contents
April 15, 2013 l Volume 2 Issue 12
Cover Story CRN’s first India Cloud Adoption Survey suggests that cloud computing is moving from hype to reality. This year partners expect significant growth of their cloud computing business, be it public, private or hybrid clouds
18 Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik
NEWS Analyses
Channel Chief
Oracle plans massive channel push
7
Propalms takes on Citrix in VDI space
7
Cyber Power enters Indian UPS market
9
HP trains partners for big data
9
VMware unveils Cloud Credits program
10
LifeSize launches affordable VC solution
10
READ More Opinion
8
Feedback
8
Channel Buzz
29
New Products
30
Shadow Ram
34
Get Personal
34
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12 Special Focus Promising healthy growth The Indian healthcare sector presents `5,700 crore IT solutions and services opportunities for partners
14 Market Focus
24
Editorial 6
4
Rajesh Goenka VP, Sales & Marketing, Rashi Peripherals, speaks about how the company is adapting to the changing IT ecosystem; its performance and future plans
Are your products BIS-compliant? A GoI order has made it mandatory for 15 IT and electronic products to be compliant with the specifications of the Bureau of Indian Standards by July 3, 2013
Role Model The triumphant trio VDA Infosolutions—named after its three founders, Vikas Save, Deepak Jadhav and Ashutosh Deuskar—has emerged as one of India’s leading SIs in just three years after its inception
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edit opinion Volume 2, Issue 12
Cloud and clear dhaval valia
T
he cloud is landing on the earth. After almost three years of euphoria and hype, cloud computing is finally entering the reality phase. The forecast for cloud computing adoption in India is resounding. Zinnov Consulting puts the total size of the Indian cloud market at $4.5 billion by 2015 which would be almost 12 percent of the projected IT market in the country by then. This market was only $110 million in 2010, suggesting exponential growth. A recent McKinsey report says that partners, particularly those catering to SMBs, will find it difficult to survive over the next five years if they do not embrace the cloud computing business in some form—public, private or hybrid. Here are some tips that may be considered for venturing into the cloud business. Make it a separate P&L account: In most cases cloud computing means moving portions of the customer’s IT business from capex to opex. Traditional financial, sales and support practices cannot be applied to the cloud business. Migration expertise is key: As adoption grows, the biggest demand is for migration services. The customer’s biggest challenge is not knowing how to migrate to the cloud and here is where a partner can play an important role. Not all workloads are for the cloud: Customers are made to believe that they can run all their business off the cloud. Choosing the right workload to be migrated to the cloud is the first step in cloud computing. Build virtualization expertise: If you are reselling third-party cloud services this may not be important, but if you plan to have your own white-label services or provide private or hybrid cloud solutions, a virtualization skill-set is key. Understand SLAs: The cloud is not a magic wand that will give you everything under the sun. Every cloud vendor has carefully-spelt SLAs, and it is important that all the details be explained to the customer very carefully. Build software skills: Whether public, private or hybrid clouds, to scale up the business partner needs software skills. You do not need a large team, but you do need simple skills that can integrate and automate functions based on APIs. If you have read till here it means you are serious about building a successful cloud practice. I therefore recommend that you read the cover story in its entirety. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 6
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starting line Oracle plans massive channel push n SONAL DESAI
“We will target thousands of partners who are registered under the Oracle VAD Remarketer Program to drive our SMB business”
O
racle is planning an expansion of its partner ecosystem in order to drive further penetration of its database software, middleware, entry-level BI software and storage hardware. Informed Niraj Kaushik, Senior Director, Commercial & Channel Business, Oracle India, “We plan to target thousands of partners who are registered under the Oracle VAD Remarketer Program, and offer them the option to up-sell and cross-sell our solutions. We have also launched products specifically aimed at the growing number of Indian SMBs which will be catered to by these partners.” Oracle VAD Remarketers are those partners who are registered with Oracle distributors and have billed Oracle products in the past couple of years. “These partners are not our accredited partners,” Kaushik explained, “but many of them have done billings of Oracle
N Kaushik
Senior Director, Commercial & Channel Business, Oracle India
products of more than a crore per annum. These partners are largely transactional, hence our aim is to encourage and incentivize them to take a solutions route around our products.” The company will initially push its 5-user Oracle Standard Edition and Standard Edition One database software licenses through the newly incubated partners. “The licenses
are priced at `5,000 per user, and partners can earn their standard discounts through any of the three distributors—Redington, Avnet and Sonata,” Kaushik said. Oracle has so far identified close to 100 transactional partners for the initiative, and is dedicating resources to enable them. Informed Kaushik, “We have an on-ground sales team as well as a leadgeneration team helping the partners identified. We also have a separate MDF scheme for these partners, and our team is helping them do joint customer events.” Oracle’s aim is to graduate at least 20 of these 100 partners to the next level of authorized partnership. Kaushik acknowledged that changing the mindset of the Remarketers is not easy. “A solution sale is different. It requires skill-sets and patience. We are running campaigns along with our distributors, and it is heartening to know that many partners are taking the specialization.” n
Propalms takes on Citrix in VDI space n RAMDAS S
“We are about 60 percent cheaper than Citrix in pure license acquisition costs, and at least 50 percent cheaper in terms of total cost of ownership”
P
ropalms Networks India is planning to take Citrix headon in the desktop and application virtualization market. The company has already signed 75 partners and is planning to double the number over the next 12 months. Propalms is betting on the costeffectiveness of its solutions to win market share. “We are 60 percent cheaper than Citrix in pure license costs, and at least 50 percent cheaper in terms of TCO,” said Vijender Yadav, Co-founder and CTO, Propalms. The company has already acquired over 180 customers including LIC, Deutsche Bank, IDBI Bank, Reliance, DTDC, HSBC, Canara Bank, Bata, Thermax, TDI, Dainik Jagran and IIT Delhi. Unlike competitors such as Citrix and Go-Global, Propalms relies on
Vijender Yadav
Co-founder & CTO Propalms Networks
Microsoft’s RDP protocol. With this, Yadav explained, a Propalms customer can run more flavors of Windows OS. Propalms’ products can be used with the server virtualization software of VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Red Hat and Parallels.
Yadav said that over the past three quarters its business through tier-2 channels had grown exponentially after signing on iValue InfoSolutions. “We would like to make our products available to all channels with the potential to sell VDI. Everyone from thin client resellers to Microsoft partners are presently being tapped.” Apart from VDI and application virtualization opportunities, Propalms is betting on the BYOD and tele-working markets. “More organizations are looking at BYOD and employees tele-working to bring down the cost of operations and IT-related expenditure. To provide a complete solution for an organization we also provide an SSL VPN gateway and a client software which can make any device running Android or Apple iOS connect securely to the corporate network,” said Yadav. n
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edit opinion Can mobile solutions transform the economy? Srikanth RP
W
hat can your humble mobile phone do? Plenty, if the GSM Association (GSMA) is to be believed. A recent report by GSMA developed in collaboration with PwC, states that innovative mobile solutions can revolutionize people’s lives over the next five years. The report says that mobileenabled solutions can save 1 million lives and can be used to great effect in the fight against malaria, TB and HIV. For example, in Andhra Pradesh, NIC has developed an integrated disease surveillance program, which uses mobile phones to proactively track and prevent diseases. Information on diseases and their impact is automatically marked on maps to pinpoint the exact locations, where the disease outbreak is severe. More recently, Nokia and Arogya World announced that they have enrolled 1 million people for mDiabetes, an innovative multi-lingual diabetes prevention mobile information service. As mobile devices become ubiquitous, and smarter and cheaper by the day, their impact on every sector is bound to be transformative. As the GSMA report notes, besides healthcare, mobile-enabled automotive solutions can improve food storage and transport, and help in feeding more than 40 million people, annually. Mobileenabled education can enable 180 million students. Enterprises are now going beyond building mobile functionalities on top of their existing systems. CIOs are using smartphones and tablets to push customer service to new heights. Godrej Properties is using iPads to virtually showcase flats to its customers. Similarly, Leela Palaces has introduced in-room iPads, wherein a guest can use the device as a console to change lighting in the room, or open the door. The potential for transformation is huge in every sector, and young India is leading the charge. When the news of the horrific Delhi-rape incident angered the whole country, several entrepreneurs pitched in to either develop or offer free mobile apps for ensuring women safety. A sign that apps have become intrinsic to our lives, can be seen from the recent announcement by the Indian government, inviting developers to develop apps that can be used by citizens to avail public services. With more and more users accessing the Internet via their mobile phones, one can expect a significant transformation in the overall economy. From providing banking to the unbanked, ensuring education to the underprivileged, and providing basic healthcare to the poor—mobile phones can succeed where traditional solutions have failed to deliver. n Srikanth RP is the Editor of InformationWeek. Email him at srikanth.rp@ubm.com
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Security brochures Government officials cannot be further away from ground realities. It is common sense that one cannot fight cyber threats by distributing brochures. Education is the only way that will prepare a common man to tackle cyber threats. If such government decisions are not met with vocal opposition, the next time the government will make it mandatory for end-customers to pass a cyber security exam before they are licensed to use a PC. Rajesh Kothari Mumbai
Under threat The cover story on the shrinking PC market was
an eye-opener for the entire partner ecosystem. It is an open secret that PCs are under threat although OEMs might not openly agree with this. Partners, instead of focusing their businesses around desktops and notebooks, should prepare strategies around smaller form-factors. Though it will be a while before the impact is visible in India, partners need to be ready with their Plan B. This will also mean a change in how transactional business is done. Tablet manufacturers might not allow partners any leeway for an extended credit cycle; this could be a point to ponder for small players. All in all, interesting times lie ahead. Bibuthi Sharan via email
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
Emerson
2 emersonnetworkpower.com
Cisco
3 www.cisco.com/go/ucsbenchmarks www.cisco.in/servers
Rashi
5 www.rptechindia.com
Channel Champion
11
Adata
31 www.adata-group.com
adata_in@adata-group.com
Donjin
