contents
March 15, 2013 l Volume 2 Issue 10
Cover Story Open Source has evolved into a reliable business model and is gaining acceptance across the IT landscape. Partners can build a practice around it to earn margins that are a lot higher than those offered by proprietary software solutions
18 Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik
NEWS Analyses
Channel Chief
Wyse refreshes its GTM strategy
9
Buffalo plans runaway growth
9
Dell partners can open e-stores with DESA
11
Vision scouting partners for DR and BCP
11
RSA wants partners for security analytics
12
James Forbes-May VP, Data Management, APAC, CA Technologies, speaks about the data management software market, the company’s plans for its partners, and his outlook for 2013
13 Market Focus Microsoft partners are finally excited The new version of Office 365 is more useful and affordable for SMBs. In addition, certain plans can now be billed by partners
AMD to add stores, sub-distributors 12
READ More
Role Model
26
Editorial 08 Opinion
10
Feedback
10
Channel Buzz
30
New Products
31
Shadow Ram
40
Get Personal
40
6
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25 The power of contrarian thinking The normal wisdom is that to be successful, a sub-distributor must sell MNC brands in big cities. But Manohar Malani, MD, NCS Computech, has made it big by championing the cause of Indian brands in the remotest of places
Tech Focus 5 Dangerous Web application flaws coveted by attackers Most dangerous Web application flaws that attackers can use to hack your customers’ business
29
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edit opinion Microsoft finally embraces the cloud dhaval valia
T
he launch of the new Office 365, with new features and new pricing plans, signifies a radical shift in Microsoft’s approach to cloud computing. So far the company was sitting on the fence and was conflicted—it declared that cloud computing was the future, but at the same time it was trying hard to protect its on-premise software sales. The company now seems to have fully embraced cloud computing as the de facto future and as a result there is a lot more clarity and purpose to its new go-to-market for Office 365. This is evident from the fact that Microsoft has launched a retail pack as well as paper licensing options for Office 365. Though currently there are only two such plans available for channels to sell directly to customers, going forward, I see Microsoft having 80 percent of its SKUs billed by channels. It is a big change. Till recently Microsoft used to bill its customers directly, and partners received only a commission. Probably this was because the company didn’t trust its partners to do a good job of selling cloud computing since it was a nascent concept and the company itself was unclear about its direction. But no more. Microsoft realizes that with PC sales shrinking quickly and customers getting wiser with technology refreshes, the on-premise software model is slipping downhill. PC sales have contracted almost 12 percent from 381 million units in 2011 to 340 million in 2012. I see this further shrinking by more than 10 percent CAGR over the next 3-4 years, and project PC sales to dip below 250 million units by the end of 2015. To make things worse, thanks to the slowdown and also due to the increased adoption of virtualization and cloud computing, the average infrastructure refresh cycle among organizations has increased significantly. These factors have resulted in a drastic fall in overall software sales. Moreover, on the tablet front, it’s getting tougher by the day for Microsoft to compete with Android and iOS because it lacks the ecosystem support from mobile device manufacturers. Little wonder then that the company has been forced to relent and make Office available for Android tablets and smart phones. The only way Microsoft can sustain its growth—and maybe also ensure its long-term existence—is to embrace cloud computing completely. This reality has finally dawned on Microsoft, and it augurs well for both the company and for its partners. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 8
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Volume 2, Issue 10
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starting line Wyse refreshes its GTM n RAMDAS S
D
ell Wyse India has refreshed its go-to-market strategy with the restructuring of its operations, following its acquisition by Dell. While the thin client maker will exist as a separate company, its channel operations will come under the Dell Global Commercial Channels (GCC) program, and will be mostly indirect. Banking on the cloud computing wave, Dell Wyse is positioning itself as a cloud client computing and a VDI solutions vendor. “Wyse will be an integral part of Dell’s solutions portfolio where we offer a range of tablets, thin clients, PCs, servers, storage, software and networking,” informed Santosh Pandey, India Sales Manager, Wyse Technology. “We will continue to distribute the products through Ingram Micro, but channels can get all benefits of the Dell GCC program from deal registration to incentives.” Responding to the speculation that with the proliferation of tablets thin clients are likely to lose market share Pandey said, “On the contrary the thin client computing market is growing at twice the industry rate. Tablets increase mobility at a lesser cost, but do not have the virtues offered by thin clients such as enhanced security and lower cost of computing ownership.” Dell Wyse recently launched desktop-sharing thin clients retailed at $60 specifically targeted at school projects by state governments where its rival NComputing has made significant inroads. “Today we have thin clients starting as low as $60 and going up to $879. Customers are willing to pay such prices because of the enhanced security and ease of computing offered by our platform. Customers are
