Crn 15 august 2013 all pages by UBM India

contents

August 15, 2013 l Volume 2 Issue 20

Cover Story Despite the slowdown, enterprise storage continues to grow in double digits and promises healthy margins. It is time for partners to build expertise in storage solutions and services

19 Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik

NEWS Analyses

Channel Chief

VMware rolls out new partner initiatives

Best IT World eyes `1,000 crore topline

Quick Heal focuses on enterprise biz

Konica ventures into A4 printer market

Editorial 10 Opinion

Feedback

Channel Buzz

New Products

Shadow Ram

Get Personal

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15 Market Focus Storage intensive According to industry estimates, the overall external storage market in India clocked approximately `2,500 crore and is expected to double by 2016

17 Role Model

P Krishnakumar Executive Director and GM, Consumer and SMB, Dell India, speaks about the company’s future plans and strategies to reclaim the top slot in the consumer PC market

The avid learner Rajendra Seksaria, Director, Balaji Solutions, attributes his success to a friend’s taunt which gave him the determination to venture into the IT industry

Tech Focus Coolest open source products Partners can help customers save time and money by recommending these open source apps. What’s more, they can deploy it for internal use as well

starting line MUST

VMware rolls out new partner initiatives

Best IT World eyes `1,000 crore topline

n Ramdas S

Read

Best IT World, which sells computer peripherals and accessories under the iBall brand, wants to garner revenue of `1,000 crore in FY2013-14 riding on tablets and smartphones sales, channel expansion and enhanced post-sales support. “Overall, our topline grew 55 percent in FY2012-13 with revenue of `650 crore. Of this, 60 percent came from PC peripherals and accessories and the remaining from tablet and smartphones. In the current fiscal, we expect tablets and smartphones share to grow significantly,” said Sandeep Parsurampuria, Managing Director, Best IT World. He added that signing-up Kareena Kapoor as brand ambassador helped boost the overall business. “Although we launched tablets in H22012, we sold 2 million units in the last fiscal. We also sold 1.25 million units of smartphones in tier-1 and metro cities.” The company is eyeing aggressive channel expansion in the current fiscal. “Plans are afoot to penetrate 25 tier-2 and -3 cities. Apart from our 20,000 retail S Parsurampuria partners, we will signup mid-size retailers, including stationary shops for PC peripherals and accessories sales,” said Parsurampuria. In the tier-1 cities, the company would increase its presence in LFRs and online retail. To incentivize its channel partners, Best IT has introduced schemes such as ‘Destinations in India never before’. “We send performing partners on 3 nights and 4 days full expenses paid trips to 5-star Indian resorts with lots of fun activities. The objective is to offer them a never-had-before experience,” detailed Parsurampuria. On the post-sales front, the company has 145 service centers in addition to more than 200 ASPs for mobile phones. “With the high growth, we felt the need to strengthen our post-sales support and therefore we have implemented ERP. This has increased efficiency and reduced the TAT from three days to less than 24 hours,” said Parsurampuria. n — Abhijeet Mukherjee 6

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Mware India is aggressively going after virtualization opportunities in the SMB segment and has created a SMB unit to drive its channel-led GTM. The company has added new features to its partner rebate program. “We have created separate sales and presales teams for the SMB segment. We have also introduced new partner rebates to drive SMB business,” said Ganesan Arumugam, Director, Channels and Alliances, VMware India. The company has added new features to its rebate program. “Earlier, we offered partner rebates on deals above $10,000, now we have lowered the threshold to deals as low as $6,000. We have also added incentives for new accounts signed-up by partners,” added Arumugam. The company has increased rebates for select products such as vSphere with Operations Management (VSOM) from 10 percent to 15 percent. According to Arumugam, VMware’s focus over the past few months was on enabling partners to build professional services practice. “Today, we have 30 partners who have built a strong services practice and are making revenues equivalent to their licensing revenues. Their services range from assessment to high-end consulting around cloud and virtualization. Our overall partner-led services business is growing at 100 percent quarter-on-quarter,” he informed. Over the next few months, VMware plans to ramp up its strategy around software-defined data centers (SDDC). “We are seeing good momentum around SDDC as it allows customers to create virtual data centers that can be managed through software APIs. The optimization and cost saving is significant and as a result many customers are keen on exploring SDDCs. Many of our tier-2 part-

“We have created separate sales and presales teams for the SMB segment and have also introduced new partner rebates” Ganesan Arumugam

Director, Channels and Alliances VMware India

ners are working on opportunities to migrate legacy data centers to SDDCs,” said Arumugam. The company already has eight major wins for its SDDC platform including the Maharashtra state government’s MahaGov cloud. Another move is to address more partners through OEM relationships. VMware has strengthened its alliance programs with all major OEMs including HP, Dell, IBM, Hitachi, EMC and NetApp. “Our goal is to offer incentives to the partners of our OEMs for selling VMware solutions along with OEM server or storage hardware. While an OEM’s partner may not qualify for direct rebates from VMware on a deal done through an OEM, under our alliance program he will get incentives from the OEM,” informed Arumugam. To further strengthen VMware Virtual Service Provider program, the company has appointed Ingram Micro along with Kryptos for usage-based licensing business. “We see this business growing especially when customers are looking at opex models. Typically monthly rentals are less than 3 percent of the license acquisition costs, which is an attractive option for customers who are already under budget crunch,” he explained. n

starting line Quick Heal focuses on enterprise biz n Sonal Desai

uick Heal is eyeing enterprise segment for its future growth and has launched a separate program for enterprise partners. The company is banking on two products— Quick Heal Endpoint Security 5.0, targeted at mid-market and enterprise segments and Quick Heal Terminator, its UTM targeted at the SMB segment. “We have already sold 250 boxes in the SMB segment with up to 250 users. We are seeing good traction in the education, manufacturing and government segments,” said Abhijit Jorvekar, VP, Sales & Marketing, and Executive Director, Quick Heal. The Endpoint Security 5.0 is a scalable product based on a Web security engine. It consolidates multiple features such as application and device control, an intrusion detection system, intrusion prevention system and rule-based filtering in a single agent.

“We plan to enroll 100 SIs. In fact, some partners from Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro have already become our partners” Abhijit Jorvekar

VP, Sales & Marketing, and Executive Director, Quick Heal

With a robust product portfolio in place, the company has launched Quick Heal Enterprise Partner Program. “This program will cater to the specific needs of enterprise partners. It includes deal registration, training, incentives and dedicated partner or sales managers in each region. We will tier partners into Silver, Gold

and Platinum levels for the enterprise segment depending on their commitment to QH products and revenue,” Jorvekar said. Quick Heal is currently focused on setting up the process and will then start appointing the partners based on their reach and industry or geographic strengths. “Our aim is to enroll 100 SIs in the next few months. In fact, some partners from Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro have signed on with us, and have brought in few enterprise customers. To incentivize these partners, we recently introduced an activation bonus for enterprise partners who locked in a customer,” Jorvekar said. To further enable the partners, Quick Heal has appointed Jyotish Werulkar as Head, National Sales, for the enterprise segment. It has also appointed heads for each vertical, and sales managers in 20 offices. n

Konica ventures into A4 printer market n Amit Singh

onica Minolta is devising an aggressive GTM following its foray into the A4 laser printer space. With large presence in enterprise and mid-market segment through A3 printers, the company is now targeting SMBs. As per IDC India, Konica had 25 percent share in the color A3 MFP segment and 17 percent in monochrome A3 MFPs in 2012. The company clocked `230 crore turnover in the last fiscal, and is targeting `300 crore during the current year. Its office printer business, which constitutes the A3 range, contributed 50 percent to the total revenue, and the rest comes from production printing and managed print services. The company wants to replicate this success in the A4 printer market over the next couple of years. In the current fiscal, it plans to sell 30,000 units of A4 printers.

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“While we work with the office automation channel for A3 printers, for A4 printers, we are looking at the regional distribution model to stock and sell” V Balakrishnan

EGM, Marketing Konica Minolta Business Solutions

Said V Balakrishnan, Executive General Manager, Marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, “We will leverage our large installed base in enterprise and mid-market to sell our new A4 printer range for their work group and branch requirements. In addition, we will target the

SMB segment in a big way with an impressive A4 range starting at `6,000.” Konica recently introduced two monochrome A4 printers at `6,380 and `25,100, and an A4 MFP at `17,230. Under its color series, it launched two printers at `21,150 and `28,950, and two MFPs starting from `36,740. Balakrishnan is also devising a regional distribution model for A4 printers. “In contrast to our A3 channel, where we have office automation channel as direct partners, for A4 printers, we are looking for regional distribution model to stock and sell. We plan to have 30 RDs in the top 30 cities.” The company has already appointed seven RDs including PG Micro Systems for Gurgaon, Anugraha Agencies for Bengaluru and Positive Systems for Kochi. It also plans to appoint five regional channel managers. n

edit opinion Volume 2, Issue 20

In a state of flux dhaval valia

uring a recent panel discussion which I was part of, many partners had one issue on their minds—the flux in the IT industry. My view was that there is significant transformation taking place in the industry, one that will change the ecosystem in a major way. It is important to understand the big changes happening and how they will affect the channel business. There are several indications of the churn that is already underway. The most fundamental is that the client computing ecosystem is undergoing major changes. Mobility is one element that is undermining this ecosystem. The entire IT channel is based on what many call the Wintel ecosystem, and so far the IT channel business has been PC- or servercentric. But this market is dwindling for several reasons. The PC market alone shrunk by 10-12 percent in 2012, and at this rate in the next few years we could see a massive decline in the PC market as we know it. This would impact all the traditional ecosystem partners including PC component vendors, PC OEMs, PC software companies and antivirus players. We have already seen major consolidation in the HDD and motherboard market. On the server side too, concepts such as cloud computing, consolidation and virtualization have led to a fall in global shipments in a big way. Margins are also sliding in the server space. Little wonder then that IBM wants to sell off its volume server business. I am not suggesting that PCs and servers will die, but they will no longer be the center of the IT universe. The impact of this transformation will be more evident in the next couple of years, and the IT channel ecosystem will experience a major churn. You will see many of your vendors overhauling their businesses and GTMs. Adobe is already telling its partners not to focus on perpetual licenses and sell only cloud offerings. In my opinion, the hardware-led channel businesses will find it difficult to survive, while those partners who build the right skill-sets around solutions and services will continue to be relevant. The key will be to identify the right solutions and services, but to do so partners will have to spend more time listening to their customers rather than waiting for vendors to draw the roadmap for them. There may be a flux in the IT industry, but you don’t have to be flummoxed. n

