in the country and resort to unfair pricing,” points out MR Onkarappa, a leading tax consultant based in Bengaluru. Restrictions on parallel imports also amount to nontariff barriers to goods that have legitimately escaped the

is your company

super achiever If your company has demonstrated business performance par excellence in FY2010-11, through a combination of innovations and smart strategies, nominate for Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most coveted recognition in the IT channel space

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cover story “Almost 50 percent of branded IT products are parallel imports. Consumers and at times, large end-users do not care about the source. This affects the channel”

“The players also keep some SKUs in reserve to support the warranty cover at their own expense in the form of replacing components or repairs”

Ashok Thakur

Chetan Patel

MD, System Integration & Infrastructure Solutions

Partner, Ocean Inc

control of its IPR owners. Such barriers are against WTO principles of free, fair and predictable trade flows. Since parallel imports are one of the approaches within the ambit of the provisions under the WTO mandate, international laws do protect parallel imports. The presence of parallel importers keeps vendors on their toes, and they are forced to offer better value, including better services. Also, parallel importers bring in certain product models which are not distributed in the country. In the case of obsolete products offered by the vendor locally, they are an excellent option for sourcing. At the same time there are several arguments against parallel imports. “Parallel traders take a free ride on the investment, marketing and service costs of authorized distributors, and especially the investments a vendor has made to grow the market. This is totally unacceptable for most manufacturers and for a distributor who has invested considerably in building a brand,” says Suresh Pansari, CMD of Rashi Peripherals. “Efficient recovery of R&D costs might require setting

different prices in different markets when R&D costs are joint in the sense of producing goods and services that are sold across borders,” explains Dinesh Kumar Agrawal, former Assistant Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai. “But the profitability of a brand does get affected as a result of parallel trade.” There’s little doubt that parallel imports affect trade in a particular zone, and adversely affect numerous traders while giving benefits to a handful of people. However, the root cause of parallel imports is that another economy or country or territory is enjoying a better price on a product compared to India. Further, there’s no doubt that parallel imports are a price-leveler, and ensure that vendors stick to universal pricing across geographies. The legality surrounding parallel imports must be left to legal experts, and since there has been no comprehensive judgment on this matter by any court of law, the matter is still ambiguous. n —With inputs from Amit Singh

Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing www.crn.in 32

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role model Shooting for the Stars Sudarsan Ranganathan started Veeras Infotek way back in 1992 as a tiny antivirus reseller. Today, it’s gunning for `100-crore topline nabhijeet mukherjee

tatistics and turnover drive Sudarsan Ranganathan, 41, CEO, Veeras Infotek. Not surprising, given that Veeras, which clocked `70 crore in revenues last fiscal, is aiming at the `100-crore mark for FY2011-12.

Humble beginning Sudarsan entered the IT industry by chance. “I was studying master’s in mathematics, but lost interest in academics and started dealing in IT from a 25 sq ft rented space in Chennai. I was always sure of one thing: that I would carve a niche for myself and become a businessman,” he says. Today, not only has he carved a niche, he has offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and two retail stores, named IT@Home, in Chennai. Veeras employs more than 125 people and is leveraging on virtualization and private cloud computing as emerging technologies.

The journey Veeras Infotek was founded in 1992. “I named it after my grandfather, purely because the name had a ring to it,” says Sudarsan. For startup help, he gives credit to TT Rangarajan, his brother-in-law, who remains his friend, philosopher and guide till date. Recalling those days, he says, “Rangarajan provided me with the office space and some clients in the initial days. I was then selling Meetex —a writing tool from Grey Matter that helped company secretaries take minutes of meetings. Sterling Resort was our first major customer for Meetex. We also signed up with K7 Computing for their antivirus product.” In the year of its inception, Veeras clocked a modest revenue of `3,600. But next year, in 1993—the same year its first employee, Kumar Somayajilu, who’s the current COO, joined Veeras—the company’s turnover jumped to `2.2 lakh. Since then, it has been a remarkable climb for Veeras. In 1994 the company was billing on an average `25,000 a month—which went up to `1 lakh per month for the year 1995. With the vision to transform into a multi-brand