“We will continue to distribute through Ingram Micro, but channels can get all benefits of Dell GCC program” Santosh Pandey India Sales Manager Wyse Technology
even using our client devices to run CAD/CAM software and animation suites such as Maya,” said Pandey. The company recently launched Project Ophelia, a device the size of a USB memory stick that separates personal and corporate data, and is compatible with VDI software from VMware, Microsoft and Citrix. Though small, the device is powered by a dual-core processor, and supports WiFi and Bluetooth; it has an IT manager which allows users to carry enterprise data without the fear of the data getting lost or mishandled. “The idea is to offer content without a traditional computing device such as a PC or tablet, and which can be connected to a TV, projector or monitor supporting USB,” explained Pandey. Wyse has also readied personal virtualization and VDI application acceleration software to target the BYOD market. “We have a client software called PocketCloud which can be installed on any smart phone, tablet or PC. It immediately converts the device into a secure thin client. Though we are essentially a hardware company, today 35 percent of Wyse’s business in the country is from client and virtualization management software.” n
MUST
Read
Buffalo plans runaway growth Buffalo is planning to grow exponentially in the next three years and has charted out an aggressive distribution and retail strategy to drive its external storage and home networking portfolio, and has also ventured into accessories. Disclosed Deepak Deveshwar, Head, Retail & Consumer Business, Buffalo, “We plan to grow at a CAGR of 100 percent over the next three years. Our target is to achieve a share of 10 percent each in the external drive and home networking markets where currently we have less than 3 percent share. With our entry into PC and smart phone accessories, we are confident of achieving our goals.” Buffalo estimates the external HDD market size at `2,000 crore and growing at 20 percent CAGR, while its addressable home networking market size is `450 crore. The company has also embarked on a major retail expansion. It plans to open exclusive retail stores and create more shop-in-shops in the top 10 cities. To expand its reach in smaller cities it intends to sign up more than 500 new resellers this Deepak Deveshwar year. Buffalo currently has exclusive stores in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai, and shop-in-shop presence in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. “The exclusive stores will showcase all our products and have demo centers, while the shop-in-shops will be set up at 7-10 multi-brand retailers in each of the 10 cities,” informed Deveshwar. “We are focusing on LFRs and online retail. The new accessories portfolio—products like smart phone cases, mice and earphones— will allow us to have a broader relationship with channels.” Buffalo has increased its sub-distributors from 40 to 60 to improve market coverage. “With the help of Supertron, our exclusive national distributor, we are introducing a new program for sub-distributors. We will provide better training, MDF and rebates to performing partners,” added Deveshwar. n — Abhijeet Mukherjee
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edit opinion Storage in your DNA Need more like this
Srikanth RP
W
hen a nation with a population of more than a billion goes digital, the impact can be truly transformational in nature. A project which best exemplifies the potential of going digital is the Aadhar project. This project, which is mammoth in scale and ambition, is one of the most challenging projects from a storage and analytics perspective, as the scope is to capture 12 billion fingerprints, 1.2 billion photographs, and 2.4 billion iris scans. Not surprisingly, the whole world is keenly watching the progress of this project as it has huge lessons for every country—from a technology and impact point of view. While Aadhar is undoubtedly the poster boy of big data in India, there are many smaller projects that have the potential of creating a huge social transformation by leveraging the four mega trends—cloud, social, mobile and big data—that are in action today. These four mega trends are driving the digital transformation of India Inc. This is corroborated by a recent EMC-IDC study, which states that the digital universe in India will grow 23-fold between 2012 and 2020. The report notes that India’s digital information explosion will be driven by proliferation of devices such as PCs and smart phones, increased Internet access and boost in data from machines such as surveillance cameras and smart meters. Given this pace of rapid information explosion, Indian enterprises are accelerating usage of technologies like de-duplication, cloud-based storage and alternative storage mediums to cut costs and boost efficiencies. This razor sharp focus has obviously yielded results, as India happens to be the country with much lower cost of managing data than other global counterparts. The EMC-IDC study points out that India spent $ 0.87 per GB to manage data, which is much lower than the US, China, and Western Europe. While the world and India too continues to grapple with storage-related challenges, a tectonic shift can happen in the way we look at storage today. Researchers in the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) have discovered a new way of storing information in synthetic DNA molecules. Researchers say that once this method is perfected, a gram of DNA could safely store the equivalent of one million CDs for 10,000 years. The potential of such a technology is huge due to the advantages of long-term preservation of data at a low cost. While it is too early to say whether DNA can be the future medium of storage, India remains at the cusp of an exciting wave of digitization that has the potential to dynamically transform every sector and industry as we see today. n Srikanth RP is the Editor of InformationWeek. Email him at srikanth.rp@ubm.com