E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 10

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S e c u r i n g Yo u

LET’S BUILD THE BEST NETWORK SECURITY

Need for self-defending networks With the information security scenario changing on a daily basis, traditional measures are no longer enough to protect an organization’s data. A more vigorous approach is needed, one which makes the network self-defending

he ever-increasing cyber attacks, the growing number of malwares, and the consumerization of IT led by social media, cloud computing and mobility (SoCloMo) are transforming the security requirements of Indian organizations. Little wonder then that information security continues to be the topmost priority for organizations of every size. According to a recent report by PwC India, India’s information security market is expected to grow by 18 percent to reach `1,415 crore in 2013. Says Jitendra Gupta, Director, Channels & Alliances, India & South Asia, Juniper Networks, “With the tremendous rise in security threats and the increase in the sophistication of these threats, corporate and government organizations can no longer have a defensive posture, hence they are looking to make their security strategy active and pre-emptive. In addition, analyzing and tackling the new threats arising from the increasing adoption of SoCloMo is an emerging priority for CIOs.” The adoption of SoCloMo is breaking open the rigid boundaries of enterprise IT from a controlled, in-house environment (where CIOs have control over corporate data) to a situation where CIOs now have to secure the data which is distributed across the cloud, mobile and

social platforms where they have neither visibility nor control. Adds Gupta, “The greatest concern for CIOs is the loss of control over corporate data. So far the security policies of organizations revolved around securing and controlling the end-points, but now the policies need to shift from the control of the device to control of the data.” The increasing adoption of cloud computing is also raising security concerns. “Co-location of data with other cloud tenants, the inability to enforce enterprise security controls, and the difficulty in securing applications and interfaces are some of the key concerns CIOs perceive in relation to public cloud services,” adds Gupta. Enterprise mobility and BYOD are increasing the productivity of organizations but at the same time presenting new security challenges. The biggest challenge is that the organizational data flows into a variety of mobile devices and applications, many of which are not built to meet enterprise standards. Supporting mobility while keeping data safe and secure is daunting, and requires new security approaches. With an increasing number of organizations seeing social media engagement as an integral element of their

“We have the strongest integrated security portfolio” Jitendra Gupta, Director, Channels & Alliances, India & South Asia, Juniper Networks spoke about the company’s security offerings and how it can help address CIOs security pain points What are the security solutions and services that Juniper offers? Juniper today has the strongest integrated security portfolio. For securing enterprises against rising, sophisticated Web 2.0 attacks we have the Junos WebApp Secure which takes web application protection to the next level by using our ground-breaking Intrusion Deception technology. It uses deception to create detection points or traps to identify malicious actors in real-time. Once the attackers are identified, it prevents them from compromising critical information, wastes their time by presenting false vulnerabilities, and provides valuable intelligence to enterprises to thwart

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future attacks. Junos Pulse is our platform for mobile security; it is a comprehensive solution that includes mobile device security, management and control. Apart from virus and malware protection, it delivers remote device management tools for administrators. In addition, it backs up and restores data, can locate devices in the event of loss or theft, can remotely wipe data from a lost or stolen smartphone, and can send an alert when a SIM card has been removed, swapped or replaced. It can even track a device after the SIM card has been removed or replaced. Our third offering, Junos DDoS Secure, delivers a fully automated Distributed Denial of

Authorized Distributor:

So far the security policies of organizations revolved around controlling the end-points, but now the policies need to shift from control of the device to control of the data customer-centric strategies, security policies are set to see a paradigm shift. The biggest risk with social media is that confidential corporate information can be inadvertently made public on social media by negligent or unaware employees. “The availability of private information in the public domain is helping cyber attackers to craft targeted attacks. Phishing attacks leverage such data to craft personalized email to target specific individuals within the organization,” cautions Gupta. In addition, there is also the big danger of an employee clicking on a malicious link on a social networking site which could lead to his system and credentials getting compromised with malware stealing information using log keystrokes and screenshots. Many believe that with so many factors converging, the information security threat landscape will only get more dynamic and complex. CIOs will require a completely new approach to security policies and strategies, and will therefore need to focus on designing the next-generation security architecture built on top of a multi-function platform with deep network integration. “To accommodate new realities, enterprises need to adopt an integrated, adaptive and collaborative security approach which makes the network self-defending,” explains Gupta. “This will require broad integration across all networking and security functions.” n

In the first phase, Essar is implementing Junos Pulse across smartphones of 6,000 staff. Essar can now allow employees to access enterprise applications from any mobile phone Service (DDoS) protection system for websites and web applications. The solution uses a behavior-based approach to DDoS mitigation that provides protection up to 40Gb/s for high-volume attacks, as well as advanced low-and-slow application attacks with minimal false positives. It offers the flexibility of being deployed either as a hardware appliance or as a virtual machine in a private, public or hybrid cloud environment.

How is Juniper helping enterprises to gear up for the SoCloMo challenge? We are working closely with many Indian customers for addressing this challenge. For instance we have partnered with the Essar Group roll out their enterprise mobility initiative which also supports BYOD. In the first phase, Essar is implementing Junos Pulse across the smartphones of 6,000 staff. It allows employees to access enterprise applications from any mobile phone. n

AGC NETWORKS BULLISH ABOUT INFOSEC India’s leading solutions integrator, AGC Networks, is bullish about the growing opportunities in the information security segment. One of the key Elite Partners of Juniper Networks, AGC Networks offers high performance network infrastructure built on simplicity, security, openness and scalability. The company also has a strong information security practice that includes solutions, certifications and consulting around IT governance risk & compliance, IT risk management, data privacy, ethical hacking (VA/ PT), PCI DSS and HIPAA. “With security threats and challenges moving from just hardware and access points and treading into business processes, the fortification of information security has moved beyond attaining compliance certifications,” says Bhavin Barbhaya, Vice President, Sales (Network Infrastructure), AGC Networks. According to Bhavin, what is making the information security landscape more challenging are the disruptive technologies of SoCloMo. “Converged socialmobile capabilities over cloud accelerate business processes, time-to-information and time-to-action. Surely the future will be the convergence of SoCloMo where the cloud is the core of the system, mobility its edge, and social the connection between the mobile end-points. This has made the CIO’s life more challenging because the adoption of these disruptive technologies BHAVIN BARBHAYA requires completely different information security policies and strategies.” AGC believes that organizations will need to increasingly look at unified and integrated security solutions, and here it thinks that Juniper Networks has the most integrated portfolio. Says Bhavin, “We have seen radical change in the security offerings from Juniper which is in keeping with the needs of the market. Securing complex enterprise applications requires fine-tuned and often customized approaches which complement rather than conflict with network security. Juniper understands this and has a robust integrated portfolio which covers connectivity, platform, application and data security.” Bhavin regards Juniper’s connectivity solutions—with products such as UAC and AAA, and its SSG to SRX service gateways—as one of the best offerings in the market. He is also impressed with Juniper’s latest offering, Junos WebApp Secure (Mykonos) which creates the next generation of honey-pot and intrusion deception, and offers a fundamentally new way to gain intelligence about how attackers are working, and how to respond. Over the last 12 months AGC has deployed some very innovative and large projects. It recently implemented a strong perimeter solution for a large IT-ITeS organization across its 75 global offices along with complete networking and network security solutions at their multiple campuses in India. It also implemented an anti-spam solution for a large telecom service provider. For another telecom operator the company has set up the entire broadband network across 30 cities with the latest security solutions.

The adoption of cloud, mobility and social has made the CIO’s life more challenging as these technologies require completely different information security policies and strategies Special technology feature

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edit opinion Is big data delivering on its promise? Srikanth RP

hat is the true value of big data? Before we answer the question, let us look at some examples. The University of California is using smartphones to study close to 1 million people who use mobile health applications to transmit data related to their heart rate, pulse rate and blood pressure. The aim is to analyze this huge data to develop accurate models to predict the occurrence of heart diseases in people. Intel is using big data to develop chips faster and reduce manufacturing glitches. The Vancouver Police Department is using big data analytics for making its region safe by analyzing crime-related data and uses these insights to predict more accurately where crimes are likely to occur. Ford is collecting data from sensors installed in over 4 million cars to understand how the car performs in different environment and road conditions. Walmart is using big data analytics to track social media mentions on locations, people or products and uses this intelligence to tailor its offerings. Closer home, the Aadhaar project is a great example of what can possibly be done using big data analytics. Once the system is fully developed, it can become the foundation for the government to analyze transformational possibilities in services, such as free education, public distribution systems and pension schemes using what-if scenarios. The possibilities of using big data analytics to solve real-world problems are immense. For example, could the devastation caused by the floods in Uttarakhand been reduced using big data? A possible solution can be seen from an initiative called Digital Delta launched by IBM in the Netherlands. This project aggregates and analyzes information from diverse sources to provide authorities with insights to better manage disasters. By modeling weather events, the government can determine the best course of action (such as diverting water from low lying areas) using a real-time intelligent dashboard. Having said that, not every problem can be solved using big data. If the business objectives are unclear, so will be the results. For example, a study by analytics firm, Infochimps, this year, revealed that 55 percent of big data projects are not completed. The primary reason for the failure was attributed to inaccurate scope and inability to connect the dots, which indicates a data analysis talent gap. Big data hence needs to be looked at as a business, and not as a technology decision. In summary, there are immense possibilities of using big data to transform the way we live, think and make decisions. India has the talent, the ecosystem of service providers and a rising base of technology-savvy users with mobile and social connections. All we require is the commitment to use data for transforming governance. n Srikanth RP is the Editor of InformationWeek. Email him at srikanth.rp@ubm.com