32 www.donjin.com
sales_india@donjin.com
Quick Heal
33
harish.shukla@quickheal.co.in
Biz
34 www.indiaantivirus.com
sales@indiaantivirus.com
Dell
35 www.dell.co.in
www.dell.co.in/domore
EMC
36 www.emc.com
ritesh.d@cdwindia.com.com
info@quickheal.co.in
marketing.india@emerson.com
feedback@rptechindia.com
starting line Cyber Power enters Indian UPS market n dhaval valia
U
PS vendor Cyber Power Systems is planning to enter the Indian market and expects to garner 25 percent share of the under-20KVA segment. The company, which is ranked among the top four UPS vendors globally, recently launched its Indian subsidiary and put in place a 28-member team to drive its business here. Said Michael Ho, President, Cyber Power, “The under20KVA UPS segment in India is estimated to be around 55 million units per annum. 55 percent of this market is controlled by branded vendors while 45 percent comes from the unorganized sector. Our aim is to grab 10 percent share from branded players and 15 percent from the unorganized sector to achieve a 25 percent share in the first 12 months. In terms of revenue we are aiming for `100 crore in the first year.” Cyber Power will follow a hybrid distribution model. “Ingram, our global distribution partner, will also distribute our products here. In addition, we intend to sign up regional distributors. We are in final discussions with at least eight regional distributors and plan to onboard them within the next month,” informed Ho. The company has hired industry veterans to drive its India business. These include Arun Ghosh as Managing Director; Ghosh has more than 25 years experience in the power solutions business. At the regional level the company has hired Saikat De as head for the east while Sumeet Chadak will head the west. Said Ho, “We will soon have a team in place for the north and south. We are leaving no stone unturned to make our India business successful. In the
“Post-sales support is our USP. We never compromise on it, hence we have ensured a robust service network even before we sell a single product in India” Michael Ho
President Cyber Power Systems
US, in just five years, we have acquired 10 percent marketshare in the under-20KVA market and are second behind APC. In India our ultimate goal is to be the No 1 UPS brand.” Cyber Power has an extensive portfolio which includes UPSs (ranging from 600VA to 55KVA), industrial inverters, solar inverters and accessories for tablets and smartphones. “Our focus in the first year is the under-20KVA UPS and mobile accessories. Six months later we will launch solar inverters, high-end UPSs and industrial inverters,” Ho disclosed. According to Ho, the company’s products have a priceperformance advantage of 30-40 percent over competing global brands. On the support front, Cyber Power recently acquired the post-sales service assets of inverter company Hita Technologies. “The acquisition has given us a strong support footprint of 72 locations covering 50 cities,” Ho informed. “Post-sales support is our USP, we never compromise on it, hence we have ensured a robust service network even before we sell a single product in India.” n
MUST
Read
HP trains partners for big data HP has upped the ante for big data analytics with the launch of its HP ProLiant SL4500 range and Atom based Moonshot servers. The company plans to train several of its 200 top business partners to target big data opportunities in verticals such as BFSI, telecom, manufacturing and retail. Explained Vikram K, Director, Industry Standard Servers, HP India, “The big data market in India is growing very quickly and is projected to cross $1 billion by 2015. The traction for big data analytics is building up in BFSI, retail, media, telecom and government owing to the enormous quantities of data they have to manage. The ProLiant SL4500 servers are purpose-built for big data environments.” Built on HP’s converged infrastructure, the new servers are said to consume up to 50 percent less space and 61 percent less power while using 63 percent fewer cables. They are also said to cost 31 percent less. The new Moonshot servers built on Atom platform use up to 89 percent less energy and 80 percent Vikram K less space than traditional servers. “Big data environments such as Hadoop, MPP data warehouses, analytics and object stores have very different workload requirements. Given the large and varied amounts of fast-moving data that need to be stored and accessed quickly, and the different requirements of end-users, these workloads can be highly varied, complex and inefficient to manage if run on traditional hardware infrastructure. The new servers make it easier for customers to deploy and manage such environments,” Vikram said. HP has commenced a series of partner trainings and CIO programs starting March 2013. “Apart from raising customer awareness on big data, partner training is a major focus. We are currently training business partners in metro cities. In the second phase we shall target our other business partners,” added Vikram. n — AMIT SINGH
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starting line VMware unveils Cloud Credits program n SONAL DESAI
V
Mware has announced a new program that will allow partners to build new revenue streams while ensuring that service providers get added service opportunities. The VMware Cloud Credits Purchasing Program allows customers to purchase credits from VMware Solution Provider Partners (VSPPs); these credits can be redeemed over time with approved VMware vCloud Service Providers (VVSPs). “To be rolled out in July 2013 in India, the program is based on the premise that business users will prepay for credits they can later take to our approved list of vCloud Service Providers and can easily migrate applications to a public cloud on demand,” said Toni Adams, Vice President, Global Channel & Alliances Marketing, VMware. Under the program, VSPPs will buy cloud credits from authorized distributors. As Adams explained it,
“VSPPs will help customers identify potential workloads and estimate the credits required to deploy workloads in a private or hybrid cloud through VVSPs” Toni Adams
VP, Global Channel & Alliances Marketing VMware
“Partners will help their customers to identify potential workloads and estimate the credits required to deploy the workload in a private or hybrid cloud through VVSPs. Customers will apply their credits to procure cloud services which could be scaled up or down. This feature has been integrated with the customers’ My VMware portal to
provide them a live account of the credits usage.” Customers can redeem cloud credits for infrastructure-as-a-service offerings for compute, networking, operating system, security, software and support monitoring. “We have sold vSphere, our server virtualization platform, to over 3,000 customers in the country. We estimate that the majority of the customers would want to move some workload to a public cloud when there are spikes in compute demand. Upfront credits allow them to easily set up hybrid clouds,” said Adams. In India the company plans to rope in 100 VSPPs to sell the credits, plus 40 VVSPs from where customers can avail cloud services to use these credits. VMware will also publish a rate-card for customers. Added Adams, “In the US the entry-level Cloud Credit package starts from $1,000. In India we will fine-tune the pricing as per local requirements.” n
LifeSize launches affordable VC solution n AMIT SINGH
L
ifeSize Communications, a division of Logitech, is aggressively pushing its HD video conferencing solutions to SMBs riding on channel expansion and penetration in class C and D cities. LifeSize had recently introduced the Icon 600 HD video system with an integrated UVC (universal video collaboration) manager. “The Icon series, with prices starting from `1.5 lakh, is for SMBs who were deterred by the high prices and complicated operations of other video collaboration solutions. The Icon series offers navigation through simple remote control, and provides scheduling, streaming, recording, firewall traversal and multiparty video calling through onscreen navigation,” informed Deepak Braganza, Country Manager, LifeSize India & South Asia. The company is focusing on ver-
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“The Icon series, with prices starting from `1.5 lakh, is for SMBs who are deterred by high prices and complications of other video collaboration solutions” D Braganza
Country Manager LifeSize India & South Asia
ticals such as manufacturing, BFSI, media & entertainment and retail, and sees education and healthcare as the high-growth verticals. LifeSize has also introduced the LSR1000 for Microsoft Lync, a meeting room collaboration solution which supports voice and video
calling on Lync 2013 and 2010. In addition, it has launched the enterprise edition of LifeSize UVC Multipoint which enables Microsoft Lync users to join a multi-party conversation with other standardsbased systems and view up to 49 participants onscreen. LifeSize is scouting for partners to delve deeper into class A and B cities, and to penetrate class C and D cities. “We are looking at a 35 percent increase in partner base, which is currently 400. We already have Ingram Micro and Redington as national distributors, 10 certified partners, and the remaining are authorized resellers,” Braganza informed. To increase brand visibility, the company will organize roadshows. Said Braganza, “We will conduct 10 road-shows across the country. Moreover, we conduct sales enablement training for partners every quarter.” n
The 12th Annual CRN Channel Champions Survey witnessed a massive response from across the length and the breadth of the channel community. We are delighted to announce our lucky draw winners.
Congratulations to our winners!!!
1
st
ROUND TRIP TO BANGKOK
Lucky Draw Winner
Udayakumar Deshmukh Regional Manager, Frontier Business Systems
Next 10 lucky draw winners win exciting gift vouchers from Sodexo! Prize Value
Name
Company
City
`5,000
Nilay Ghorpade
Blue Tech Computer
Amravati
`5,000
Sushil Poddar
Berlia Compu system
Kolkata
`3,000
Vishwa Bhushan
Bhushan Systems & Consultants
Jaipur
`3,000
Amey Dhawan
Arun Infotech Systems
Kolhapur
`3,000
Praful Buha
Gateway Computer
Vapi
`2,000
Debopam Panda
Ontrack Systems
Kolkata
`2,000
Pradeep Kumar Jha
Progressive Computech Solutions
Patna
`2,000
Nipun Bhatt
Advantage IT Devices
Bhavnagar
`2,000
Umesh Kumar Danta
Avipsha IT Solutions
Balangir
`2,000
Khan Ashfaq Ahmed
Computronics
Parbhani
Check the survey results and analysis in our forthcoming editions of CRN magazine and also on www.crn.in
channel chief “We are remodeling our business” Rajesh Goenka, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Rashi Peripherals, spoke to Dhaval Valia, about how the company is adapting to the transformations in the IT ecosystem. He also spoke about Rashi’s performance and future plans FY2012-13 witnessed a slowdown in terms of IT among both consumers and businesses. How did Rashi fare during the fiscal? The last couple of years have been testing times for the overall economy, and IT is no exception. Yet even in these difficult times we have sustained our target of 20 percent annual growth over the `1,500 crore recorded in FY2011-12. The growth category has been the SMB sector, where our partnerships with Lenovo, HP, Netgear, APC and Digilink helped us post over 30 percent growth. The PC building block business— which constitutes Asus motherboards and graphic cards, Adata memory, Logitech keyboards and mice, LG monitors and AMD processors—remained flat. On the consumer side we have done well with Asus notebooks and have become its largest distributor. The SanDisk memory card and USB drive, and the Targus accessories business also did well. Tablets gave us strong growth, increasing from `100 crore to `180 crore.
Rashi has largely been a PC building block distributor, but now, with the assembler market in steep decline, how are you planning to remodel your business? Just three years back the PC building block business contributed nearly 70 percent of our overall annual turnover; today it contributes less than 50 percent. The last five years have been really tough for the assembled PC market. From more than 30 percent marketshare in 2007 it has come down to 20 percent, amounting to two million units of the 10 million PCs sold in 2012. In my estimate the assembler market will remain stagnant at two million units per annum; even if the PC market grows it will remain static at these volumes.