“I started dealing in IT from a 25 sq ft rented space in Chennai. I was always sure of one thing that I would carve a niche for myself and become a businessman” 34

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operation, Veeras signed up with Dr Solomon’s as its distributor for Tamil Nadu. Those were the days of expansion, and in 1996, Veeras acquired the software business of Grey Matter. “We started our software division and developed the fist accounting software for the seafood vertical. Also, we sold our first antivirus to DBSS for `9.66 lakh. The turnover of the company reached `34 lakh,” beams Sudarsan. This was also the time when Veeras started competing with large SIs. It engaged in aggressive marketing and clocked revenues of `45 lakh in 1997. In July 1998, Veeras won the award for the best Technical Support Partner in the country for Dr Solomon’s antivirus. And when Dr Solomon’s was acquired by McAfee, Veeras registered as a partner with the latter, thus strengthening its security portfolio. Sudarsan leveraged the software division of Veeras and launched a salesforce automation software, named Analyzer. “However, it was too bulky and did not sell.” So the company went on building on its strength in antivirus. “The same year [1998], I started three new divisions: AppSoft, NetSecure and the Solutions Lab. The expansion helped us transform from an antivirus company to a security solutions company. And in 1999, our turnover zoomed to `2.3 crore as against `78 lakh in 1998,” says Sudarsan. The AppSoft–database development tools and desktop productivity team set records in 2000. “They achieved the turnover the entire company clocked in 1999,” says Sudarsan. The turnover jumped by 100 percent to `4.6 crore. “We also realized that we needed more expertise to develop our software business, and merged the division with a start-up, Buzznet India. Buzznet had offices in USA, Malaysia and India, and I headed the India business unit and delivery center,” he adds. In 2002 Veeras added more divisions to its business: Infrastructure for computing devices and storage; and Availability for storage management and backup solutions. “We also opened the first branch of the company in Hyderabad and announced our company philosophy: ‘Partner for Progress’,” says Sudarsan. The turnover that year reached `14.35 crore. After further expanding its business in 2004 and then in 2005 (with a retail division), Veeras took a risky decision in 2007. Determined to be among the bigleague SIs, the company opened offices in Coimbatore

Role model MILESTONES 1996 1992

and Pune. Says Sudarsan, “We expanded geographically, increased our employee strength, and focused on technology and product management. We decided to venture into virtualization. Today, we are the only Premier Partner for VMware in India with three different competencies and were awarded the number one solution partner for VMware in 2010. We are also the only NetApp partner with specialization on virtualization.”

Launched Veeras Marketing

has also acquired ISO 9000: 2008 certification.