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Opportunities in SMB networking The SMB segment is the fastest-growing in the networking space. In addition SMBs are also looking at physical and network security in a big way. This opens up several new and vast opportunities for partners in networking. Partners need to build new competencies around physical and network security to leverage these new opportunities in networking. Yogesh Shashtri via email

Office 365 for education I commend Microsoftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s move to launch a special

cloud offering aimed at the university students, and at the right pricing. This goes on to show Microsoftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to the education vertical in India. Education certainly is one of the top five verticals. However what is a bit perturbing is the fact that Microsoft is directly selling the licenses to students, bypassing partners. This confirms the fears many partners have harbored for long which is that they will be bypassed with the advent of cloud computing. Microsoft should ensure that partners have a significant play in their cloud computing GTM for the education sector. Mahua Puri 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

marketing.india@emerson.com

Epson

www.epson.co.in

think@eid.epson.co.in

Canon

www.canon.co.in

1800 180 3366

Sony

7 www.sony.co.in/vaio

sonyindia.care@ap.sony.com

Rashi

9 www.rptechindia.com

feedback@rptechindia.com

Cyberom

11 www.cyberom.com

marketing@cyberom.com

Juniper Advetorial 12&13 www.juniper.net

nikhild@juniper.net

Resellerclub - Directi 23

www.rchostingsummit.com

www.rchostingsummit.com/register

CLS

www.crn.in/Isummit

anees.ahmed@ubm.com

28 & 29

Adata

36 www.adata-group.com

adata_in@adata-group.com

Quick Heal

info@quickheal.co.in

Biz

38 www.indiaantivirus.com

sales@indiaantivirus.com

Schneider

39 www.schneider-electric.com

in-care@schneider-electric.com

EMC

40 www.emc.com

india_mktg@emc.com

www.quickheal.com/in/enterprise

channel chief “We aim to reclaim the top slot” P Krishnakumar, Executive Director and GM, Consumer and SMB, Dell India, spoke to Ramdas S, about the company’s future plans and strategies to reclaim the top slot in the consumer PC market Dell recently launched its 100th exclusive store. However, your competitor Lenovo has over 1,000 stores, while HP and Acer have more than 500 stores. How do you plan to catch up with competition?

category awareness. However we plan to change this and become aggressive in the market with new products and pricing strategies. Our overall strategy is to reclaim the top slot in the consumer PC market.

So far our approach to retail was different from that of other PC OEMs. Our idea of Dell exclusive store was to facilitate our online sales. In the first three years, the stores used to display products and provide customers the opportunity to look and feel a product and assist them with online booking. It was a model which worked very well in the past. But now we are increasingly seeing that customers do not want to wait for 7-10 day delivery period. As result we decided to move to the traditional retail model and began expanding our store footprint. We have grown from 50 stores to 100 in just over six months, and plan to double the store count in the next 6-8 months. As a result we have also discontinued the Dell Sales Affiliate (SA) program a few months back.

IDC and Gartner are predicting weak consumer PC demand. How is Dell adapting to the decline in the PC market, and what is your strategy? We have a realistic view of how the PC market is evolving. According to the latest IDC report, the consumer PC market has been flat, at least in India. The notebook market is expected to record a single digit growth rate while the desktop market is expected to shrink. But even as the consumer desktop market declines, current shipments are healthy and hard to ignore, with quarterly sales of 3,80,000 units. Traditionally the consumer desktop market in India has been dominated by assemblers. We also estimate that nearly 70 percent of this market is dominated by assembled PCs, and the rest is shared between branded players. In the desktop market, we want to focus on AIOs where we have had a slow start compared to some of our competitors who have done a good job in creating

“We have grown from 50 stores to 100 in just over six months, and plan to double the store count in the next 6-8 months”

Most partners are complaining that Dell doesn’t have a strong entry-level product strategy and as a result you have lost significant marketshare. Yes I agree with that. Last year, we reduced the number of SKUs at the entry-level due to stiff competition and low margins. It was a conscious decision considering the market trends then. This impacted our marketshare pushing us from the no 1 spot to the no 4 spot in a matter of few quarters. However, starting 2013 we have beefed up the entry-level SKUs and we are seeing good numbers. In Q22013, as per IDC, we have risen to the second spot in the consumer PC market, adding nearly 3 percent to our marketshare.

Consumer channels are wary of Dell’s growing presence in LFRs and eCommerce sites. How are you planning to control your MOP and ensure that channels stay profitable? LFRs and traditional channels have and will co-exist. Despite the perceived threat form LFRs, our business through Dell exclusive stores is growing two-and-a-half times faster than other sales channels. While we are present on online stores like Flipkart, eBay and Amazon India, we have strict policies and guidelines for these online stores in order to ensure price parity. For any products bought from Dell, we have a policy that these stores cannot offer lower prices than what is the partner MOP. However, they are free to offer freebies or financing options. Most of the MOP issues arise when these online stores buy from our tier-2 partners who offer lower prices to liquidate stocks and this we cannot stop. We take the issue of MOP very seriously and monitor the online prices closely and address any discrepancies among any of our channels—either online or physical.

In the past partners had complained that prices of SKUs available on your website were much

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channel chief lower than their landing cost. Have you addressed this issue? We have addressed this issue, and today partners offer better end-user prices on all SKUs compared to Dell online. Looking at the growth in online retail, we are experimenting with Dell Express Ship Affiliate program where we are enabling partners to start their own online store. Presently we have signed up with CompuIndia.com. We are also encouraging other partners who have their online stores to offer Dell products. In short we are exploring all routes to the market that make buying Dell products convenient for the consumer without any bias.

Are you planning to make any changes to your distribution model? We will continue with our regional distribution model (Master Sales Affiliate). We continue to have separate MSAs for Inspiron and Vostro ranges. The only change and a positive one is that some of the national distributors who were earlier not inclined to do Dell business want to be a part of our ecosystem. We have signed Ingram Micro to distribute Vostro range in Maharashtra, and plans are on to sign them up for Madhya Pradesh as well.

One of the complaints from partners is that you have cut down heavily on consumer marketing and this is impacting their business. Overall we have cut down our media spends, but at the same time we are also investing significantly into digital

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Today, our consumer PC business through Dell exclusive stores is growing two-and-a-half times faster than other sales channelsâ&#x20AC;? media. We are perhaps the biggest investors in social media marketing among all IT brands, and we feel with changing consumer patterns betting on Internet and social media would be the future. From a brand perspective we have a high recall. As we expand our retail franchise we will be more visible and closer to the consumers. Also with an expanded retail footprint, we will allocate more budgets to our partners to drive local marketing.

Dell has launched a new initiative called SMB cluster initiative. Please elaborate on this program and what role will the partner play? We have launched the SMB cluster initiative in seven cities across India in partnership with research agency AMI Partners. Each of these cities have multiple manufacturing related hubs where hundreds and even thousands of small companies exist within a small geography. We are looking at addressing their IT needs through focused sales initiatives. Under this program, the customer can decide whether they want to buy directly from Dell or our partner. In case of any conflict between a partner and our direct sales, the policy is to favour the partner. n

Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the 8th C of Channel Marketing www.crn.in 16

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market focus

Storage intensive According to industry estimates, the overall external storage market in India clocked approximately `2,500 crore and is expected to double by 2016 n Abhijeet Mukherjee

hanging consumption habits, proliferation of tablets and smartphones and an increase in mobile computing are driving the external storage market in India. Figure this: consumers globally will capture 1.6 trillion photographs on their smartphones in 2013. Add videos and music, and the demand for portable storage devices will increase exponentially. According to estimates, the overall external storage market in India clocked approximately `2,500 crore, and is expected to double by 2016. According to estimates, the external HDD market grew by 30 percent from 1.83 million units in 2012 to 2.37 million units in 2013 while the portable flash drive (USB drive) market recorded unit sales of 23 million during the same period, growing by 25 percent.

The microSD card market is estimated to be upwards of 60 million units in the organized market, but industry analysts feel it’s difficult to estimate the overall market because of the huge grey market presence.

External HDD The external HDD market grew at a CAGR of 70 percent from 2009 to 2011 but post the Thailand flood, the growth lowered to 30 percent YoY. The prices of HDD slashed by 5 percent globally in early 2013. The price of an external 500 GB drive which rose from `2,400 to `5,000+ has now come down to `3,900. “The price of hard drives reduced in Q12013 which is why external hard drive sales flourished. Compared to 2012, when we sold around 50-75 units per month,

“The price of HDDs reduced in Q12013 increasing the sales of external hard drives. This year we are selling 120 units per month compared to 60 units last year”

“From 500 GB, the requirement of customers have moved to 1 TB because of video and photograph storage. USB 3.0 has become the new norm”

SelvaraJ Manoharan

Amit Kumar Kotak

Managing Partner, PC World

Partner, Concorde Peripherals

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market focus “Ultrabooks and lighter, slimmer gadgets with mobility and performance capabilities are driving slim form factors. This will be the future of portable storage”

“There are cloud-based storage services that offer up to 15 GB of free space. With faster broadband, people are using it to store content online”

Subroto Das

MA Mannan

Director, India & South Asia, Western Digital

this year we are selling 120 units per month,” says Selvaraj Manoharan, Managing Partner, PC World. A key reason driving the demand for external drives is emergence of PC form factors such as ultrabooks and ultra small form factor desktops such as Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC). Envisaging a good opportunity, Seagate, Western Digital (WD) and Strontium are launching innovative products that support wireless mobile devices which can connect to multiple devices simultaneously. At MSRP of `16,000, the Seagate Wireless Plus hard drive supports up to eight devices and 500 HD movies. It also includes a 10-hour battery life to match that of most tablets and smartphones. “With the integrated 1 TB drive one can access any medium of entertainment from anywhere, including long road trips or flights— without an Internet connection,” says Rajesh Khurana, Country Manager, India & Saarc, Seagate. Drives with slim form factors are one of the key trends in portable HDD. “This trend focuses on the popularity of ultrabooks and lighter, slimmer gadgets that deliver a new level of mobility, performance and capabilities. The future of portable storage market will be driven by this form factor,” informs Subroto Das, Director, India & South Asia, WD. With increasing number of gadgets hungry for media and data storage, portable storage devices are being used for centralized backup and media streaming. These devices organize the content according to media type such as videos, pictures, music and documents, and provide free apps for Android and iOS-based devices for easy access. Many partners note that 1 TB capacity drive has become the entry level as against 500 GB, a year ago. “Earlier people used to buy more of 500 GB drives. Now their requirement has moved to 1 TB because of video and photograph storage in addition to value-adds like data encryption, password security, etc, provided with the higher capacity drives by the vendors. USB 3.0 has become the new norm,” says Amit Kumar Kotak, Partner, Concorde Peripherals.