“Three years back components contributed 70 percent of our turnover; today it contributes less than 50 percent. The transformation in the IT ecosystem has led to remodeling our business” 12
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However, we still see some growth for Rashi in the assembler business because we believe we can garner more share in the motherboard and graphics market with our valueadded distribution. We are also working with our component vendors to help assemblers target niche opportunities in gaming, workstations, surveillance and digital signage. In addition, the recent decision by Intel to quit motherboard manufacturing will result in more opportunities for brands like Asus. For Rashi the transformation in the marketplace has definitely meant remodeling our business, and this is evident from the way our reliance on the components business has reduced. Today, the SMB and consumer business jointly contribute nearly half of our revenue, and as we grow this share will continue to grow.
What are the changes Rashi has made and plans to make to decrease its reliance on PC building blocks? Over the past 3-4 years we have slowly boosted our SMB portfolio by adding Lenovo’s SMB products, Digilink’s cabling and APC’s UPSs. We are also increasingly selling Netgear’s NAS and medium-range switches. Starting this fiscal we have hired a new team that will work closely with solutions providers. We believe that while the demand from large enterprises will remain flat or negative, that from SMBs will continue to grow. Over the next two years SMB spending will drive the growth in the IT industry.
What are your plans in the consumer segment? Our big focus this year is tablets. We have recently become distributor and authorized service provider for Asus tablets in the north and south. For the past two years we have been regionally distributing Samsung smartphones and tablets; this business grew 80 percent last year, contributing close to `180 crore to our overall revenue. With the addition of Asus’ tablets we expect more than 100 percent growth in this category. There is no doubt that the tablet market will outpace the PC industry in a couple of years, hence we are urging our channel partners to venture into the business.
channel chief What are the new initiatives undertaken by Rashi? We are changing internally as well externally. Internally we have moved almost all our processes to ERP, embarked on a rebranding exercise for the Rashi brand, and are working on several suggestions to improve our channel engagement. If you have noticed, Rashi’s branding has changed. We are implementing these branding changes at all our offices. For the first time we recently did a channel satisfaction survey to understand how our partners perceive us, and what they like about us and don’t. Gfk polled close to 1,300 partners face-to-face for this survey.
Could you share the survey findings with us? The findings showed that on most parameters and in most geographies we are the most preferred distributor in the product categories we deal in. However, our objective behind this survey was to identify our shortcomings so that we could improve. For example, we polled the lowest channel preference in Odisha and Jharkhand, hence we have boosted our presence in these states and increased our channel engagements there. We also received feedback that we needed to improve our TAT for post-sales support in smaller cities, hence we have started working on it. We will soon introduce an SMS service for partners that will give them a status update on any product checked in for repair or replacement; this will help them intimate the
“We will soon introduce an SMS service for partners that will give them a status update on any product checked in for repair or replacements” customer about the TAT. We are working toward making an SMS and Web tracking service available to customers, but that will take some time because we need to plan a robust infrastructure for it. Today we bill a million units of products across our portfolio every month; this means we need a system which can take so much traffic.
What is your outlook for the IT channels? The IT ecosystem is undergoing a transformation and this makes it hard to predict the market performance over the next couple of years. However, it is clear from the current trends that the convergence between computers, mobile phones and consumer electronics will bring in a number of devices across all pricepoints, and that this will lead to consumption patterns changing in both the commercial and consumer markets. This is not to say that the PC market will perish. The PC ecosystem will co-exist with those of tablets, smartphones and smart televisions, and there’s unlikely to be one clear winner, at least in the foreseeable future. n
Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing www.crn.in
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special focus Promising healthy growth The Indian healthcare sector presents a `5,700 crore IT solutions and services opportunities for partners
n AMIT SINGH are the various initiatives ccording to ratings by the central and state agency Fitch, the Indian governments. The Indian healthcare market is Government has increased all set to double from the $50 its health expenditure to 2.5 billion of 2011 to $100 billion percent of the GDP for 12th in 2015, while Gartner says that healthcare providers in India Five Year Plan (2012-17) from plan to spend `5,700 crore on the existing 1.4 percent. The IT products and services in government has allowed 100 2013, a 7 percent rise over the percent FDI in health and 2012 level of `5,300 crore. medical services under the Remarks Anurag Gupta, automatic route. Research Director, Government Several states are also & Healthcare, Gartner, “The spending significantly to boost growth of private sector chains healthcare infrastructure. and specialty hospitals will Informs Inderpal Singh, CEO, propel IT investments. Large Aman Technologies, “In J&K national and state government programs are spurring alone there are opportunities of more than `40 crore for growth in the primary and secondary care sector and setting up networking and data center infrastructure, public health domain. The recent announcement surveillance and data security for government hospitals. regarding digitizing medical data in Kerala in a joint state The state government is asking large hospitals to invest and central government initiative is a welcome step.” in hospital management systems (HMS) and to connect Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability primary and secondary care units with them.” and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is also promoting IT adoption. “Hospitals and wellness institutions which Integrated hospital management solutions target medical tourists from foreign countries advertise Although smaller hospitals with less than 200 beds their compliance with HIPAA which has stringent are automating their billing and finance functions, the standards for patient data privacy,” notes Subir Bhatnagar, demand for HMS is coming from bigger hospitals. Vice President & Global Head, Solutions, AGC Networks. Explains Sanjay Mokashi, Director, Software, Micropro Gupta says that hospital information management Solutions, “HMS caters to all hospital operations such systems (HIMS), picture archiving & communication as billing, materials, clinical, pathology, radiology and systems (PACS), electronic health records (EHRs) and customer care. They reduce the risk of human errors and mobile technologies are a top priority for hospitals. physical movement of reports across the hospital.” The According to Fitch, what’s aiding growth in the Nagpur-based Micropro offers its HospyCare HMS, which healthcare sector is the wellness vertical which comprises has large installations at hospitals in the UAE and India. three primary segments—beauty & rejuvenation, slimming Chennai-based Futurenet Technologies has recently & fitness, and alternative medicines. completed an HMS project for a large medical college in “More than 50 percent of the wellness vertical today Chennai; this included a data center and campus-wide is unorganized and highly segmented with several small Wi-Fi and fiber network worth `2 crore. Aman and regional players,” informs Neha Jalan Goenka, Senior Technologies has done a similar project for the SherAssociate, AMI Partners. “While e-Kashmir Institute of Medical the lower end of the market is using Sciences (SIMS). Sector snapshot basic solutions such as office tools According to Goenka, software and email/messaging to maintain such as HMS, ERP, BI and database Industry size: `2,75,000 crore. Over 50,000 hospitals, clinics, wellness records, large wellness centers are management systems form nearly 30 centers with less than 100 beds migrating toward sophisticated onpercent of all IT investments within premise solutions such as ERP, CRM the healthcare sector. IT spend: `5,300 crore, expected to be and financial management or hosted `5,700 crore in 2013 and SaaS solutions such as spa Electronic records Opportunities: HMS, CRM, patient management, integrated ERP, spa PoS Electronic health records are the records management, tele-medicine, and club management solutions.” in-thing for hospitals. “In a way, security, surveillance, cloud The other big growth drivers for the activity in the recording domain Sources: Fitch, Indian Medical Association & Gartner healthcare and in turn IT opportunities emphasizes the fact that IT adoption
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special focus “Hospitals and wellness institutions which target medical tourists advertise their compliance with HIPAA which has stringent standards for patient data privacy”
Compusoft solution for Thyrocare
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Subir Bhatnagar
VP & Global Head, Solutions, AGC Networks
is still at a basic stage in healthcare,”says L Ashok, MD, Futurenet. Large and medium private hospitals as well as government and community hospitals are adopting PACS and connecting various centers to the main radiology center in the hospital where images are archived and analyzed by radiologists, according to Ashok. Delhi-based Zest Systems recently won a large infrastructure project worth `10 crore to establish a data center for electronic record keeping, PACS, security surveillance and access control at Medanta Medicity. “Hospitals are highly storage-intensive,” says Rajeev Mehta, MD, Zest. “We have done similar projects at Gangaram Hospital and Fortis as well.”
Surveillance and access control Concerned about the security of doctors and patients, and to control access to restricted areas, hospitals, small and large, are deploying physical security solutions. “Over the past year healthcare has been a fast-growing segment for surveillance and physical access control. Even government hospitals and medical colleges are spending heavily,” says Singh of Aman Technologies. It implemented a security surveillance project worth `1.5 crore entailing access control, attendance monitoring, biometrics and IP cameras with backend storage and computing for SIMS. “Three similar projects worth `2 crore-5 crore for government hospitals are in the pipeline.” Sudhindra Holla, Country Manager, Axis Communications adds that cloud-based video surveillance is also booming. He informs that efforts are underway to launch cameras that have the capability to intelligently process images and send only relevant information to the security control room.
Enterprise communication According to Gartner, telecommunications, which includes telecom and networking equipment and services, will remain the largest overall spending category within
hyrocare Technologies is a large chain of diagnostic centers with its centralized processing laboratory in Navi Mumbai. The company was facing trouble with its legacy applications for service management, customer relations and reporting. “There was no integration of applications; this resulted in the duplication of data and the company was unable to track customer history and offer specific packages,” says Devesh Aggarwal, CEO, Compusoft. Compusoft offered a contact center solution on customized Microsoft CRM by integrating it with various applications and processes. “The contact center solution handles every task from service inquiry to reporting. Starting from auto-assigning calls, the contact center solution maps dependents and links them with the primary customer to offer family packages. We have also Devesh Aggarwal integrated it with IVR and SMS facilities,” details Aggarwal. In phase one, valued at `50 lakh, the company is implementing the solution for 150 users and will scale it for the use of about 500 users over the next 2-3 years. “We started the project in November 2012; it will go live in the next few days. The solution will prevent duplication of data, integrate client history, and help the company to segment customers for specific packages. It will also generate reports for BI,” Aggarwal says. n the healthcare providers sector in 2013. It is expected to grow 3.9 percent in 2013 to reach `1,720 crore, up from `1,660 crore in 2012, and most of this growth will be in enterprise communication equipment. Most of the large hospitals and medical colleges have implemented Wi-Fi and fiber optics as a backbone, and are providing access to patient reports and documents through Web portals. Kolkata-based Duckback Systems has developed a solution with a mobile application to access HMS, patient records and reports through tablets. “We are in touch with three large hospitals in Kolkata to implement the solution, which will also act as a collaboration tool,” informs Asis Chaudhuri, CEO, Duckback.