Best practices

2011

2007

2000

Veeras believes in providing its employees responsibility rather Sold first antivirus to DBSS than jobs. Explains Sudarsan, “This for `9.66 lakh has helped nurture the creativity Transformed from an antivirus and capability of people in each assignment. By giving them freedom, into a security solutions we have set the onus of the project company on them. We also encourage Plunged into a larger systems people to be abreast of the current technology paradigms that could integration and solutions influence the future of our business.” Current business provisioning role One of the great principles Veeras ended the FY2010-11 fiscal followed at Veeras is, “Nobody with a turnover of `70 crore. In terms Clocked `70 crore in is important and everybody is of vertical spread, IT/ITeS contributed revenues important.” Every person in this 60 percent to its revenues, organization has a role to play and manufacturing and BFSI contributed hence every person should be treated 10 percent, telecom, education and with respect and dignity. To further prove the point, pharma contributed five percent each, and the rest came people who joined in as office assistants are today team from the government and automobile sectors. leaders and senior technology managers in the company. The company is currently focusing on managed services and plans to set up a remote infrastructure management system (RIMS) in the next six months. Future plans Virtualization continues to be a growth area: it currently In FY2011-12 Veeras plans to hit the `100 crore revenue contributes 10 percent to the company’s revenues. mark, and is counting on several government tenders as Application management, servers, and storage each well as corporate deals. For the future Sudarsan wants contribute 10 percent, while infrastructure and office to ensure that Veeras grows as one of the leaders in the automation software contribute 30 percent, and 15 Platform as a Service (PaaS) space in cloud computing. percent is contributed by security. Consulting support “The future of the industry is moving toward an SLAand maintenance contributes five percent while retail based infrastructure services delivery, whether it is the contributes another 10 percent of the revenue. cloud, on-site or a hybrid model,” says Sudarsan. Veeras recently bagged a `2 crore project to set up a private cloud for an IT company by using the first-level Personally speaking vCloud directors from VMware. In another, `4.5 crore Four people have inspired Sudarsan. Besides TT deal, it undertook to manage 2,000 virtual machines Rangarajan, his brother-in-law, Sudarsan adores for another IT company. For a manufacturing company, Prabhakar Kini, Director, Kinfotech, because of his Veeras architected and implemented a multi-platform tremendous zeal, enthusiasm, brilliant ideas and the desktop computing environment with virtualization, and ability to take IT to the market fast. He likes and is embedded core applications into several thin clients as a inspired by Peter Theobald, MD, IT Secure, for his part of the project. ability to evangelize technology and the vision. He Other notable projects recently undertaken by looks up to Hemant Chabria, CEO, Chabria Infotech, the company include migration and upgrade of MS for his ability to use IT in a creative way. “Hemant is Exchange from the physical to a virtual environment for one of the most creative guys in the IT industry and a manufacturing firm; and desktop virtualization and uses social networking in a very creative way,” says optimization for a Hyderabad-based government research Sudarsan. organization. Sudarsan loves to listen to rock, Hindustani and Today Veeras enjoys premium partnership with most Carnatic music, and Hindi and Tamil film songs. “I like vendors. It is a McAfee Gold Partner, NetApp Gold Sowmya the Carnatic singer for her soulful rendition. Partner, VMware Premier Partner, Symantec Platinum SP Balasubramaniam is my all-time favorite. I also like Partner, Citrix Gold Partner and HP Gold Partner. Veeras to play badminton and table tennis in the morning,” says Sudarsan. He also has a fascination for cars and collecting “Today, we are the only Premier Partner watches. “I had a Honda CRV which I replaced with Audi Q5 that I coveted for the last three years. I have six for VMware in India with three different watches, including a Longines, an Omega, Armani and competencies, and recently received the a Tag Heuer, and am planning to buy a Breitling and a best solutions partner award for 2010” Rolex,” he says. n

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channel buzz n Suresh Ramani,

Founder President, IAMCP India West Chapter, presents a memento to Gaurav Dharasania, Technology Specialist, Microsoft

n Participants in Canon Gurukul pose for a group photograph

Canon conducts Gurukul

IAMCP holds training programs for Microsoft partners IAMCP India West, the premier partner association of Microsoft partners, recently held two training sessions in Mumbai on Microsoft Office 365 and brand building. In the first series, Gaurav Dharasania, Technology Specialist, Microsoft, showcased new features and tools of Office 365. Leading brand consultant Suneel Agarwal conducted the next session on strong brand building. He shared real-life case studies of what smaller companies can accomplish with good branding and marketing. n

In a bid to provide sales tools, product training and enhance partners’ sales teams, Canon conducted its first Gurukul for 2011 in Chennai. While the first phase covered cities in the south and north, the second phase would include the east and west, including tier-2 and tier-3 cities. The program, which had the theme ‘Fruits of Wisdom,’ was attended by 50 sales personnel. It included a roadmap for 2011, training sessions, interactive modules, and discussions on solutionselling concepts and the trends and technologies of the color printing market. One of the highlights of the session was the success case studies presented by different teams. n

n Udo Kerst, Senior Product Manager, Astaro AG, updates partners on the product roadmap