Pen drives and microSD According to CyberMedia Research, the pen drive market has grown by 24 percent year-on-year. “With rising consumer demand for sharing HD video, high resolution images and pictures, a need has been created for higher capacity personal storage media,” says Narinder Kumar, Analyst, CyberMedia Research.

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Country Manager, Corsair India

The trend is toward higher capacity storage. While the 4 GB drives have almost 50 percent marketshare, the rest of the market is captured by 8 GB and 16 GB capacity segments. Advancements in technologies used for connecting devices such as Bluetooth, USB and Wi-Fi have made data sharing easy and comfortable at higher speeds, thus adding to the demand for more storage. With almost all notebook models shipping with a microSD card reader, microSD is emerging as the best option to exchange data from mobile phones to notebooks. “Every IT retailer is carrying microSD cards, and a typical use case is taking photos with camera phones, then editing them by using a laptop for social media consumption,” says Regy Abraham, National Manager, Aldous Glare Trade & Exports.

The cloud threat While few manufacturers see cloud as an emerging threat to independent portable devices, many are offering free cloud backup with their external devices. “Today there are a plethora of cloud-based backup and archival solutions that offer basic free accounts with 2 to 15 GB of space. With faster broadband connections, people are using them to share content,” explains MA Mannan, Country Manager, Corsair India. He adds, “We don’t see external HDD going away soon, since that’s a pure capacity game, and consumers who generally buy these products have a lot of data to backup. Today for many connected users who are buying pen drives for sharing small sizes of data, cloud is an option tough to ignore.” Abraham agrees. “More and more users are uploading photos to their Facebook accounts directly from smartphones. Once 3G and 4G penetration improves in the country, the demand for microSD cards may come down.” A growing concern amongst storage vendors is the fluctuating dollar value between `58-`60 which is impacting the import costs of all storage devices. “Ensuring consistent supply due, compatibility with a huge base of devices and product specifications to match consumer’s specific needs are major challenges in this market,” rues Khurana. However, with changing PC form factors, which does not come either with an optical drive or an in-built high capacity storage media, the demand for external drives be it pen drives, HDDs, SSDs or SD cards is increasing. It is now upto the partners how they leverage the opportunity. n

cover story

he enterprise storage market is one of the few product-driven segments offering channels almost assured double-digit growth rates as well as double-digit margins. While almost every partner understands this, only a few have been able to build a successful storage business and even fewer have been able to build a services business around storage. While some experts estimate that there are 1,5002,500 channel partners selling servers regularly, channel leaders of storage vendors say there are just 200-250 partners who sell an enterprise storage box every quarter. Explains Praveen Sahai, VP, Channels, EMC India & Saarc, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Enterprise storage is a serious business. If a server breaks down you have downtime, but the

network or service can be up and running within an hour or a day. But when storage goes down you are left with the potential heartburn of lost data. Research has shown that one out of three businesses which has experienced huge data loss has shut shop within two years; this may explain why few partners are trusted with data storage.â&#x20AC;? Nevertheless, Sahai is among those channel leaders who believe that more enterprise channel partners can take up storage because the market in the country is all set to grow.

Build certified teams Most successful storage solution vendors have dedicated teams for the business, people who are not

building a strong

Storage Practice

Despite the slowdown, enterprise storage continues to grow in double digits and promises healthy margins. It is time for partners to build expertise in storage solutions and services n RAMDAS S & SONAL DESAI

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cover story “Seeing is believing, so we encourage channels to not just set up POCs in-house but also go ahead and set up POCs at the site”

“It’s important to choose the right solution for a POC. Something like de-duplication—where a few TBs can be shrunk to less than a TB— will bring in the wow factor”

Krithiwas Neelakantan, Director Channel & Alliances, India & Saarc, NetApp

Jayessh Mehta

involved in selling other product lines. Sudarshan Ranganathan, CEO, Veeras Infotek, Chennai, stresses the importance of having dedicated certified teams with not just product certifications but also solution-specific certifications. “We have more than 40 certified professionals spanning different domains and software architectures. Customers see this as a clear plus point.” Most storage vendors are moving from regular product-based certifications to solution-specific certifications. Says Bhavya Ram, Manager, Cloud, ISV, OEM & Technology Business, VMware India, “We work with all the major storage vendors, and they in turn have specific solution stacks which can be sold along with different VMware products. Our partners are being trained and certified to sell solutions rather than boxes.” Vendors such as NetApp say that on the average they spend upward of $100,000 per channel partner for training and certification. “The complexity of storage and the critical nature of solutions that run storage demand not just high-level skill-sets but also strong relationships which the solution provider needs to have with the vendor,” remarks Krithiwas Neelakantan, Director, Channel & Alliances, India & Saarc, NetApp. “Certifications, and over a period of time, recertifications, are the best way a vendor can ensure that partners stays current.” Most vendors are offering certifications that cost less than $500 per engineer.

Invest in POCs According to Neelakantan, most of NetApp’s premier partners have invested in POCs. 90 percent of all EMC partners who billed more than a million dollars last year have a POC for more than one solution. Neelakantan says that NetApp provides the largest discounts on demo gear, sometimes up to 80 percent of the MRP. “Seeing is believing, so we encourage channels to not just set up POCs in-house but also set up POCs at the customer site.” Adds Jayessh Mehta, MD, Future Businesstech, Bengaluru, “While POCs are impressive, it’s important to choose the right solution to show-case. While big data may not be easily demonstrable, something like de-duplication—where a few terabytes can be shrunk to less than a TB—will bring in the wow factor.” Jyothi Sathyanathan, Director, Mid-market, IBM India, informs that out of every two customers who visit IBM’s POC almost one ends up buying a solution

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MD, Future Businesstech

within a year.

Sell reference architectures According to internal studies at EMC India, 25-30 percent of all enterprise storage sales last year were based on a reference architecture for a recommended solution. “This represents almost one-third of all storage revenue, and one out of four orders at least,” says Sahai. Most vendors have built alliances with software and networking vendors across the industry to build reference architectures. For example, EMC, Cisco and VMware have brought out VSPEX, which is a reference architecture for data center virtualization solutions. Similarly, NetApp, VMware and Cisco have the Flexpod platform and the converged infrastructure architecture. Vendors such as IBM and HP have built converged infrastructure and IBM PureFlex which also offers reference architectures for running multiple solutions. Vinod Menon, Director, Technology, Ashtech Infotech, Mumbai, says that “Reference architectures are always useful because they provide the best practices for deployment of a particular technology. We would always recommend the consideration of reference architectures before implementation.” He reveals that some of his company’s recent wins of order values ranging from `2 crore to `6 crore for storage implementation were based on enterprise architecture blueprints from HP. Advises Yogesh Sawant, Director, Partner Sales, Hitachi Data Systems, “For any channel partner who is interested in scaling up his storage business, the best start would be to build skill-sets around a specific architecture. At Hitachi we train our channels in the different architectures we promote along with vendors such as Cisco and VMware. Some partners—like the Mumbai-based Lauren and Chennai-based Gemini Communications—have some wins based on our platform to report.”

Get on the ILM platform Points out Neel Shah, Director of the Mumbai-based Insight Business Machines, “No customer is interested in buying boxes. Today, while solution-specing, customers stick with partners who can provide a larger vision of how data can be stored, managed and processed.” Bengaluru-based 22by7 rolled out a full-fledged ILM practice more than a year back. “Soon the margins in even storage hardware will erode, and that’s why

cover story What partners want from vendors

hile most channel partners have expressed overall satisfaction with the way most enterprise storage vendors manage their business, three strong demands have emerged from the partner community Lower the cost of certification. Most vendors have reduced the cost of entry-level certification, or offer redemption of this cost on sales accruals, yet partners point out that when it comes to specialized solutions the cost of certification is high. “We should be encouraged to sell more high-end and specialized solutions where vendors also make more money. One way to encourage partners is to reduce the cost of certification. With lower costs we could get more staff trained,” says Deepak Jadhav, Director, VDA Infosolutions. Provide more independence. While hand-holding is

important for a partner when he gets started in a new business, most partners are wary of vendor presence or a vendor’s attempts to control a customer account. “We had to strictly tell one of our principals to not get involved in all aspects of selling at customer accounts. It’s not just about eroding margins—it’s also about not confusing the customer,” says Neel Shah, Director, Insight Business Machines. Enable channels to sell services. The biggest demand from enterprise storage channels is to enable them to deliver more services. “We like principals who are keen to see that services are deployed through partners. This makes it easier for us to sustain a relationship with a customer and retain the account,” says L Ashok, CEO, 247 Computing, Chennai. n

We like principals who are keen to see that services are deployed through partners. This makes it easier for us to sustain a relationship with a customer and retain the account

we have transformed our storage business into an ILM practice. It allows us to work more closely with the CXOs of our customers and demonstrate our value as a strategic partner and not just as a supplier,” says Venkat Ramana Murthy, Prime Mover, 22by7. According to Niraj Kaushik, VP, Alliances & Channels, Oracle India, “Every organization will look for solutions whereby data will have to pass through different tiers of disk storage as the data gets old and less useful and finally gets archived using tape technology. This will help organizations to manage and preserve data at an optimal cost for the desired performance.”