Tele-medicine & video conferencing Hospitals are looking at tele-medicine and video conferencing (VC) to overcome the shortage of human and infrastructural resources at remote locations. With the help of tele-medicine and VC, doctors in different locations are able to share their expertise on a particular disease. For example, for the last 3-4 years, the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital has been using VC to connect to and provide services to two small hospitals near Pune. Meanwhile, Fortis Healthcare uses Microsoft’s OCS
“In J&K alone, there are opportunities of more than `40 crore for networking, data center, surveillance and data security in public healthcare sector” Inderpal Singh
CEO, Aman Technologies
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special focus “We have developed a mobile application to access HMS, patient records and reports. We are in talks with three hospitals in Kolkata to implement it” Asis Chaudhuri
Chief Executive Officer, Duckback Systems
2007 to manage all real-time communications including instant messaging, VoIP, audio and VC.
Data security With patient data and reports being archived at central locations and accessed by various stakeholders, security of the data is a major concern. “The adoption of information security depends on the sophistication of the IT infrastructure of a hospital. While small hospitals settle for a firewall and UTM, large hospitals go for data leakage prevention, encryption, load balancing and rights management,” says Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, Saarc, Fortinet. Bengaluru-based 22By7 Solutions recently completed a security project worth `60 lakh for Manipal Hospitals. “We implemented 12 UTMs, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer licenses and MPLS connectivity, for their three hospitals and central data center. We have also done large projects for Religare and HCG Hospitals,” informs Venkat Murthy, Prime Mover, 22By7.
Managed services New implementations, as well as the need to manage applications, systems, storage and security, is giving IT services a push. For instance, Allied Digital has bagged a large facility management contract to manage the IT infrastructure of about 700 branches of a diagnostics chain. “We have signed a contract for providing managed services which includes remote management as well as onsite,” informs Sanjiv Patki, COO, Allied Digital “Managed services is a big opportunity from large as well as small hospitals. With automation and electronic records coming in, hospitals cannot afford downtime. A 250-bed hospital usually spends `3.5 lakh–4 lakh per month for FMS,” reveals Ashok.
Virtualization and cloud Large hospitals with several branches are adopting virtualization to increase the manageability and performance of their IT infrastructure.
“Managed services is a big opportunity from large as well as small hospitals. A 250-bed hospital usually spends `3.5 lakh–4 lakh per month for FMS” L Ashok
Managing Director, Futurenet
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Allied Deploys Private Cloud At AMDPI
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llied Digital has cashed in on the opportunities for private clouds in overseas markets. The company has implemented a private cloud for American Dental Partners Inc (AMDPI), an organization which offers dental facilities and IT infrastructure to its member dentists across the US. The organization has close to 10,000 members, whom it used to cater to through 18 servers hosting applications such as billing and client history. Earlier there was no integration of the applications on distributed servers, hence there was a lot of duplication. Also, management was a major issue. Allied Digital virtualized the 18 servers into four servers and integrated the applications to avoid duplication. Sanjiv Patki “Starting from 2010-end it is a 5-year contract worth $27 million for private cloud implementation which was completed by 2011-end, and an AMC to manage their IT infrastructure. We are looking for such opportunities in India with services in DR, backup and application migration on the cloud,” says Sanjiv Patki, COO, Allied Digital. n Explains Ashok of Futurenet, “Hospitals want to connect branches with the central server to have a smaller footprint in terms of the IT team and the data center space, hence they opt for virtualization. A few of them are also going in for VDI solutions. VDI gives them better endpoint manageability and savings on power.” Although healthcare has been slow in adoption, some large hospitals are moving toward cloud-based services. “Healthcare is more skewed toward private cloudbased offerings due to regulatory constraints. Many large hospitals and diagnostic centers have implemented private clouds to provide inter-branch access to applications such as HMS and CRM,” says Srikanth Karnakota, Director, Server & Cloud Business, Microsoft. Ashok feels that public cloud adoption will increase in 2-3 years among smaller hospitals with less than 100 beds. “Because they have limited capital to spend on IT but strive to deliver competitive facilities, they will opt for cloud solutions for HMS, PACS and storage, as well as basic necessities like email and messaging.”
Conclusion Most believe that the Indian healthcare industry is maturing and as more FDI flows into this sector world class practices and regulation will follow suit. This will necessitate investments in ICT solutions as that’s the only way the government can achieve its aim of providing health services to more than a billion people. “Healthcare is one sector which has huge potential. The need for partners is to build strong skillsets in this sector and they will be assured of double digit growth for the next several years,” concludes Singh of Aman Technologies. n
cover story
CRN’s first India Cloud Adoption Survey suggests that cloud computing is moving from hype to reality. This year partners expect significant growth of their cloud computing business, be it public, private or hybrid clouds n RAMDAS S
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he results of the first CRN Cloud Computing Adoption Survey tell a story— cloud computing hype is dead, and it has entered the realization phase which is suggested by many partners who are doing brisk business. Nearly 32 percent of the 98 respondents who took the CRN India Public Cloud Adoption Survey said that their cloud business is growing as per expectations. Nearly 58 percent said that their cloud business hasn’t grown as expected, suggesting they were perhaps looking at bigger numbers. This indicates that the bullishness around cloud computing in the channel is high. More importantly only 5 percent respondents said that cloud computing is a hype suggesting that the new paradigm and burgeoning opportunities around it have captured their attention. Nearly 76 percent of the respondents selling cloud services
said they expect the cloud business to grow in 2013 compared to 2012. It’s not just public cloud computing, but private and hybrid is also generating much demand and expectations among channels. Nearly 37 percent of the 65 partners who took the CRN India Private Cloud Adoption Survey were happy with the way their private cloud business is shaping up while 58 percent felt that they could have done better. Almost 85 percent expect their private and hybrid cloud business to grow in 2013. The findings are in line with the momentum cloud computing is generating in India. As per Zinnov Consulting, the total size of the Indian cloud market will cross $4.5 billion by 2015 from a paltry $110 million in 2010; this would be almost 12 percent of the projected IT market in the country by then.
Research agencies note that till
2012 the adoption of public cloud in the country was relatively poor compared to private cloud. However, they expect a lot to change in 2013. Says Manish Bahl, VP, Forrester India, “Our IT Budgets & Priorities Survey Q42012 revealed that only 8 percent of the organizations interviewed mentioned that they can’t move their legacy applications and systems to a public cloud infrastructure. This shows maturity. The public cloud market will grow from the $250 million in 2011 to $1.8 billion in 2020. Public cloud market segments (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) are driving awareness and demand.” Biswajeet Mahapatra, Research Director, Gartner India, agrees. “In the past few months we have seen customers more ready to adopt public cloud. Customers are testing the water, trying non-mission critical applications. I also see customers who are on a technology refresh cycle considering the public cloud as an option to reduce capex
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Public cloud adoption trends
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cover story Rate your public cloud business in the last 12 months 5%
5%
It’s all hype
Above expectation
32%
58%
As per expectation
Below expectation
Type of public cloud services you have sold in the last 12 months Office and mail and messaging 70% DR & Backup services
50%
Applications (ERP, CRM, BI)
38% Cloud-based automated managed services 27% Cloud security services 23% Bursting services 2%
Size of customers where you have deployed cloud services Customers with less than 99 nodes 64%
Customers with 100-499 nodes
61%
Customers with more than 500 nodes
39%
Industry verticals where you have deployed public cloud services IT & ITeS
57%
Education
50%
Professional services & Other services Manufacturing
43% 36%
Retail
34%
Media & Entertainment
29%
Logistics & Transportation 23% Auto manufacturing & Ancillary 21% Pharma & Healthcare 21% Real estate & Infrastructure 20% FMCG 18% Government & PSUs 18% BFSI 13% Telecom 9%
Future outlook for your public cloud business Plan to do less business than last year
Plan to do more business than last year
10% 14%
investment in software licenses.” Also helping the public cloud is the investments which vendors are making to set up infrastructure in the region. Amazon, Rackspace, Microsoft, Google, IBM and HP have all announced the setting-up of new data centers in the APAC region. The biggest advantage of the public cloud is that customers need not make upfront investments. According to some partners, vendors have also been doing their bit. “Over the past few quarters vendors have been making earnest pitches in both, collecting feedback and fine-tuning their offerings to fit the Indian market,” says Manasi Saha, CEO, Macaws Infotech Kolkata. Notes Vineet Kshirsagar, Director, Partner Strategy & Programs, Microsoft India, “Microsoft recently announced Office 365 Open, which helps a partner to directly bill the customer and buy the service through a Microsoft distributor.” Despite the recent momentum, there are still several challenges associated with the public cloud. “The biggest challenge is the lack of strong IT laws in the country. Some customers also have trust issues,” says Karthik Sahani, Country Manager, RSA India. Neeraj Jaitley, President, Enterprise Solutions, HCL Infosystems, says, “The recent failures of some public clouds, and the lack of education around cloud computing, are two of the disablers that we see in the Indian market for wider adoption of cloud computing.” Nearly 68 percent respondents of the CRN India Public Cloud Adoption survey feel that the lack of customer awareness is the biggest challenge for public cloud, while poor bandwidth is being blamed by 54 percent. Interestingly, 45 percent Challenges facing your public cloud services business Lack of customer awareness
Vendors billing directly
54% 45%
Lack of better pricing Plan to do same business than last year
76%
Number of respondents: 98
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43% ROI benefits are less than on-premise deployment 34%
Biswajeet Mahapatra Research Director Gartner India
are unhappy with the policy of most vendors who only offer commissions and do direct billing to the customers. Nearly 43 percent feel that pricing correction is required, while 34 percent feel that they, along with the vendors, are unable to convince customers about the real RoI benefits of the public cloud. While many in the industry are optimistic about public cloud growth, there are strong critics of the channel investments in forging strong relationships with bigger platform vendors. “The biggest growth segments globally are IaaS as well as PaaS in the public cloud computing market. This is precisely where vendors have not been able to engage with Indian tier-2 channels. Many partners engaged in the public cloud computing space have been reduced to app resellers or glorified Web hosters,” says L Ashok, CEO, 247 Computer Services, Chennai. “There are two reasons why the ramp-up on the public cloud could be faster,” says Bahl. “One, India has a smaller installed base of onpremise software, and two, there are large emerging local enterprise software vendors who are looking at the Software-as-a-Service model.”