RAH Infotech wins the best distributor award Astaro recently organized its three-day annual Asia Pacific Partner Conference 2011 in Malaysia with the theme ‘Get the Big Picture’ where it honored top-performing channel partners. RAH Infotech India was presented with an award for best distributor growth. More than 40 partners from 23 partner companies in the region participated in the conference. It covered topics such as Astaro’s security wall, product roadmap and improvements to current solutions, as well as trends impacting the security industry such as log management and the cloud. n

n Kuldeep Malhotra, Associate Director, Volume & Supplies Business (Right), Xerox India, presents mementos to partners

Xerox outreach program for partners In a bid to increase its market share and brand equity in the north, Xerox launched its outreach program and multi-city road show campaign. It started with its first road show in Chandigarh where it is looking at strengthening and expanding its channel base. The company showcased its range of printers in the MFD category: the Xerox WorkCentre 5700 series, Xerox WorkCentre 7120 multifunction, Xerox Wide Format 7142, Xerox Wide Format 6604 and 6605 solution and Xerox WorkCentre 5225/5230. n

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tech focus As a way to celebrate IBM’s 100th birthday, we look at 10 technologies invented by IBM that have most impacted the way businesses and consumers handle IT and business n CRN Network

BM, which celebrated its 100th birthday last month, is more than just a PC company, or a computer company, or even an IT company. Starting as a humble maker of scales, work punch-clocks and other devices, IBM evolved into a research company which developed not only the first PC and hard disk drive, but also the first UPC barcodes, magnetic stripes and virtual machines—to

name just a few examples. There are far too many IBM products or innovations to cover in this one sitting. But here is a quick look at 10 of those products and innovations which have had some of the biggest influences on how the world’s consumers and businesses handle their IT and business needs.

The personal computer

System 360

Virtualization

IBM was synonymous with innovation, but not always for nimbleness. So the idea that a computer priced under $90,000 could be used at home or in a business was ignored by IBM until 1981 when William Lowe, then Systems Manager for IBM Entry Level Systems, met with Frank Cary, CEO, IBM to talk about a computer with a price tag of under $1,500. For perhaps the first time, IBM decided to look outside the company for components such as a Microsoft operating system and an Intel processor, and in August 1981 introduced the IBM 5150.

The PC wasn’t the first time IBM made possible the growth of an entire industry. For the first time, go back to 1964 and the unveiling of the IBM System 360. The S/360 represented IBM’s, and the computer industry’s first, release of a computer system which was designed to allow other manufacturers’ products to add functionality beyond the core vendor’s original system. The S/360 would eventually be one of the most successful computer systems ever launched. IBM says that 25 years after its launch, products based on the S/360 accounted for over half of the world’s inventory of $100,000+ systems.

When most people in the IT industry see virtualization, they think of VMware, which more than any company has made it the ubiquitous technology it currently is. But the idea of virtual machines, or running more than one computer’s workload on a single computer, was first introduced in 1972 with the unveiling of the IBM System/370 Advanced Function. Virtual machines have come a long way since the System/370 Advanced Function, which was originally used internally by IBM. Today, IBM’s z/ VM virtualization technology allows thousands of virtual machines to run on a single mainframe.

Hard drive

In 1956, IBM invented the first hard disk, RAMAC 350 Disk Storage Unit, the first device to allow large quantities of data to be randomly accessed on a bit-by-bit basis. Let’s define ‘large quantities of data.’ The RAMAC 350 stored five million data encoded characters (5MB) on a device with 50 disks rotating at 1,200 RPMS that provided an 800-millisecond access speed, all in a compact, 6-foot-tall enclosure. Contrast that to 2011, where several manufacturers are offering hard drives with capacities of up to 3TB of data.