Get it right Many vendors believe that what sets successful storage partners apart from the not-so-successful ones is their ability to comprehend what customers need and speak the language that customers want to hear. Sahai informs that the growing disparity between customer needs and the understanding some of the smaller partners had of those needs was a matter of concern for the EMC sales management team. “This forced us to create a framework which allows partners to capture information more accurately and make suggestions that increase their winnability ratio.” He says that top partners win because their understanding of a customer’s business needs are better.

“Reference architectures are useful as they provide best practices of a particular technology, and make it easier for a partner to deploy a solution”

Agrees Amit Luthra, National Manager, Storage Solutions Marketing, Dell India, “A thorough assessment of a customer’s storage needs and fitting these needs to the most appropriate storage solution available is the first step toward success.” Top partners note that unlike in other segments with less competition, in enterprise storage, in most cases, building a funnel which is five times the sales target is not necessary. However, they do agree that longer visibility is required for selling storage because sales cycles are usually 3-6 months. Vipul Dutta, CEO, Futuresoft Solutions, Delhi, says a major reason for his success in storage has been his team’s understanding of the customer’s compliance requirements. “We tell our customers about the gaps in their statutory compliance requirements and they make us their trusted advisor. We also teach them best practices.” “Building strong funnels and sizing the project right will help you bring predictability to the storage business,” says Vasudevan Subramanian, Director, NewWave Computing, Bengaluru. “While some vendors are trying to over-simplify, there’s really no run-rate in the business of enterprise storage.” Dutta says that his company has cut its number of customers by 70 percent to focus on those customers who actually spend. “Our advice is to never spread yourself too wide if you want to stay profitable.”

Rely on SLAs Vendors agree that with the fast commoditization of storage and the proliferation of ideas such as software defined storage, customers will be looking for partners who can offer better SLAs. “Storage technologies have matured, and customers are awarding orders to partners who are able to offer better SLAs and also deliver according to new SLAs,”

Vinod Menon

Director, Technology, Ashtech Infotech

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cover story “Nobody is interested in buying boxes. Today, customers stick with partners who can provide a larger vision of how data can be stored, managed and processed”

“SLAs will shift from the uptime of the product to performance guarantees. Partners should be able to build storage on top of open and flexible architecture”

Neel Shah

Amit Luthra, National Manager Storage Solutions, Marketing, Dell India

Director, Insight Business Machines

says Mehul Doshi, Country Manager, Servers & Value Channels, Fujitsu India. This has prompted partners such as 22by7 to offer value-added services like Assist Packs with better SLAs than what are being offered by the OEMs. “Apart from making a difference compared to other partners, we are able to offer services that yield better margins,” says Murthy. Luthra adds, “In future, SLAs will shift from the uptime of the product to performance guarantees and reliability. This is where partners ought to understand the need to build storage on top of open and flexible architecture.” Sunil Pillai, COO & Co-founder, iValue InfoSolutions, observes, “Fine-tuned SLAs that cover features such as de-duplication will increasingly give

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an advantage to partners while convincing a customer.”

End-note Sahai stresses that a partner needs to first understand that excelling in the storage business requires a lot of patience, and that the results may not be immediate. He advises channels to first study their balance sheets and come up with an investment plan or at least a budget before even checking out how large a sales funnel they can generate. “While deep pockets are not a necessity, clear planning—especially financials to make the right investment at the right time—is very important.” With most vendors still saying that there’s a shortage of quality solutions providers in enterprise storage, it’s time partners beefed up their resources to invest in storage for better bottomlines. n

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cover story Trends in storage technologies

nterprise storage technologies have witnessed incremental changes over the past 12 months or so while customers are exploring all kinds of solutions from data mining to big data to get more out of their IT investments. Along the way, the need for stricter compliance is forcing several sectors such as BFSI and exports to revamp their software infrastructure.

Flash and SSD The biggest emerging story is about the use of flash or SSD in primary storage. While till last year flash was used more to create data caches and to speed up critical portions of applications, today most customers are convinced that investing in SSD saves them money in the longer run especially for application storage. “Even the best-of-breed SAS drives seen in legacy products offer at best 250 IOPs while enterprise-class flash drives can give you 100,000 IOPs and more. Today, with the advent of PCIe-based flash drives, you can reach 500,000 IOPs and more,” says Praveen Sahai, VP Channels, EMC, India & Saarc. Almost all leading partners say that they have embarked on projects where customers have asked them to migrate to flash-based storage. Sahai suggests that channels look at any customer who is running enterprise applications such as SAP, Oracle or custom ERP for migration opportunities.

Software-defined storage The concept of software-defined storage (SDS) is said to be an excellent story which partners can take to customers and establish the need for revamping, upgrading and re-architecting their storage infrastructure. SDS is based on the same concept as softwaredefined networking (SDN). Almost all vendors have announced their SDS initiatives and are asking partners to start talking about them. “SDS will be a game changer,” predicts Krithiwas Neelakantan, Director, Channel & Alliances, India & Saarc, NetApp India. “Customers who are looking at saving on investments are likely to embrace the platform.” He recommends that channels talk to any customer who has large investments in legacy storage with challenges in scalability.

With almost all vendors offering unified storage architecture-based products, this is yet another technology that’s gaining momentum. “Except for some customers in telecom and BFSI, practically everyone else is considering unified storage,” says Vinod Menon, Director, Technology, Ashtech Infotech. Unified storage is a storage system which makes it possible to run and manage files and applications from a single device. It consolidates file-based and blockbased access in a single storage platform, and supports fiber channel SAN, IP-based SAN (iSCSI) and NAS.

Converged infrastructure With IBM, Dell and Hitachi launching their own converged infrastructure solutions over the past 18 months, every vendor now has certified, pre-configured and pre-tested converged infrastructure solutions—and in the next 12 months every enterprise storage channel partner will be wooed by one or the other vendor to sell these solutions. “We are already witnessing the growing acceptance of unified compute platforms where the management and orchestration of server, storage and network resources will be done through a single pane of glass,” says Deepak Jadhav, Director, VDA Infosolutions, Mumbai.

“While deep pockets are not a necessity, clear planning— especially financials to make the right investment at the right time—is very important”

“We are witnessing acceptance of unified compute platforms in which server, storage and network resources are managed from a single pane of glass”

Praveen Sahai

Deepak Jadhav

VP, Channels, EMC, India & Saarc

Unified storage

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Director, VDA Infosolutions

cover story SMB storage trends

endors say that the SMB market in India for network storage is still unexplored. Also, most customers are ignorant while others prefer direct attached storage. “The popular idea is to add more disks to existing servers and provide extra storage. In the coming days we hope customers even in small businesses will bet on NAS,” says Shubhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director, India & South Asia, Netgear. He says the market size is currently less than $20 million, but that with better awareness created by partners this market can grow. One trend which the market is seeing is the availability in high-end SMB storage of some of the features previously seen in enterprise storage. “While the product lines are certainly not enterprise class, our SMB customers can provision snapshots, have high availability through active clusters, and do compression and real-time replication of their data with our top-end boxes,” informs Sanjay Biswal, Sales Manager, India, QNAP Systems. Support for virtualization is another feature that’s seen

in some of the SMB storage boxes. “SMBs are adopting virtualization, and many products support Microsoft, VMware and Citrix hypervisors,” adds Bhattacharya. A disappointing trend is the gradual decline of the DIY market in the SMB space. Says Shailesh Chouhan, CEO of Mumbai-based Arihant Info Solutions, “White-box storage is certainly declining. Unfortunately, vendors such as Intel or disk drive makers such as Seagate and Western Digital have not been proactive.” For channel partners, the cloud remains an opportunity as well as a threat. While most cloud-based storage companies such as Dropbox are selling directly to consumers, several SMB customers are using cloud-based applications such as Google Apps for meeting their immediate storage needs. Bhattacharya says that most SMB storage vendors are bundling free cloud storage with add-on options at extra cost. “Partners signing up for storage can offer these and gain extra margins. While the present volumes are small, this could be a future bet for SMB storage partners.” n

Storage vendors are bundling free cloud storage with add-on options at extra cost. While the present volumes are small, this could be a future bet for SMB storage partners

In-memory computing

elimination of planned downtime will become realities.

Driven by growing data requirements and the push to make real-time business decisions, in-memory computing is poised to have a dramatic impact on IT. “In-memory computing significantly improves performance,” notes Mehul Doshi, Country Manager, Servers & Value Channels, Fujitsu India. “Channels should position in-memory computing technology for customers running performance-hungry applications.”

Big data and clustered storage Several vendors have jumped into scalable NAS platforms to address big data requirements. Red Hat has launched the latest versions of its open source Gluster platform, and EMC has updated its Isilon range. While most vendors still see partner play in big data limited to pilots, EMC has gone ahead and organized its first partner meet on big data opportunities. Unplanned downtime has never been tolerated, but planned downtime has been an unavoidable reality. As clustered storage gains a foothold and more organizations embrace the notion of an agile data infrastructure, the idea of 100 percent uptime and the

Channel-managed DR solutions An emerging trend which partners are betting on is the setting up of DR sites for customers. Chennai-based 247 Computing has set up its own cloud infrastructure on-premise using Openstack, and is offering DR support as well as back-up support for customers. “Many customers are in need of DR, but do not want to make a capex investment. We offer our infrastructure on a payas-you-go basis,” says L Ashok, CEO, 247 Computing.