Private cloud adoption trends 68%
Poor bandwidth connectivity
“Customers are testing the water, trying non-mission critical applications. Customers on a tech refresh are also considering the public cloud as an option”
Compared to public cloud, private cloud adoption has been more widespread. “Given ongoing concerns over data protection issues and confusion about data residency and sovereignty regulations, most Indian organizations have focused
cover story “The recent failures of some public clouds, and the lack of education around cloud computing, are two of the disablers that we see in the Indian market” Neeraj Jaitley
President, Enterprise Solutions, HCL Infosystems
on private cloud initiatives,” says Bahl. A study commissioned by EMC India and conducted by Zinnov puts the private cloud computing market at $3.5 billion by 2015. The market is estimated to cross $1.5 billion during 2013, growing at a CAGR of 92 percent. One of the key drivers for private clouds is that Indian enterprises see value in virtualizing existing infrastructure. “Indian enterprises have taken to private clouds faster, and are moving beyond virtualization to include automation, provisioning, orchestration layer and management. Also driving private clouds as compared to public clouds is a lack of trust regarding data security,” explains Jaitley. The government, which is governed by stringent laws regarding data security, is also betting on private clouds over public. Many state governments are trying to raise budgets for making their data centers cloud ready which their different departments could use. A key reason for private clouds seeing better adoption has been vendor support. Unlike public cloud computing, where some vendors are still figuring out the exact models for doing business, the private cloud is primarily an infrastructure business, so for vendors, distributors and partners it is business as usual. Explains AS Rajgopal, CEO, NxtGen Datacenter & Cloud Services, Bengaluru, “It is difficult to convince a typical Indian customer about the exact business impact of a public
cloud. By contrast, every aspect of a private cloud—from bill of materials to infrastructure details—are real, and can be measured easily. This is the reason we are seeing bigger adoption of private clouds.” Nevertheless, even private clouds have their challenges. Partners say that many customers do not see value for cloud computing beyond virtualization. “One of the biggest challenges for a partner selling private cloud is convincing the customer about the value. Many CIOs will argue back saying that it is cheaper to employ extra hands than invest in cloud software,” says Ashwin Waknis, Senior Solution Strategist, CA Technologies, India. This is where many partners feel that vendors need to do that little extra to convince the customer’s top management about the business aspects of the cloud. “Today, convincing the CIO about the cloud’s benefits from a technology point of view is easy. However, vendors need to do their bit to convince the CXO about the business benefits that go beyond IT,” suggests Sudarsan Ranganathan, CEO, Veeras Infotek, Chennai.
Rate your private cloud business in the last 12 months 3% 5%
Above expectation
37%
It’s all hype
55%
As per expectation
Below expectation
Industry verticals where you have deployed private cloud solutions IT & ITeS 48% Education 37%
Professional services 32%
Manufacturing 25%
BFSI Auto manufacturing Pharma & Healthcare FMCG
20% 20% 20% 18%
Retail
17% Media & Entertainment 15% Government & PSUs 15% Real estate & Infrastructure 15% Logistics & Transportation 15% Telecom 12%
Hybrid is the future
Apart from some segments such as government where due to data security and compliance issues a public cloud may take years to gain acceptance, most other segments are likely to see the adoption of both private and public clouds. “Presently, organizations in the SMB segment are likely to bet on the public cloud while larger enterprises are investing in private cloud. We are expecting that over the next few years there will be more acceptance of both models across organizations of all sizes,” says Devapriyo Chakravarty, Manager, Research, AMI Partners. Mahapatra says that while mission-critical applications will reside in the private cloud, less mission-critical applications will start moving to the public cloud. “This is precisely the opportunity which channels must tap. We see the emergence of a new breed of SIs called cloud brokers who could effectively deliver hybrid cloud
and optimize the workloads of onpremise infrastructure as well as public clouds,” adds Chakravarty. Says Amit Luthra, National Manager, Storage Solutions, Dell India, “We do not promote a rip-andreplace mentality, so you keep what you have invested in. What can be migrated to a public cloud can be done smoothly with better planning. What cannot can be transformed, into a private cloud.” Traditional hardware vendors such as IBM, HP, Dell and EMC are developing their new GTM strategies around the hybrid model. While HP
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Future outlook for your private cloud business
12% Expect same projects than last year
3%
Expect less projects than last year
85% Expect more projects than last year Number of respondents: 65
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cover story “Convincing the CIO about the cloud’s benefits is easy. But vendors need to do their bit to convince the CXO about the business benefits that go beyond IT” Sudarsan Ranganathan Chief Executive Officer Veeras Infotek
and IBM have their own enterprise public cloud platforms, EMC has announced Pivotal, a joint venture between VMware and EMC which offers public cloud computing services. Since one of the key fears of customers is vendor lock-in, partners see that as customers adopt hybrid clouds the partners stand to gain. Arun Kumar, General Manager,
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Red Hat India, sees a bigger role for partners who can act as advisors. “Unfortunately, IaaS providers offer customers the illusion of unlimited compute, network and storage capacity with a frictionless registration process. We are enabling our channels to advise customers precisely about choosing the right workload for IaaS and what precisely needs to run on a private cloud.” One of the key challenges for channels is that few public cloud computing vendors have evolved distribution models which are as user-friendly as the regular box business. Distributors such as Ingram Micro, Redington, Avnet and Westcon have already readied groups that can sell cloud services through channels. Says Kshirsagar, “Without doubt, Microsoft sees a bigger role for the traditional distributor in the cloud business in not just transactions but also in channel enablement.” Till a few months back, one of
“A new breed of SIs called cloud brokers could deliver hybrid clouds and optimize the workloads of on-premise infrastructure as well as public cloud” Devapriyo Chakravarty Manager, Research AMI Partners
the biggest fears of a channel partner was that the cloud could make the partner obsolete. With changing vendor strategies, at least in India, it is clear that the channel does have a bigger role to play as cloud adoption matures. And for the partner who is willing to make the right investments there may even be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. n
cover story Cloud making a difference to customers Advance saves big with cloud
A
dvance Surfactants a specialty chemical company with eight corporate offices was finding difficult to cope up with the level of growth in middle and back-end processes. Due to increasing focus on core areas like R&D, non-core areas like IT, HR, Finance were suffering. “The company had 200 IT users catered by 8 servers spread over five distributed data centers approaching end of life. Since the legacy applications were not integrated there was lot of data duplicity. Moreover, managing them was a big trouble,” informs Vikram Dham, CEO and MD, Emkor Solutions. Advance was using SAP for the past 6 years but did not have right resources to use it to the fullest. Emkor completely replaced their IT systems and offered Exchange, Vikram Dham Lync, Sharepoint, Dynamics ERP and CRM, HR and payroll application as SaaS and 160 virtual desktops. “Now, they have only one server as secondary domain controller. We transferred their SAP data on our vertical specific ERP for specialty chemicals and provided managed service for master data record. In all, they have got everything on cloud,” highlights Dham. Dham emphasizes that Advance would have spent over `4 crore over 3 years on software licenses, storage, server, power and IT manpower. “Advance Surfactants is saving 40 percent on their IT spends per annum, which will amount to a total cost saving of at least `1.6 crore during next three years.” n
Advance Surfactants is saving 40 percent on their IT spends per annum, which will amount to a total cost saving of at least `1.6 crore during next three years”
Garment exporter adopts Office 365 to save `5 lakh
India Infoline moves mail to cloud
A
Mumbai-based garment and textile exporter who had been using on-premise Microsoft Exchange for the last 6-7 years wanted to upgrade all its 15 users to a newer version. Instead, it opted for solutions from Microsoft Office 365. Today, all the 15 users are using Online Exchange, SharePoint and Lync. “It was not hard to convince the customer. They saw the benefits and the savings and were ready to experiment with the cloud,” asserts Suresh Ramani, CEO, TechGyan. “The exporter saved `2 lakh on hardware, `50,000 on backup software, cost for new licenses, `4,000 per month on electricity, and got additional S Ramani features such as unified communication, 25 GB per mailbox, document sharing feature etc for `12,000-14,000 per month. Moreover, the IT administrator can archive a copy of all the incoming and outgoing mails on Live.com, which is a free utility. Overall, the customer invested somewhere around `2-2.5 lakh instead of `7.5 lakh,” he explains. In the same organization, Ramani enabled two senior executives to adopt the cloud on their Windows 8 phones. “Windows 8 has applications that can enable a user to manage the cloud, including SharePoint and Lync. Gradually, more executives would be migrated to Windows 8 phones.” n
T
The exporter has saved `2 lakh on hardware, `50,000 on backup and software and `4,000 per month on electricity. Overall, by investing `2-2.5 lakh it saved `7.5 lakh”
IIFL’s emails were hosted at Netmagic with a large battery of people managing 25 servers. Even then, emails were delayed and system maintenance was time consuming”
eam Computers has deployed Google cloud-based email solutions at India Infoline (IIFL), a large financial services provider. IIFL offers advisory and execution platforms to over a million clients, through its wide network of over 3,000 business locations across 500 cities and towns. “IIFL’s emails were hosted on a server farm at Netmagic with a large battery of people managing 25 servers. Even then, the emails were delayed and upgrading the system was time consuming,” says A Rajendran, Director, Team Computers. Since IIFL used freeware, the cost of server and software license was not very high. “The company was A Rajendran looking at efficiency in terms of response time and flexibility to increase the number of email accounts and convert the payment mode from capex to opex,” he adds. Team offered increased storage capacity incorporating upto 25 GB of mail, 1 GB of documents and 500 MB of video sharing per user and other features like Picasa and Google Sites to support Intranet pages and internal training. It also bundled 50 services on Apps. IIFL is now using the bandwidth to share videos and other benefits at the same cost they were spending merely for email. “Bandwidth usage has reduced by 30 percent over the last two years,” Rajendran claims. n
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cover story Cloud services to bet on O
ffice apps and unified communications are just two of the several opportunities in public cloud computing services that channels should consider pursuing
1
Office Apps on the Cloud
Many partners who took the CRN Cloud Adoption Survey feel that the easiest public cloud computing service to offer through channels is migrating on-premise office applications to the cloud. Google, Zoho and Microsoft have more than 2,000 partners in the country selling their office applications on the cloud. Commission range from 12-19 percent annually on new subscriptions and 6-10 percent for existing customers. Ever since Microsoft announced the Office 365 Open program, the business model of billing through a distributor, flexible pricing and payment terms for customers, things have become easier for partners. Services opportunities: Migration per user from on-premise is expected to fetch a one-time fee of `500-1,000.