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tech focus Tape storage Floppy disk

IBM was also the inventor of the floppy disk, a mainstay of nearly every computer and PC sold until the introduction of low-cost CD and then USB storage technology sent them to trash bins just a few years ago. IBM first developed them with a diameter of 8-inch and a paper case which kept them clean in 1967. By the late 1970s, a 5.25-inch version was in use, and came with Apple II PC. In the late 1980s they were replaced with 3.5-inch versions. But today they mainly sit in dusty containers.

DRAM

Watson

IBM Fellow Robert Dennard invented the DRAM in 1966 as a way to overcome issues with another technology, magnetic core memory, which was also being developed at the time. Working in his spare time, Dennard came up with a way to combine an access transistor and a capacitor for reading and writing data, and which was patented in 1968. DRAM chips started becoming computer mainstays thanks to the development by Intel of a 1KB DRAM chip in 1970 which led to large memory for PCs, servers, and a host of electronic devices, as well as to the development of high-speed memory systems.

IBM this year unveiled Watson, a computer system consisting of 10 racks, each with 10 POWER750 servers with a total of 2,880 processor cores, 15TB of memory, and running the Linux operating system. Most importantly, it was programmed with the help of multiple universities to be able to come up with the questions to natural language answers posed on the Jeopardy game show. Watson, which went on to defeat two of Jeopardyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top champions, is now the centerpiece of an IBM program to bring its natural language capabilities to a wide range of business and teaching opportunities.

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While businesses and vendors have been trying to get tape out of the storage business, it still remains the most common media for backing up and archiving data. Tape was a storage media, and the whole idea of a mass storage device became a reality with the 1952 introduction of the IBM 725, a device for reading data from and writing data to magnetic tape. The IBM 752 offered 200 ft and 1200 ft reels that allowed data written by one machine to be read by any other.

Magnetic stripe

Barcodes

IBM developed the technology for putting a strip of magnetic data recording medium onto a plastic card in the 1960s originally as a way to develop identity cards for the CIA, and in the process spawned a revolution of ideas. Magnetic stripes made possible the use of credit cards to quickly close retail transactions, and have been adopted for such uses as medical insurance cards and even throw-away hotel door keys.

IBM developed the UPC (universal product code) barcodes, along with the required scanners, in 1973 in response to requirements by the supermarket industry for a faster way to manage inventory. Actually, barcodes were invented in 1949. But it took the introduction of low-cost lasers to enable IBM to develop a scanner which could take advantage of the barcodes.

new products NEC eco-friendly projectors

EC India launched six new ranges of portable and eco-friendly M series projectors targeted at corporates and educational institutions. Equipped with an HDMI connector and a wired/wireless LAN port, the projectors come with the options of an Auto Eco Mode which automatically adjusts the brightness of the projected image to suit the environment, and the Eco2 Mode which reduces light intensity during smallscreen projections. They also have a carbon savings meter, power save, quick setup and direct power-off. The projectors come with a contrast ratio of 2000:1. The projectors are available at a price of `36,000 (excluding taxes) with Neoteric, Third Wave Homeland and Solutions India, and come with a 2-year warranty.

BenQ LED monitor

D-Link network storage device

-Link launched its DNS-320 ShareCenter 2-Bay network storage device to provide a central storage location for data sharing and back-up. It enables consumers to share documents, files and digital media on a home network. The built-in RAID 1 mirroring technology prevents drive failure, and protects back-up solutions. The device is packed with a dual SATA 3.5-inch drive bay for up to 4TB of storage. It features remote access to files through a built-in Web file server app and FTP server. It also includes an internal 800 MHz processor and features AFP and Time Machine support for Apple Macs. Available at an MRP of `12,199, the device comes with a 1-year warranty and would be available through Ingram Micro and Redington.

enQ has launched its EW2430V Vertical Alignment LED monitor. The monitor has features such as 3,000:1 Native Contrast Ratio, 2 crore:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio, and BenQ’s proprietary Senseye Human Vision Technology on a true 8-bit color panel that provides a range of 16.7M colors. EW2430V is equipped with features like Smart Focus that help viewers to concentrate on the main viewing content, Super Resolution that increases the density of low resolution images, and PIP/PBP that allows viewers to display two different incoming visual contents simultaneously. The EW2430V is available at a price of `17,200 and comes with a 2-year warranty through BenQ distributors.