Object storage The worldwide file- and object-based storage (FOBS) market continues on an upward trajectory, with IDC expecting the revenue to exceed $23 billion in 2013 and $38 billion during 2017. According to new research, FOBS is the primary factor driving growth in the overall enterprise storage systems market. “Object-based file systems to manage unstructured data is definitely gaining customer interest in India,” says Sunil Pillai, COO & Co-Founder, iValue InfoSolutions. n

“In-memory computing significantly improves performance. Channels should position it to customers running performance-hungry applications”

“The popular idea is to add more disks to existing servers and provide extra storage. In coming days we hope customers in even small businesses will bet on NAS”

Mehul Doshi, Country Manager, Servers &

Shubhodeep Bhattacharya

Value Channels, Fujitsu India

Regional Director, India & South Asia, Netgear

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special focus

Holidaying with IT

The travel and hospitality sector in India is flourishing. With ICT spends exceeding `8,000 crore, driven by e-commerce, ERP, CRM and mobility, the opportunities for partners are plenty n Amit Singh

ravel and hospitality (T&H) is the most vibrant sector with major contribution to the economy. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) estimated the Indian travel and hospitality sector at $121 billion, which contributed 6.4 percent to the India GDP, in 2012. The Ministry of Commerce put the FDI inflow into the T&H sector during April 2000 to January 2013 at $6.56 billion. The expanding Indian middle class, foreign tourists, rise in medical tourism and coordinated government campaigns are driving the growth in this sector. According to industry estimates, the overall ICT spends by the T&H sector in 2012 exceeded `8,000 crore. Some of the key drivers for IT investment are the preferences of travelers toward e-commerce, mobile apps and services, and social media. Travellers are also demanding facilities like Wi-Fi and enhanced user experience during stays. According to SR Nair, MD, Team Frontline, Kochi, “The T&H sector is heavily investing in e-commerce platforms, CRM and hospitality management solutions to drive efficiency and personalized approach with leaner workforce.”

(NLP) and intelligent search capabilities to provide the most relevant information to travelers. “The idea is not only to facilitate travel booking but also to motivate people to travel more. Weekend getaway and trending destination suggestions are quite popular among travelers who don’t have a specific holiday plan in mind,” says Aloke Bajpai, co-Founder and CEO, ixigo.com. He says that companies are also opting for search engine optimization and load balancing for their websites. Amit Rambhia, Director, Vardhaman Technology, Mumbai, sees a huge opportunity in offering e-commerce solutions to 2and 3-star hotels and small travel agencies. “Small hotels and travel firms do not get adequate attention and visibility in popular travel portals. They are therefore, looking for a platform with a 360-degree marketing support. Hence, we are planning to introduce a solution offering an e-commerce platform along with content, marketing and lead generation support.”

ERP, CRM as backbone

T&H players are investing heavily on ERP and CRM solutions to streamline processes, get operational efficiency and enhance customer experience. In 2011, nearly 35 percent of the e-commerce revenues “Even hotels with less than 50 rooms and boutique came from the T&H sector in the country. While air hotels are opting for hospitality management system. travel has been completely automated, bus and taxi For IT partners, the opportunity is large in terms of operators have also started investing in or aligning with integrating PoS, digital signage and IT infrastructure e-commerce portals. with ERP and CRM. They can collaborate with ISVs to According to a recent Google India survey, almost build competency in this sector,” states Pawan Khurana, 80 percent of the 1,500 respondents booked flights CEO of Gurgaon-based QuantM Net online and 49 percent booked Technologies. The company which train tickets and accommodation gets 10 percent of its business from online. “Moreover, 31 percent of the Sector snapshot T&H sector, has clients like Oberoi, respondents opted for online holiday Industry size: $121 billion Choice and Umrao Hotels. packages, 30 percent booked cabs Industry data: 1,00,000+ businesses Traditional travel packages have and 28 percent booked bus travel been replaced by dynamic booking through e-commerce portals. In Demographics: Pan India solutions that take in real data all, we observe heavy trend toward IT spend: 1-2 percent of the annual shared by associates to determine online bookings, which is a huge revenues pricing. “Travel portals are opting opportunity for IT partners,” informs Opportunities: E-commerce, mobility, for solutions to get real time status Vikas Agnihotri, Director, Travel & analytics, Wi-Fi and surveillance of room inventories from associates. BFSI, Google India. Source: Ministry of Tourism & Culture, and World Automation also runs into fixing of Online travel companies are now Travel and Tourism Council rates according to booking dynamics,” using natural language processing

E-commerce leading the way

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special focus “Even hotels with less than 50 rooms are opting for HMS. The opportunity is large in terms of integrating PoS, digital signage and IT infra with ERP and CRM”

“While small hotels are spending `20 lakh on surveillance, large hotels are spending up to `2 crore on physical security which includes advanced video analytics”

pawan khurana

Jayessh Mehta

CEO, QuantM Net Technologies

MD, Future Businesstech

says Ajay Mian, CEO, All-e-Technologies, Noida. For online travel company, MakeMyTrip, All-eTechnologies provided back office and mid office systems developed on Microsoft Dynamics. The system is used by more than 1,000 employees and dealers of MakeMyTrip, and enables booking or cancellation of air, train, buses, hotels, etc. The company also has Yatra, ClearTrip, TravelGuru and Riya Travels as customers. Moreover, T&H companies are investing on CRM to identify customer buying patterns and to profile them as per their spending. “Customer loyalty and repeat business is most critical for T&H players. Additionally, travel companies want to drive demand through personalized offers and not just to remain as a platform for ticketing. Hence, these companies are opting for CRM and business analytics,” says Aditya Rath, Associate Director, Strategy & Consulting, PwC.

Mobility, social media gaining traction Mobility is rapidly transforming the T&H sector. “Travelers now use smartphones and tablets to compare airfare prices, make reservations, get directions and check online reviews,” says Asit Sinha, Head, Strategic Outsourcing, Enterprise Services, HP. As per Google survey, 66 percent of the respondents used smartphones or tablets to plan their travel. Moreover, Agnihotri of Google believes that mobile Apps are the future of travel. “Among the mature users, mobile app usage is significantly higher in comparison to mobile sites.” T&H players are also extending SMS-based ticketing facility to basic phone users. Further, social media is changing the way information is shared and consumed. T&H players are now taking social media seriously and targeting customer through various social platforms. “According to a survey, more than 70 percent of travelers are inspired to take holiday based on social media feeds. And 52 percent end up selecting final travel destination and itinerary based on friends’ recommendations on social media. These figures clearly represent the wide impact social media has to offer,” informs Vikram Malhi, General Manager, South and Southeast Asia, Expedia. Adds Nityanand Shetty, CEO, Essen Vision, Mumbai, “Even hotels and restaurants are now using mobility solutions and social media in an extensive way. They offer menus on tablets and are innovative in linking it with their Facebook page and seek feedback on the overall experience. In fact, if the rating is low, an SMS goes to manager automatically.”

Surveillance and infrastructure The 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai was a wake-up call for the hospitality segment. After the attack, the government made it mandatory for even small hotels to install surveillance systems. “There has been a spurt in surveillance projects since then. Luxury hotels are even going for campus wide surveillance with video analytics like face recognition, unattended object detection etc. Smaller hotels may spend `15-20 lakh, whereas, large hotels are spending up to `2 crore-`3 crore on surveillance and related infrastructure,” explains Jayessh Mehta, MD, Future Businesstech, Bengaluru. Future Businesstech has completed many surveillance projects for customers like Leela and Hilton hotels in the last two years. Many luxury hotels are even opting for integrated building management system that integrates IP surveillance, fire and gas alarms, public announcement system, and scanners, adds Mehta. Additionally, there is a trend among hotels to package Wi-Fi access with room rates. As the hotel industry is driven by corporate travelers, this trend is driving the demand for enterprise grade networking solutions, shares Sandeep Vahi, Director, Compton Computers, Delhi. Compton has completed three projects on networking and related infrastructure for hotels like Crowne Plaza, Vikram Hotels and Qutab Hotels, in the last one year. Besides in-house telephony and Wi-Fi, many luxury hotels are now opting for in-room interactive systems for enhanced user experience. These include on-demand services like Internet, movies, music and restaurant menu besides TV channels. “We see a lot of traction for interactive TV systems from luxury hotels. We implemented this solution for the Taj Group at their hotels in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru,” says Rambhia. Vardhaman also has plans to offer interactive TV systems as-a-service. “For a hotel with 100+ rooms, this service may cost $1 per night per box, which will include TV channels and on-demand content,” he shares.

Conclusion T&H is indeed a sector which is blooming despite slowdown and depreciating value of the rupee. “Opportunities are immense, the need is to offer domain expertise and end-to-end solutions around e-commerce and mobility,” concludes Khurana. n — With inputs from Murari Mohan Jha, Travel Trends Today

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Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TOP 100 Enterprise VARs only at CLS Presents

22-24 AUGUST 2013 THE LEELA, KOVALAM

Best platform to interact & network with Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading tier-2 systems integrators and enterprise VARs.

The 3 day summit is strategically planned to create multiple networking and interactive opportunities.

CXOs of the leading enterprise VAR organizations are handpicked through a comprehensive awards nomination process, from across 15 cities.

Gold Partners Platinum Partners

Key Highlights CONFERENCE - Technology clients will present their strategic technology and market initiatives CRN XCELLENCE AWARDS - The most coveted awards in the channel industry SOLUTION PAVILION - Technology companies will showcase latest products and solutions RETRO NIGHT - Relive the music from the 80’s – Dress to impress POWER BREAKFAST - Focused Group discussions between partners and technology companies EXOTIC VENUE - Exquisite venue, The Leela, Kovalam on a cliff-top overlooking the beach

Workshop Partner Presents Presents

Exhibitors

Organised by

role model

The Avid Learner

Rajendra Seksaria, Director of Kolkata-based `250 crore Balaji Solutions, is one of the most sought-after sub-distributors in India. He attributes his success to a friend’s taunt which gave him the determination to venture into the IT industry n amit singh

hough Rajendra Seksaria is a firstgeneration entrepreneur, Balaji was not his first venture. Just after completing BCom, and barely out of his teens in 1991, he began to run a franchise of the Gangaur Restaurants. An intuition that the restaurant would not provide him the kind of growth he wanted, led him to enter the IT field. In 1995, he joined a friend, who was an IT reseller in Kolkata. “That was the start of my learning curve. Since I was strong in financial management, I managed finance and inventory for him. In return, he taught me the nitty-gritty of IT and the distribution business.” Seksaria thanks an unnamed friend for driving him to start his IT business. “It was in 1997 that I had visited this friend. I picked-up a HDD and was just reading the brand name, when that friend snatched it away and taunted that the IT business was different from selling samosas. It hurt, but made me a determined man, and I started my first venture.”