2
UC on the cloud
A growing opportunity is emerging with UC off the cloud, and apart from the big players, many niche players have emerged. While Microsoft offers Lync as an added feature with Office 365, competition is coming from Cisco, Digium and Avaya which have announced hosted UC offerings. Other players such as Super Receptionist, Knowlarity,Twilio and Plivo allow SIs to offer telephony solutions off the net. Services opportunities: There are huge opportunities for SIs to replace traditional PBX with public telephony solutions. Cisco estimates services
Many partners who took the CRN Cloud Adoption Survey feel that the easiest public cloud computing service is migrating on-premise office applications to the cloud 22
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revenue to be almost equal to the first year’s annual hosting costs.
3
Storage/Backup/DR
While primary storage is still not considered suitable for movement to a public cloud because of latency issues, content which is often served over the net is fast moving to a public cloud. Amazon’s public storage service S3 is being used by Web application owners to host static content. Akamai and Amazon CloudFront have emerged for providing caching content. Meanwhile, secondary storage, backup and archival are emerging as the hottest opportunities with almost two dozen vendors emerging. Many channel partners have also set up their own white-labeled public cloud practices. For instance, Sanovi Technologies has started offering solutions of public clouds, while Dropbox recently announced a corporate plan. For archival, Amazon has announced Glaciers, which offers 1 TB of archival for as low as $10. Services opportunities: Apart from migration, channels can play a services role in consulting, integration and maintenance.
4
Business Applications
Salesforce.com was the pioneer in moving CRM to the cloud. Today, Microsoft is offering Microsoft Dynamics online, while SAP has announced multiple partnerships to offer various SAP applications on the cloud. One of the biggest challenges so far has been the massive customizations which business applications require while being hosted off a public cloud. Vendors such as TCS have found solutions to sell hosted ERP in a consultative model. While Tally has stayed away from hosted models of its ERP solution, a number of Tally partners have set up cloud-enabled models around Tally. Services opportunities: Services opportunities remain more or less the same as in the case of on-premise models with consulting, integration,
training and customization.
5
IT Management
6
Infrastructure & Platform
Almost all vendors in the IMS tool space have announced cloud initiatives. While Kaseya has had a beta version for long, Zoho and Sapphire have a hosted model. However, partners expect Microsoft with Windows Intune to provide the biggest surprise because 93 percent of Indian SMBs run mostly Windowsbased infrastructure. Services opportunities: Automated Managed Services are emerging as the future for IMS, hence partners are expected to offer cloud-based IMS-asa-service assurance rather than as a value addition.
Globally, the most public cloud services revenue is around PaaS and IaaS. In 2013, Microsoft, Amazon and Google are expected to see revenue in excess of a billion dollars each. However in India few channel partners have started offering services around these platforms, one reason being that migrating on-premise applications to these platforms requires skillsets which not all partners possess. However, with Microsoft and Amazon investing in training and support, analysts expect more partners to venture into offering solutions on top of an Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Red Hat OpenShift or Google AppEngine. Services opportunities: Amazon estimates that resellers can make services revenue that is up to $2 for every dollar spent on hosting charges for the first year, apart from recurring commissions. n
Globally, most public cloud services revenue is around PaaS and IaaS. In 2013, Microsoft, Amazon and Google are expected to see revenue in excess of $1 billion each
cover story Tips for a successful cloud practice Make the cloud practice a separate P&L account Irrespective of the strengths and weaknesses of a partner, the right approach to growing the cloud business is to set it up as a separate business unit. “While this may not be easy for many partners, we have seen that focused partners have met with better results. The cloud means a change in business approach for the customer, and many a time this means moving portions of the IT business from a capex to an opex model,” says Ganesan Arumugam, Director, Channels & Alliances, VMware India.
Understand changing cash flows Unless you are offering pure private cloud infrastructure consulting and deployment, the cloud changes the cash flow situation for most resellers. A key aspect of getting the cloud business practice right is to understand, analyze and predict cash flows. Solution providers need to calculate how much money they can make. Because cloud services depend on recurring revenue rather than periodic hardware sales, the process is complicated. Investments need to be planned considering the cash flow.
Understand that migration expertise is key A partner will need to build expertise depending on the
“The challenge for customers is not knowing how to migrate to the cloud. They don’t want vendors pushing cloud products, but consultants to help them with this shift” Ashwin Waknis
Senior Solution Strategist CA Technologies, India
platforms, technologies and domains he chooses. However, according to pundits from the customer side, the biggest demand is for migration strategies. “I think the biggest challenge is that customers do not know how to migrate to the cloud. They are not sure where to start. They don’t want software vendors pushing cloud products, they want cloud consultants to help them with this shift,” explains Ashwin Waknis, Senior Solution Strategist, CA Technologies, India. Understand that all workloads are not meant for the cloud The cloud is often hyped to such an extent that many customers are made to believe by many partners that they can run all their business off the cloud. This could lead to mistakes that can result in the partner losing customers. Explains Vineet Kshirsagar, Director, Partner Strategy & Programs, Microsoft, “The first thing we tell partners is that not all workloads are meant for the cloud. Choosing the right workload and designing the right cloud migration strategy is the first step in cloud computing consulting.” Build virtualization expertise While this may not be important if you are planning to limit yourself to selling products such as Microsoft Office 365 or Google Apps, virtualization is the most important skill-set required. “With most customers not wanting to get locked down on one vendor, it is imperative for partners to start building skills across various platforms. The other choice is to work with a vendor like IBM who can back you up,” advises Vamsicharan Mudiam, Country Manager, Cloud Solutions, IBM India/SA.
Understand SLAs The cloud is not a magic wand that will give you everything under the sun. Every cloud vendor has carefully-spelt SLAs, and it is important that all the details are
explained to the customer very carefully. “Partners should ensure that SLAs signed with customers are covered back-to-back with the SLAs offered by the cloud provider,” says S Sriram, CEO, iValue Infosolutions.
Differentiate pricing models One mistake which some partners make is not explaining the comparative costs of the cloud and an on-premise solution. The fact remains that the cloud is not necessarily a money saver even when you consider the advantages of the opex in all scenarios. “Explain thoroughly the benefits of both a cloud and an on-premise solution. In this way customers are more likely to see you as a trusted adviser,” adds Mudiam.
Build software skills Whether public, private or hybrid clouds, to scale up the business the partner needs software skills. Depending on the cloud service provider you partner, it is important to start building skills, or have strong outsourced relationships that can help you provide the extra services to customers on demand. “You need not set up a large team, but you need simple skills such as having access to coders who can generate reports or automate functions based on APIs,” explains Satish Nair, Manager, System Engineering, F5 Networks India. n
“Explain thoroughly the benefits of both a cloud and an on-premise solution. In this way customers are more likely to see you as a trusted adviser” Vamsicharan Mudiam
Country Manager Cloud Solutions, IBM India/SA
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market focus
Are your products BIS-compliant?
A Government of India order has made it mandatory for 15 IT and electronic products to be compliant with the specifications of the Bureau of Indian Standards by July 3, 2013 n CRN Network
T
he Requirements for Compulsory Registration Order (RCRO) 2012 issued by the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) makes it compulsory for 15 IT and electronic products to be compliant with the specifications of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Only BIS-compliant products will be allowed for sale, manufacture and import in India in the 15 categories mentioned. The government had earlier set April 3, 2013 for vendors to get their products BIS-compliant. However, after requests from manufacturers and industry bodies, the deadline has been extended to July 3, 2013. The 15 categories notified by the government to undergo BIS testing and certification include notebooks, video games, tablets, plasma/LCD/LED TV sets and monitors (above 32-inch), printers, scanners, telephone answering machines, electronic music systems, ODDs, microwave ovens, wireless keyboards, amplifiers, electronics clocks, set-top boxes and automatic data processing machines. Desktop PCs and components have been excluded from the list.
The order The RCRO is applicable to imported as well as locally manufactured products. If imported goods are not BIScompliant the customs authorities can confiscate the shipments. The regulation also allows the DeitY and the BIS to raid and seize any premise that is manufacturing, stocking or selling the notified products. If the notified products are found BIS non-compliant the manufacturer, distributor or reseller can be booked under the
Positive impact Most in the industry have welcomed the RCRO. Partners and vendors believe that the new order will remove unhealthy competition and price wars from non-serious players. Remarks Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director, Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT), “It will also remove parallel imports. We completely support the government’s decision to set standards. The order can help resolve several challenges faced by the industry, and instill confidence among consumers because it will raise the quality and safety standards of the products.” Agrees Sandeep Arya, Chairman, Amtrak
“There are 8,000 models among recognized IT players which need certification. The 14 existing BIS labs can test only 500 devices per month”
“Many companies import products from China that have sub-standard components harmful to users. The RCRO will ensure such companies can’t sell products in India”
Anwar Shirpurwala
Sandeep Arya
Executive Director, MAIT
24
Contravention of BIS Act 1986. The order allows the government to randomly select samples of registered electronic goods to ascertain whether these goods conform to the specified standards. Under the RCRO, even consumers are empowered to file cases in consumer courts for a missing or fake BIS mark on the notified products. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution controls the BIS. According to the DeitY website, the reason for this new order is to mandate technical standards in the interests of public health and safety. At the same time, the regulation will serve as global quality standards for domestic manufacturers to follow so that they can compete with imports by meeting international safety standards.
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Chairman, Amtrak Technologies
market focus “Any new product launched in the global market will take at least 4-6 weeks to be launched in India because it will have to undergo the due certification process”
“RCRO will deal a serious blow to smaller importers and brands. They will not be able to bear the cost burden of `1.5 lakh for certifying every model”
Abhijit Ghosh
Champakraj Gurjar
Head, Commercial Business, Neoteric
CEO, Maxtone Electronics
Technologies, “There are many companies which either import cheap products from China or manufacture them locally without any quality control. Many of these products emit radiations harmful to humans, or contain sub-standard batteries and other components. The new order will end the business of the short-term players who only intend to make quick money.” In the long run this will benefit the consumer. “Such strict actions will benefit consumers and resellers. While the consumers will pay only for safe and certified products, the resellers will not lose customers to unhealthy price wars,” adds Abhijit Ghosh, Head, Commercial Business, Neoteric. The PC assemblers have welcomed the government’s decision of not including desktops and components in its list of notified products. “If they had been included it would have created a big disadvantage for the assembled PC makers and many would have been forced to shut shop,” opines Chetan Shah, CEO, Xpress Computers.