OptiView XG tablet from Fluke

luke Networks has launched the OptiView XG—the first tablet for network analysis. It has a user interface and customizable dashboards, path and application infrastructure analysis, integrated WLAN solutions, and provides guided troubleshooting. When mobile, the device monitors the health of key network devices and analyses Wi-Fi environments. It has a 10.25-inch, 1024x768 screen displayed on a two inchthin tablet, and two hot-swappable batteries that can operate for up to two hours. The product is distributed by Ingram Micro, Exelan Networking and Netplace Technologies. The price and warranty are available on request.

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 Do you want the TN tender? T

he news of Tamil Nadu Government announcing a tender for 912,000 laptops has taken the PC industry by storm. The TN government has called for a global tender, and just about every PC maker is interested in bidding and winning. A leading PC-maker told Shadow that they were recently contacted by a person who claimed acquaintance to top officials and leading politicians associated with the ruling party in the state. The gentleman in question promised the PC-maker that he will ensure that a good chunk of the tender is awarded to them, if he is provided a ‘cut’. However, the PC-maker smelled a rat and investigated the matter. They found that the person was simply bluffing them and had no substantial connections either within ELCOT or within the political establishment in TN and was simply out to cheat the vendor with false promise of getting the company’s bid selected. Normally for such large tenders such episodes are not new say IT companies and they receive several calls from strangers claiming their political connections. Till the time the tender is floated and executed, which will happen over the next couple of years, such episodes will continue. n

GET

Personal

“Music is my soul” AL Jagannath, Director Marketing, VMware, has 17 years of marketing experience and has worked with companies like Satyam, Reliance and Mudra Communications. Before joining VMware, he was the head marketing for the systems and storage business at Sun Microsystems. AL Jagannath

If not in the IT industry: I would have been into advertising. Biggest Passion: Music is my

soul. I play the guitar. Behind the wheels: My BMW 320d, I just don’t want to get out of it. Weekends are for: Golf, rock band practice, and my kids. Gadgets I can’t live without: My Blackberry and my Kindle. Favorite holiday destination: Goa. But I would love to travel to the Caribbean. Hate the most: Hypocrisy. Favorite Movie: Lion King is my all time favorite. Favorite Stars: Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep. Role Model: Nelson Mandela. He is a survivor.

More states plan to emulate TN tender

he big notebook tender by the TN Government has resulted in many other state governments looking to float such tenders where a common man can own a laptop at a low price. Says a senior IAS officer from one of the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, “Our state Chief Minister is very keen to outdo the TN announcement and has asked for a draft proposal. We would include several sections of the lower strata of the society and not just students. Government employees will also be added to the list. The only problem is that no budget has been allocated for this year.” Political and market analysts believe that with elections in most states scheduled over the next three years, it is likely that such tenders will be floated by other states as well in order to win popularity among young voters. n

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Ultimate ambition: To do something good for people and be remembered for it. Wildest thing I have ever done: Learning to surf the waves in Sydney. Thing I most want to do in life: Play Pink Floyd on my guitar, note to note. If I became the PM: I would enforce strict population control and punish traffic violators. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Sachin Tendulkar. He is greatness combined with humility. One person I would like to meet and why: Tiger Woods. To take tips to improve my golf. Deepest and darkest fear: Credit cards not working in a foreign land. n — CRN Network

RNI NO. MAH ENG/1999/635 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