The beginning Armed with adequate experience in reselling, Seksaria ventured into sub-distribution in the name of Tirupati Infotech in 1998. “The channel market was very small, and there were few genuine suppliers. I started by supplying PC components to smaller resellers who were ignored by the larger distributors.” Tirupati signed up distributors and vendors like Microtek, Jupiter, Bytes, and TVSe, and was one of the few partners to become a Genuine Intel Dealer. “We also ventured into system building in 2000. Those were the days when the government was providing sales tax exemption for sales up to `1 crore per month, in order to boost local manufacturing. While we sold the desktops to the consumers and SMBs through our resellers, we engaged with enterprise customers directly. We sold about 200-250 desktops per month during that time,” says Seksaria.

“We exited the PC assembling business in 2003 due to fierce competition. We decided to re-focus on our core competency and take sub-distribution to a new level” 30

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The next few years passed in setting business and geo expansion. The company also rechristened itself as Balaji Solutions in 2001. It however, exited the system building business in 2003. Seksaria explains the turn of events. “There was fierce competition, and we were losing focus on our subdistribution business. We decided to re-focus on our core competency and take sub-distribution to a new level.” Seksaria developed new contacts to source products at better prices. The IT market was dominated by importers who were focused on metros. “Although we exited the system building business, we emerged as one of the biggest suppliers of components to system builders.”

The turnaround year Seksaria identifies 2005 as a landmark year. “With the mushrooming of NDs, I realized that the competition would peak in Kolkata. We took a conscious call to expand in adjoining states such as Guwahati, Siliguri, Sikkim and Patna. And this proved fruitful as we were able to reach the products of many vendors who were unable to penetrate in smaller towns and cities. Infact, back then none of the NDs were willing to set-up a branch in an upcountry market, or extend credit to partners in these regions.” The company also expanded its product portfolio and launched SMPS and UPS under its own brand, Foxin. “I leveraged my channel partners, and pepped up TAT to 24 hours. Although the pricing of the products was on a higher side, we saw acceptance from quality conscious consumers. Foxin contributed `2 crore-`3 crore per month, in the first year of operations itself. We had a supportive and growing channel at that time which helped us expand the brand in newer territories,” says a proud Seksaria. Balaji implemented Microsoft Navision ERP in 2005 to consolidate its backend support for customer, sales, inventory and supply chain management. By 2007, as more vendors and NDs stepped-up presence, Balaji became a sought-after name in subdistribution. The company became a renowned distributor in north and north east regions with partnerships with companies like HP, Microsoft, LG and Samsung. It also added new branches in Delhi, Lucknow, Chandigarh and

Role model 1998

Started sub-distribution of PC components

2000

Current business

MILESTONES

Ventured into system building; sold 200-250 desktops per month

2001

Chennai totaling 10 branches across the country, and clocked revenue in excess of `100 crore in the fiscal. Between 2008 and 2010, Balaji expanded base in Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, MP, UP, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. Geo expansion acted as a strategy to ward off the ill effects of slowdown in 2008, Seksaria says.

Rechristened company as Balaji Solutions

distributors. Besides his team, he also relies on the chartered accountants who are an integral part of his intimate friend circle, for advice on finance and compliance. “We could have never grown in a tough market, considering the credit crunch and rising cost of funds. We negotiated on credit with NDs and increased our credit limit by 30-40 percent. We also re-negotiated with banks on interest and statutory costs.” He also advises partners to negotiate with banks on payment terms, finance rates and loan options. “Remember that even a half percent lower rate can bring in 1 percent extra margins in the overall business and grow your topline by 10-15 percent.” On the customer front, Balaji has tightened the credit limits for partners. “We noticed that outstation cheques took more than 7 days to credit in our account. We opened accounts in the banks where the partners held accounts. This in turn resulted in faster realization,” Seksaria informs. He also incentivizes partners who get payment against delivery by offering cash discounts.

2013

2011

2010

2007

2005

Balaji currently has 29 branches and more than 2,200 partners across Launched Foxin brand which the country. The company grew 6 contributed `2 crore-`3 crore percent to `250 crore in FY2012-13 as against `234.5 crore in FY2011-12. per month Seksaria credits the growth to Increased number of branches expansion of branches, extension of Dell’s regional distribution business, to 10; clocked `100 crore in national distribution partnership for revenues HP flash drives, and strong financial practices. Dell business grew 100 The sub-distributor opened percent; contributed `60 crore six more branches in Chennai, to revenues Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Patna and Chandigarh in 2011. The new Increased focus on brands branches contributed approximately offering good margins; profits 10-15 percent to revenues. soared 125 percent The company had been distributing Dell in the north-east, Clocked `250 crore in and impressed by its performance, Next on agenda the PC major offered it distributorship Seksaria admits that the IT revenues for Rajasthan and West Bengal. “As distribution space is in a a result, our Dell business grew over consolidation phase and remarks that 100 percent and contributed `60 crore to the overall organized players with strong financial practices will be revenue in FY2010-11,” discloses Seksaria. able to survive the tough ground. He signed up with PNY which manufactures and Focusing on bottomline, Seksaria expects revenue sells HP-branded flash drives. This partnership raked of `300 crore in the current fiscal. It is counting on its in `40 crore in FY2011-12. Revenues from PCs from branch expansion, focused vendors and Foxin brand. Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Samsung added `101 crore. The “While we expect more revenues from the new branches, company’s component brand Foxin contributed `20 crore we may open new ones. On the brands, we expect higher that year. contribution from HP and Kingston.” In the last fiscal, the company decreased focus on The company is also planning to renew focus on the brands with lower margins. “We increased focus on Foxin brand. “We will expand the product range and add vendors like Dell, HP, Canon, Kaspersky and our profits more speakers, mice, cabinets and SMPSs,” he says. soared 125 percent in the last fiscal,” he shares. The company is also setting up service centers for Foxin. “We will gradually expand services to the other brands. This is part of our ambition to become an Best practices authorized service provider for other vendors as well.” Seksaria recognizes strong financial practices as the biggest driver for growth in last couple of years. He acknowledges that he has learnt the most vital lessons On a personal note of IT distribution by observing and emulating national An avid learner, Seksaria considers the industry stalwarts as his role models. “I always keep an eye on how they do the same things, but differently and succeed. Therefore, I “The market has been tough for the last read and watch their interviews.” A pious person, he visits Tirupati Balaji and Vaishno 3-4 years. We negotiated credit with Devi every year. An annual trip to any leisure location distributors and vendors and increased our with family and friends is also a must, Seksaria states. n

limit by 30-40 percent”

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tech focus coolest open source products Partners can help customers save time and money by recommending these open source apps. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more, they can deploy it for internal use as well n Edward Correia

efore you fork over the big bucks for high-ticket software titles, it usually makes sense to check for alternatives. A quick look at what is available from the open source community can often reveal a hidden gem in a sea of costly closed apps. Here is a look at some open source products, any one of which might help save some time, some cash or both.

Impress.js For those who like Prezi Web service for its ability to quickly create dazzling animated slideshows, it might be worth taking a gander at Impress. js, which endeavors to do the same thing at no cost and without the need for an Internet connection. As with Prezi, the Impress user begins by placing all presentation items on a single rectangular plane, varying their size and linking them in the desired order. When presented, the app scrolls to each item in order, zooming in and out as appropriate for the size.

KVM With IBM now squarely behind KVM, the Linux kernel-based virtual machine is one to watch, and maybe even to use. KVM is a full virtualization system for x86 systems, complete with extensions for Intel VT and AMD-V. A loadable kernel module is capable of running Linux and Windows instances side-by-side and unmodified, though the QEMU does need some tweaking. By default, each VM spawns a NIC, video card, RAM and a hard disk. The KVM kernel has been a part of mainline Linux since 2.6.20.

ProjectLibre Not to be confused with LibreOffice, which mimics Microsoft Office functions and file formats, ProjectLibre

For $25 per terminal per month, OpenBravo Retail includes inventory, accounting, reporting, trends, customer assistance and POS cash register functions 32

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seeks to free people from the shackles of Microsoft Project by creating an open source replacement. ProjectLibre, available for download at SourceForge, is a stable working product that runs on BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows.

OpenBravo Retail Now that your music-on-hold is all set, you can set up your point-of-sale systems using OpenBravo Retail. Open but not free, OpenBravo Retail comes in cloud- or self-hosted versions and works with browsers on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows as well as mobile platforms. For $25 per terminal per month, the latest member of the OpenBravo family of enterprise systems includes inventory, accounting, reporting, trends, customer assistance and POS cash register functions.

Firefly Looking for an iTunes-compatible media service for Linux? So are we. Until a good one comes along, try the Firefly media server, an open source iTunes server. Formerly known by the much catchier name of mt-daapd, the Firefly project employs the iTunescompatible Roku server protocol for streaming of music, movies and other media over a local area network. Development has been halted for several years now, but you can still download the code for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

Personal Finance Manager For the small business with payroll and invoicing needs already taken care of, Personal Finance Manager offers a handy way to track expenses using a free Android app, which later syncs with a backend running Linux, Mac OS X or Windows. This free open source tool works across multiple bank accounts and provides an easy way to track budgets, cash flow and income, as well as a simple means to perform analyses and create reports. It supports exporting to a spreadsheet and backups to Google Drive or external storage.

tech focus For small businesses, Personal Finance Manager offers a handy way to track expenses using a free Android app, which later syncs with a backend running Linux, Mac OS X or Windows TrueCrypt For security-conscious organizations that are also on a budget, TrueCrypt might be just the ticket. This free open source tool for Linux, Max OS X and Windows works on individual files or entire partitions or volumes. For files, it creates a virtual encrypted disk within the file and mounts it as a real disk. Encryption is automatic, transparent and performed in real time. Options include volume and OS hiding, hardwareaccelerated encryption for read and write performance on par with non-encrypted volumes.