Negative impact Achieving BIS certification is an uphill task because there are not enough labs for BIS certification. “In our estimate, among the recognized players alone there are 8,000 models which need certification. The three existing government labs, six government-recognized labs and four private labs can test only 500 devices per month and might not be able to certify all these products because there are huge backlogs,” says Shirpurwala. While the government has signaled it will authorize more private labs for BIS certification, there is no timeline for when this will happen. Even if there are enough
labs, vendors are worried about the delay in launching products in India. According to Ghosh, “Any new product launched in the global market will take at least 4-6 weeks to be launched in India because it will have to undergo the due certification process.” S Rajendran, CMO, Acer, adds, “We appreciate the government stance on ensuring quality, and are working to streamline processes with our ODMs and factories to ensure that GTM delays are minimized. However, the logistics of the entire process will be complicated, and will not only delay launches but also add costs.” That is one big issue about the RCRO—the cost of testing and certifying a single model (or SKU) which is currently `1.5 lakh. “Presently, OEMs need to pay a hefty sum to get their products certified. Vendors will be careful while launching new models and will limit the number of SKUs of their products or they will end up paying a lot of money for certification,” comments Ghosh. MAIT is lobbying with the government to reduce the cost of BIS certification. “The government has assured us that they are working to reduce the certification cost, and an announcement is expected soon,” says Shirpurwala. Meanwhile, Champakraj Gurjar, CEO, Maxtone Electronics, says that the RCRO will deal a serious blow to smaller importers and brands. “There are many distributors who import products from Taiwan and China to either sell them under their own brand or the OEM brand. These products will now need BIS certification to be sold in India, and that too at a steep cost. I don’t think small players will be able to bear the certification cost of `1.5 lakh for every model.” n
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role model
The triumphant trio
VDA Infosolutions—named after its three founders, Vikas Save, Deepak Jadhav and Ashutosh Deuskar—has emerged as one of India’s leading SIs in just three years after its inception n SONAL DESAI
I
n just over three years since its inception, Mumbaibased VDA Infosolutions has emerged as one of the leading IT systems integrators (SIs) in the country. The company boasts of 100+ customers that include the Who’s Who of India Inc, and has some of the largest private cloud and application modernization deals to its credit. “From the start our aim was to offer cutting-edge solutions to customers, hence we have stayed away from pure hardware sales,” explains Deepak Jadhav, Director & Head, Vendor Relationships & Enterprise Accounts, VDA. Adds Vikas Save, Director & Head, Pre-sales & Implementation Unit, VDA, “We have executed milliondollar deals by staying ahead of the technology curve. It shows the trust of vendors and customers in our solutions capabilities.” “Between the three of us we have 70 years of experience in technology solutions and services,” says Ashutosh Deuskar, Founder Director & Head, Services & Sales, VDA. “Services is the key gene in our DNA, as well as the key to VDA’s success.”
The beginning CMS Computers was the intersection point for the trio. Jadhav, a BE in Electronics & Communications, joined the company as a trainee field engineer in 1985 and was instrumental in recruiting Deuskar in 1991. Save joined CMS in 1990 but left in two years to join Access Systems, a SI organization. Jadhav and Deuskar remained with CMS till 2006. While Jadhav became the National Head of CMS’ Services Division, Deuskar moved to the role of Regional Head for Pune. Then in 2005-06, when CMS began spinning off or selling its various businesses, the duo decided to turn entrepreneurs. “In 2007, both of us exited CMS to join Save who was a Founder Director of Enhanced Software Solutions (ESS),” Jadhav informs. Yet another turning point was awaiting the trio—they had to quit ESS in FY2009-10. They later formed VDA Infosolutions in FY2010-11. “VDA stands for Vikas, Deepak and Ashutosh. In Spanish, ViDA means ‘life,’ so the positioning of VDA is that we are our customers’ IT
“From the start our aim was to offer cutting-edge solutions to customers, hence we have stayed away from pure hardware sales” 26
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Vikas Save, Deepak Jadhav and Ashutosh Deuskar
lifeline,” explains Jadhav. VDA’s first fiscal turnover crossed `35 crore. “In the first year itself we executed the first Vblock private cloud project worth `8 crore for KPIT Cummins. This was the first large project for the Cisco-EMC-VMware-led Vblock in India. Subsequently, we implemented two more VBlock solutions worth `7 crore for the same customer.” says Save. Adds Deuskar, “We started focusing on customers in the BFSI and IT/ITeS verticals, understood their painpoints, and architected customized solutions by using best-in-breed products. We used these case studies as referrals to talk to CIOs, and won many large deals.” The Vblock projects gave the company an entry into more enterprise accounts which were hitherto dominated by large SIs such as HCL and Wipro. “We developed our forte in private clouds, and have so far deployed nine private clouds totally worth `25 crore,” informs Jadhav. VDA also signed up with RSA for security and Micro Focus for application modernization and software testing. The Micro Focus sign-up came at a very apt time. Large customers with legacy applications in COBOL were looking for inter-operability and a refresh with added functionality like GUI. Says Jadhav, “We deployed two large application modernization projects, and executed 10 software testing projects. Micro Focus contributed 11 percent our overall revenue last fiscal.”
Current business Despite the economic slowdown, VDA’s focus on emerging technologies contributed to strong growth of
Role model
2013
2012
2012
2012
2011
2011
2010
and build cost-effective solutions 45 percent during FY2012-13 when MILESTONES for customers using in-house skilled it recorded `60.6 crore in turnover resources,” Save says. compared to `42 crore in the Asserts Deuskar, “We believe previous fiscal. VDA Infosolutions was that there is enough place in Besides, rather than focusing incepted the market for everyone. It is a on acquiring new accounts, VDA question of how well you position focused on deep-selling. “We Turnover crossed `35 crore in the solution for your customer developed core competencies around the very first fiscal without bias toward Product A or de-duplication, virtualization, Product B. This gives confidence software modernization, cloud Deployed first private cloud of to the customer that the partner is computing, backup, archival and `8 crore for KPIT Cummins concerned about the customer’s DR,” says Deuskar. pain-areas and is not merely VDA won a very large deal worth Signed up with RSA, and furthering the partner’s agenda. We `8 crore from a leading private bank Micro Focus for application have stuck by this thumb-rule.” for modernizing its core banking modernization While VDA can grow faster than applications using the Micro Focus what it is doing right now, Jadhav platform and tools. Signed application says that the company has taken Today, VDA has 15 key modernization deal of `8 crore a conscious decision to focus on customers whose annual FMS quality rather than quantity. “Our contracts exceed `1 crore each. for a leading bank core philosophy is to partake in “Among the rest, there are a projects that have a strong solutions few customers whose annual Executed 9 private cloud angle. We are therefore hesitant to billing is `6 crore-8 crore per projects during the year take projects which do not have a annum. Our mandate includes solutions angle, or where we do not facility management, private Recorded a turnover of have control over the customers.” cloud, consultancy and systems `60.6 crore integration. This shows that we have gained their confidence as Future growth their preferred partner for managing their IT,” says Save. VDA is aiming to hit the `100 crore mark in the next two For one such top-15 customer, a large insurance years. “Not in terms of size, but in skills and capabilities company, VDA deployed a storage de-duplication we want to be rated among the top-3 SIs,” reveals Jadhav. solution during the last fiscal. Says Jadhav, “Earlier we VDA already has a project pipeline worth `20 crore in had provided a backup solution for the company which hand. Says Save, “We are now expanding our sales force was growing very quickly. Considering the changed and geographical reach. The focus will be to create a business scenario and compliance issues, we suggested strong second line of management and move to the north de-duplication to the CXOs and showed them a strong where we have a very limited presence.” RoI for doing so.” On the technology front, the company plans to For another large insurance services customer, in a focus on big data, analytics and cloud computing. Says project worth `4 crore, VDA virtualized more than 130 Deuskar, “We want to create a headstart for VDA in big servers to 11; this led to significant savings in electricity data analytics just like we did in private clouds.” and rack space with 30 percent headroom for future needs. On a personal note One more project it executed in FY2012-13 was for Besides technology, the three friends share a passion yet another large insurance company where VDA moved for seafood and travel. An aqua person, Save loves the 6,000 Indian users of Microsoft Exchange from the Chinchani beach near Thane and the Pangong Lake in company’s global mail server to one in India. Ladakh. Godfather by Mario Puzo and Yayati by VS Khadekar are his favorite books. Jadhav’s favorite destination in India is Best practices Mahabaleshwar, while Switzerland is where he usually Jadhav, Deuskar and Save are firm believers in the prefers his annual retreat with his family. He is greatly customer-first policy. “We have a clear strategy inspired by Lee Iacocca who helped boost the fortunes of to maintain transparency with core employees several US auto makers during the 1970s-80s. and customers. Our aim is to establish long-term Deuskar is a hardcore non-vegetarian, and loves relationships. For that we focus on emerging products Pune and Singapore. Oh Mind Relax Please, authored by Swami Sukhabodhananda, is his favourite book. “We are expanding our sales force and The trio believes in philanthropic activities, but prefers to do it anonymously. “We feel privileged to be reach. The focus will be to create a second where we are in life, and think it is high time we gave line of management and move to the north back to the society.” n
where we have limited presence”
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tech focus getting ready
for big data According to a recent Cisco survey, 68 percent of enterprises globally identify big data as a top priority—but only 41 percent of them have the network infrastructure to support big data deployments n KRISTIN BENT
T
here is no arguing that big data has become the talk of the tech world in 2013. But what is the situation on the ground? To that end, Cisco has compiled a report titled The Potential and Challenge of Big Data which reveals statistics related to the proliferation of unstructured data and how it is shaking up today’s IT landscape. The study compiles survey results from 1,800 IT professionals across 18 countries related to their big data strategies, budgets and challenges in 2013 and the years to come. Here is a look at the highlights.