OpenOffice 4.0 Last month the Apache Software Foundation released OpenOffice 4.0 for Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows, with revisions and improvements far too numerous to list here. Among the major enhancements is an adjustable and resizeable sidebar panel that’s a result of IBMcontributed code. The sidebar can carry a multitude of property adjusters, including those for text alignment and appearance, page formatting, and graphic editing across suite modules. OpenOffice includes modules for word processing, spreadsheet, presentations and drawing, and it supports Microsoft, OpenDocument and other file formats.

Scribus For those looking to build a publication without having to shell out close to a grand for Quark Xpress or Adobe InDesign, there’s Scribus, a free open source app for Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and Windows that produces press-ready page layouts. It supports CMYK color and separations, can import text and graphics in numerous formats and offers extensive font management. An active community provides support and bug fixes.

SeaMonkey If at first you do not succeed, change your name to SeaMonkey. Techies in the 1990s might remember the Mozilla Application Suite, Mozilla’s first crack at an all-in-one productivity tool for the Internet that crashed under the weight of its code. While SeaMonkey shares code with Mozilla’s Netscape browser, Thunderbird email, news reader client, and ChatZilla IRC client, the suite doesn’t suffer from the bloat of its predecessor. None of SeaMonkey’s individual modules really stand out, but its built-in WYSIWYG HTML 4 editor might be handy for Web page designers, editors and IT types. It’s also skinnable. n

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channel buzz

n The newly elected ISODA committee members

ISODA elects a new committee The Infotech Software Dealers Association (ISODA), elected a new committee at its fifth annual general body meeting, held on August 2 in Mumbai. The new committee comprises Nityanand Shetty, CEO, Essen Vision, Mumbai, as the Chairman; Nitin Aggarwal, MD, Trifin Technologies, Delhi as Vice Chairman; Devesh Aggarwal, CEO, Compusoft, Mumbai as the President; Amarnath Shetty, MD, LDS Infotech, Mumbai as Vice President; Manish Tandon, MD, Questa Software Systems, Mumbai as Secretary General; and Manish Sanghrajka, Founder Director, Comprompt Solutions, Mumbai, as Treasurer. Anand V, CEO & Director, Raksha Technologies; Vinay Bansal, CEO, Synapse; Sudhir Kothari, MD, Embee Software, and Jiten Mehta, Director, Magnamious

n Rajat Jain, MD, Xerox India, presenting the XPL Champion

trophy to Baldev Singh (extreme left), Director, Web Infocom Services as Vipin Tuteja (extreme right), ED, Xerox India, looks on

Xerox India rewards performing partners Xerox India recently held the second edition of the Xerox Partners League (XPL) in Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram, where it rewarded select partners for their oustanding performance during the last year. The event was attended by 100 partners. “XPL is about celebrating channel excellence. It is a platform for recognizing the performance of our partners who have contributed to our growth in India. XPL is in line with our philosophy of Xerox Partner First channel program with an overall objective to drive growth together,” said Vipin Tuteja, Executive Director, Technology, Channels & International Business, Xerox India. The company also discussed future business plans, best practices and launched new partner enablement programs, during the event. n

IT Systems, have been elected as the new regional secretaries for South, North, East and West, respectively. Sharing the vision of the new team, Nityanand Shetty said, “We believe the time has come to take the ISODA brand to the next level. We want the stakeholders to look up to ISODA not only as a means of solving the existing software tax problems but also as an association that can help its members and industry to grow through mutual collaboration and best practices.” The AGM was followed by a series of interesting sessions. Vijay Ramchandran, Editor-in-chief, IDG, kickstarted the session with an interactive audiovisual on the subject Evolution Strategies for the Channel: Lessons from History. Niraj Kaushik, VP, Channels and Alliances, Oracle, spoke about the company’s new channel initiatives. In addition there was a panel discussion on the topic of The IT landscape: Roadmap for the partners, which was panelled by Dhaval Valia, Executive Editor, CRN, IDG’s Ramchandran, Oracle’s Kaushik, Sunil Golani, Director, Technology & Solutions Practices, Avnet, and Vineet Sood, Director, Channel Sales & Alliances, South Asia, Adobe Systems. The AGM ended with the announcement and a presentation on the ISODA TechSummit 4 to be held in Dubai in November. n

n Sachin Tendulkar, Brand Ambassador, and Jagannath Patnaik, Director, Channel Sales, SA, Kaspersky Lab, unveiling the 2014 editions of Kaspersky Antivirus and Internet Security

Sachin Tendulkar launches Kaspersky Internet Security Ace cricketer Sachin Tendulkar recently launched the latest editions of Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) and Kaspersky Antivirus (KAV) in Mumbai. The event was attended by more than 300 Kaspersky partners. The new antivirus has features like zeta shield, automatic exploit prevention, anti-blocker technology, safe money, trusted mode, etc. “I believe in using the best protection, be it in cricket or for my computer. The first thing you do in cricket is to ensure that you have protected yourself well by using the best protective gear and that’s what one needs to do while using the Internet: Protect your information. I have personally used Kaspersky Internet Security at home and in my office, and I am quite happy and confident that Kaspersky safeguards my digital life,” said Tendulkar, Brand Ambassador, Kaspersky Lab. n

To feature your company’s events in CRN, send write-ups with photographs to editor@ubmindia.com 34

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new products Lenovo IdeaPad A1000

enovo recently launched its new tabletâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;IdeaPad A1000. The tablet has 7-inch capacitive multi-touch LCD display with a screen resolution of 1024x600 pixels. It is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core MediaTek MTK8317 processor and runs on Android Jelly Bean OS. The A1000 has a 1 GB DDR2 RAM and integrated graphics. It comes with 4 GB of internal storage expandable up to 32 GB through microSD card. The tablet sports a 0.3 MP frontfacing camera and does not have any rear-camera. It comes with connectivity options via SIM card slot for 2G data support and voice call facilities. Additionally, it comes packed with a GPS, 3G via dongle, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 3.0. It also features dual front facing speaker powered by Dolby Digital Plus for an advanced audio experience. The A1000 weighs 340 grams, is 10.7 mm thick and is powered by a 3,500 mAh battery which can provide up to 420 minutes of talk time. The tablet is priced at `8,999 and carries a 1-year warranty. n

Dax launches NAS

ax Networks recently launched its new network access storage (NAS) device, DX-2116X-NAS-R, in a 3U rack mountable design supporting up to 16 hotswappable SAS/SATA II hard drives. It has a built-in iSCSI initiator for stackable capacity expansion to support sever clustering and virtualized environments. Sporting a quad-core Intel Xeon 3.1 GHz processor, the NAS comes with business-class server features. It supports advanced RAID configurations for data protection. The device supports backup to various cloud storage platforms including Apple Time Machine. It comes with several security features including IP filter, policybased auto IP blocking, AES 256-bit volume-based data external drive encryption, and SSL certificate. The NAS sends instant threat alert via email, SMS, instant messaging and buzzer, to the administrator in an event of security breach. It has 4 GB memory, 4 gigabit LAN ports, 6 USB ports and dual AC power supply. The DX-2116X-NAS-R is priced at `10.50 lakh and carries a 3-year warranty. n

LG videoconferencing system Logitech keyboard for iPad mini

ogitech has launched a keyboard cum cover for the iPad mini called the Ultrathin Keyboard Mini. This keyboard is powered by Bluetooth Easytype technology. It also has shortcut keys for commands such as copy and paste. The keyboard attaches with the iPad with the click of integrated magnets, and also matches its aluminum styling. The iPad automatically awakens when the keyboard is opened and switches off to standby mode when it is closed. The keyboard provides a three-month battery life. The Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Mini is priced at `6,795 and carries a 3-year limited warranty.. n

G Electronics has launched its video conferencing solution, VR5500F, that delivers an integrated solution for businesses. Full HD, it is a multipoint room type system which can connect up to four different places simultaneously. The VCS is equipped with features like content sharing with dual streaming that allows users to synchronize people and content screen simultaneously. It allows Web-based recording where users can record and save videoconferencing data on their PCs. VR5500F allows the use of different types of displays such as televisions, desktop monitors, and projectors. It also comes with an integrated remote control that can access the VCS as well as the LG TV. The VR5500F is available an entry-level price of `1.90 lakh. n

The products featured here have not undergone any benchmarking or testing. The trailers contain information provided by vendors and distributors. To feature your companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s products in CRN, send write-ups with photos to editor@ubmindia.com

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shadow ram Chief election commission to frame guidelines for free notebook schemes

any political parties are promising free notebooks in their manifestos in the upcoming state elections. However, in a recent ruling, the Supreme Court has asked the Central Election Commission to frame guidelines for the same. The apex court has said that such guidelines are necessary for maintaining a level-playing field during the elections, and can influence the voters. The court, however, ruled that under section 123 of the Representation of Peoples Act, giving freebies like televisions and notebooks cannot be considered a corrupt practice. The Supreme Court directive comes in the wake of a public interest plea filed by a Tamil Nadu based petitioner who argued that the freebies promised by various political parties are unconstitutional as it affects free and fair elections and are also a big drain on the state exchequer. n

GET

Personal

“I wish I had spent more time with my grandmom” Ranjit Nambiar, 41, Director, Identity and Access Management, India & Saarc, HID Global, has more than 15 years of experience in IT, security and industrial sectors. In the past he has worked in senior positions at companies like Acer, HCL Infosystems and 3M.

Ranjit Nambiar

If not in the IT industry: I would have been a farmer or a rural marketer.

Biggest passion: Cricket and movies. Behind the wheels: I try to keep my mind still. Gadgets I can’t live: My BlackBerry and iPad. Weekends are for: Unwinding and strategizing for the coming week. Favorite holiday destination: New Zealand. Hate the most: Working with a team that lacks the drive. Favorite movie: Sholay. Favorite stars: Amitabh Bachchan. Role model: Jack Welch. Ultimate ambition: To run a recreation club in my hometown. Wildest thing I have ever done: Bungee jump from the Auckland Bridge. Thing I most want to do in life: Go on a road trip and see as much of India as possible. If I became the PM: I would create social and economic balance in the society. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Amitabh Bachchan. One person I would like to meet and why: My grandmother who died many years back. I wish I had spent more time with her after I started work. Deepest and darkest fear: Not being able to be productive. n — CRN Network

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