Big data is a strategic priority for the majority According to the report, organizations expect to invest much of their time—and money—on big data initiatives over the next few years. Roughly 60 percent of IT managers believe that big data will increase their companies’ global competitiveness, while 68 percent identified big data as a strategic priority for their companies in 2013 and over the course of the next five years. Big data initiatives are having a positive impact on corporate IT budgets with 60 percent of the respondents saying that they expect their IT budgets to increase in 2013. However, enterprises are currently struggling to define their big data strategies. When asked if the big data discussions at their companies resulted in strategic plans or solutions, 44 percent said yes, 35 percent said they are still evaluating, and 21 percent said those discussions only resulted in confusion or uncertainty. The report says that big data is driving big-time adoption of the cloud. 81 percent of the survey respondents said that cloud computing will be necessary for all, or at least some, of their big data-related IT projects.
organizations as it does an opportunity for competitive advantage. Approximately 27 percent of the respondents said that big data opens up security and risk management challenges, while 16 percent said they lack the budget to implement any big data strategy at all. What’s more, 14 percent of the survey participants said they lack the time to properly study big data, and 13 percent said they lack the IT staff to kick-start a big data initiative. Big data, along with other technologies such as mobility and video, is expected to have a major impact on organizations’ networks and infrastructure moving forward. Nearly 48 percent said network loads are expected to double and 23 percent said they’re expected to triple over the next two years. Meanwhile, only 41 percent said their networks are ready—from a bandwidth or security standpoint—to handle this spike. Business intelligence and analytics are what ultimately drive the value behind big data, but not all organizations feel that that value is being realized. More than 85 percent of the respondents said they analyze their data in some way today, but only 28 percent said they feel they are getting strategic value from those initiatives. Another 38 percent of the respondents admitted that they need a more strategic plan when it comes to data analytics.
The Internet of things is here
If Cisco’s study makes one thing clear, it is that big data represents just as big a technical challenge for
The Internet of things—or the process by which objects are beginning to communicate with one another through embedded wireless sensors—may seem like something out of a science fiction novel, but, according to Cisco’s survey, more organizations may be looking to embrace the trend than we think. A substantial number of survey respondents—73 percent—said they expect their big data strategy to include data from digital sensors, meters, cars and other smart devices. n
If Cisco’s study makes one thing clear, it is that big data represents just as big a technical challenge for organizations as it does an opportunity for competitive advantage
14 percent of the survey participants said they lack the time to properly study big data, while 13 percent said they lack the IT staff to kick-start a big data initiative
Big data leads to big IT challenges
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channel buzz HCL collaborates with fashion designer
n Khwaja Saifuddin,
Senior Sales Director, Middle East South Asia and Africa, WD, walking the ramp with an underprivileged child
WD to help 125 underprivileged kids Western Digital (WD) has joined hands with the Smile Foundation to support the education of 125 underprivileged children for a year in India. The company recently concluded its Ramp for Champs, a star-studded fund-raising event. The event provided underprivileged children with the opportunity to walk the ramp with celebrities such as Bhagyashree, Mini Ribeiro, Tisca Chopra, Kiran Juneja, Remo D’Souza, Claudia Ciesla and Amit Sana. “These kids have the potential to become doctors, scientists or teachers. WD is happy to be a part of this initiative and support them to realize their dreams,” said Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director, Middle East, South Asia & Africa, Western Digital. WD will auction some of its products autographed by celebrities and use the funds raised for the education of these children. n
HCL Infosystems collaborated with Nida Mahmood—artist, fashion designer and painter—to launch its latest range of ME tablets at a recently-held fashion event. Using ME tablets Mahmood displayed her collection called VDO GAGA themed around the concept of a time machine. Models walked the ramp wearing tablets that played live media content. n n Ace model Jesse Randhawa
walking the ramp wearing Nida Mahmood’s collection
MicroHard wins Lenovo award
n Trend Micro partners during the meet at Bangkok
Surat-based MicroHard won the Lenovo Best Performance award in the large enterprise category at the recent Lenovo International Channel Conference held in Vietnam. MicroHard received the award for providing the best IT infrastructure solutions to Lenovo customers. “Whatever we have achieved so far is because of our consultative approach and hard work which have made us a trusted IT infrastructure solutions provider. The award has encouraged us to work harder,” said Bhavesh Rathod, Director, MicroHard. MicroHard, which was started in 1986, is focused on providing solutions to gems & jewelry companies. n
Trend Micro on an incentive trip
n Ramnathan S, Head, Large Enterprise Segment, Lenovo, Rahul Agarwal, Executive Director, Commercial Business, Lenovo, Bhavesh Rathod, Director, MicroHard, and Nitin Garg, Head, Strategy and Operations, Lenovo
Trend Micro recently took 130 of its performing partners to a 4-day event in Bangkok and Pattaya as part of its Titanium Kharido, Bangkok Jao incentive scheme. These partners won the free international trip on the purchase of a certain number of Trend Micro Titanium licenses. During the event, partners were taken to the Alcazar Show and Coral Island. They also went para-sailing and deep-sea diving. The highlight of the event was the awards night during which the best sub-distributors from various regions were felicitated. Winners included the Chennai-based ASP Computers, Mysore-based Arihant Infotech, Gandhidham-based Sanghvi Enterprise, Kolkata-based MS Computech, Ludhiana-based Stunning Technologies and Imphalbased Mangal Infotech. Trend Micro also shared its India plans for consumer products for 2013. “The scheme has established the importance of partners for us. We will continue introducing profitable schemes to help them in their business growth,” said Rajat Sahu, PMM, Consumer, India & Saarc, Trend Micro. n
To feature your company’s events in CRN, send write-ups with photographs to editor@ubmindia.com
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New Products Asus Nexus 7 tablet
iBall Edu-Slide i-1017 tablet
A
i
sus has launched its Nexus 7 tablet sporting a 1.3 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 1 GB RAM. The device comes with Android Jelly Bean OS. It sports a 7-inch display that comes with TruVivid technology and Corning Fit Glass, and has a wideviewing angle of 178 degree IPS and a resolution of 1,280x800 pixel. The tablet sports a 1.2 MP front camera, has 32 GB of internal storage further expandable up to 64 GB via microSD card and is available in two variants of 3G and Wi-Fi. The device comes with a textured tactile design, measures 10.45 mm in thickness and weighs 340 gms. Its Li-Ion 4325 mAh battery provides nine hours of HD video playback. The 3G version is available at an MRP of `21,999 while the Wi-Fi version is available at an MRP of `18,999. Both carry a one-year warranty. n
Ball has launched a new education tablet, the iBall Edu-Slide i-1017 which sports a dual-core Cortex A9 1.5 GHz processor along with a G400 Mali Graphic processor, has a 1 GB RAM, and supports Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The tablet has a 10.1-inch screen with a 1,280x800 pixel resolution; it sports a 2 MP rear camera and a VGA front camera. The device comes with 8 GB internal storage expandable up to 64 GB.
The i-1017 offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB 2.0 connectivity options. The tablet can connect to 3G networks via 3G/CDMA dongles. It features a Li-Ion 8,000 mAh battery that provides 16 hours of standby. The tablet is available at an MRP of `12,999 and carries a one-year warranty. n
Videocon VT 75C tablet
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Lenovo IdeaCentre A720 AIO
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enovo has launched its IdeaCentre A720, which it says is the slimmest 27-inch AIO at 24.5 mm in thickness. It features a 10-point multi-touch screen with full HD frameless display unit and a 95 degree adjustable viewing angle. The AIO sports an Intel Core i5 3.1 GHz processor with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2. The device comes with 6 GB RAM expandable up to 8 GB, and has a 500 GB HDD and DVD-Writer/Blu-ray disc combo. It also sports an Nvidia GeForce GT 630M with video memory of 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM. The device has an integrated TV tuner and stereo speakers supporting Dolby Home Theatre v4 and HD webcam. The AIO comes at an MRP of `1,15,990 and carries a one-year limited warranty. n
ideocon has launched a 7-inch tablet, the VT 75C, which also allows 2G voice calling. The product is powered by a 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, has 512 GB RAM, and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The tablet has a screen resolution of 800x480 pixels and supports full HD video playback. The VT 75C has a 2 MP rear camera and a VGA frontfacing camera. The VT 75C comes with 4 GB internal storage expandable up to 32 GB via a microSD card. The device offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The tablet can connect to 3G networks via a USB dongle. The VT 75C has a 3,000 mAh battery that provides six hours of talktime. The VT 75C is available at an MRP of `6,499 and carries a one-year warranty. n
The products featured here have not undergone any benchmarking or testing. The trailers contain information provided by vendors and distributors. To feature your company’s products in CRN, send write-ups with photos to editor@ubmindia.com
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Deploy Helpdesk call center on the fly
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shadow ram Partner-vendor unity triumphs
W
e usually hear tales about partner associations being at loggerheads with vendors, but when they unite for a cause it can work wonders. Here is an example. A prominent college in Kochi recently tendered for 300 licenses of Microsoft Office. An MS education partner in Kerala won the tender and supplied the products. But within a week of contract fulfillment the college figured that it need not buy 300 licenses, so it canceled the tender, refused to pay the partner, and issued a re-tender. Since educational licenses are irrevocable, the partner approached AKITDA, the local association, for a resolution. AKITDA ensured that no other partner quoted for the re-tender, and influenced Microsoft to issue a letter to the college management stating that the college would not be serviced through any other partner. Further, the Microsoft team refused to conduct campus interviews at the college, and is believed to have communicated to the college management that since the licenses were not paid for the software would be illegal. The college finally admitted its mistake and paid the partner. n
GET
Personal
“I want to build a billion dollar hi-tech company” Ravishankar V is the Co-founder & President, India Operations, Nevales Networks, a Silicon Valley cloud security start-up launched in 2010. Prior to his tech venture, he spent 15 years in various senior positions in the banking sector. If not in the IT industry: I’d have continued with banking. Biggest passion: Building innovative products, world-class teams and a company to reckon with.
Ravishankar
Behind the wheel: A mountain bike. Gadget I cannot live without: My BlackBerry. Weekends are for: Family and friends, and recharging. Favorite holiday destination: Goa. Hate the most: Politicking. Favorite movie: Guns of Navarone. Favorite star: Aamir Khan. Role model: NR Narayana Murthy. Ultimate ambition: Building a billion-dollar, hi-tech innovation company in India. Wildest thing I have ever done: Eating snails. Thing I most want to do in life: Achieve my ambition of being among the top cloud service providers. If I became the PM: I would encourage SMBs, entrepreneurship, technology adoption and domestic consumption. Celebrity I’d like to spend a day with: Aamir Khan. One person I would like to meet and why: NR Narayana Murthy, to hear about his experiences while building hi-tech in India, and how we can be more competitive as a nation. Deepest and darkest fear: That there will be no more life on this planet after a few years. n — CRN Network
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Computer Reseller News
15/04/2013 www.crn.in
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