10
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The article by Manohar Malani on the Best Five Distribution Practices was excellent. The practices suggested by him are relevant to all channel partners and not just sub-distributors. You must continue inviting such highly experienced industry leaders to write articles on other topics concerning the IT market. JP Singh Bareilly
The biggest threat The threat to channel partners from online retailers, especially in the metros and other large cities, is extremely high. According to me, it is actually the biggest threat. I am not as much
worried that they are taking business away from resellers like me as I am about them spoiling the MOP of various products. Nowadays, nine out of 10 prospective customers who come to buy from me have previously checked the prices online and they expect me to match the prices offered by online retailers such as Flipkart and eZone. In most cases these prices are 5-15 percent lower than the MOP. Customers therefore force us to quote lower or matching prices, thus affecting channel profitability in a big way. We would like CRN to take up the cause of the channels and get vendors to control online retailers. Sridhar Naik Bengaluru
Send your feedback at editor@ubmindia.com or post your views on www.crn.in
Advertiser Index Company name
IBM
Page No Web site
02-03 www.ibm.com
Sales Contact
ibm.com/systems/no_compromise/in
Emerson
4 emersonnetworkpower.com
marketing.india@emerson.com
HP
5 www.hp.com
www.hp.com/sbso/product/supplies/fraud/_report.html
CRN Online
7
ranabir.das@ubm.com
Microsoft
www.crn.in
22-23 www.Office365.in
Compuage-Odyssey
32 www.compuageindia.com
odyssey@compuageindia.com
Asus
33 www.asus.in
reachus@asus.com
Donjin
34 www.donjin.com
sales_india@donjin.com
SG Systems
35
sales@sgsystems.net
Adata
36 www.adata-group.com
adata_in@adata-group.com
Lite On
37
info@compuageindia.com
Compuage-Edifier
38 www.edifier-international.com
info@compuageindia.com
Quick Heal
39
harish.shukla@quickheal.co.in
Biz
40 www.indiaantivirus.com
sales@indiaantivirus.com
IBM
41 www.ibm.com
ibm.com/ipuresystems/in
EMC
42 www.emc.com
ritesh.d@cdwindia.com.com
www.sgsystems.net
www.liteonodd.com
info@quickheal.co.in
starting line Dell partners can open e-stores with DESA n ABHIJEET MUKHERJEE
“We are helping partners set up their own online stores, thus giving them an opportunity to participate in the online business”
T
o capitalize on the growing trend of online retail, Dell has launched a new initiative called Dell Express Ship Affiliate (DESA) to enable its key partners to set up their own online store to sell Dell products. As the first step, it has partnered with GNG Electronics—a sister concern of its regional distributor for Mumbai, KK Overseas—to set up a store called www.compuindia.com. “With growing online retail sales, we have launched a new goto-market to help partners set up their own online stores, thus giving them an opportunity to participate in the online business,” said P Krishnakumar, Executive Director, Marketing, Dell India. Dell estimates that online retail sales of IT products will double from `3,500 crore in 2012 to `7,000 crore by 2015. Based on the performance
P Krishnakumar
Executive Director, Marketing, Dell India
of Compuindia.com, DESA will be opened up to more partners. Krishnakumar informed that the estore will sell other brands as well. “We don’t want to bind partners to exclusively sell Dell. They can sell other brands if they deem it fit to make their online venture successful.”
Dell is also cautious about not creating channel conflict. Apart from promoting Compuindia.com by displaying the link on the Dell website, the company will ensure standard MOP for online and offline sales. “We have ensured that DESA doesn’t disadvantage offline partners. The price offered will be the same, so will the MDF and other marketing support,” informed Krishnakumar. Dell doesn’t see partner-led online stores impacting its direct business. Said Krishnakumar, “Presently, the lead time for products sold from the Dell website is 5-7 working days because we offer several customization options. The partner-led online stores will largely compete with broad-based online retailers such as Flipkart or Ezone as they will sell standard overthe-counter SKUs. Customers can expect delivery within 48 hours from Compuindia.com.” n
Vision scouting partners for DR and BCP n amit singh
“In the last four years we have doubled our business in India and have acquired more than 500 customers. Of this, more than 100 were acquired last year”
D
R and BCP solutions vendor, Vision Solutions, is employing its energies to double its geographical coverage across the country. The company is targeting 100 percent growth in 2013 with its focus on channel expansion and enablement, and its continued thrust on SMBs. It has identified BFSI, IT-ITeS, manufacturing, government and logistics as high-growth sectors. Vision will double its coverage by the end of this year by focusing on territories beyond metros. “We are targeting territories such as Rajasthan, Punjab and Kerala with special focus on tier-2 and -3 cities. In addition, high importance will be placed on channel expansion and enablement,” said Ganesh Kuppuswamy, Regional Sales Manager, Vision. The company is also scouting for partners to double its active partner base from the current 78. “Moreover,
Ganesh Kuppuswamy Regional Sales Manager Vision Solutions
we are focusing on hands-on training and certifications in DR and BCP technology, and will support partners through MDF and participation in customer events,” said Kuppuswamy. “We will also introduce geo-specific schemes to increase partner sales.” Vision offers Double Take, an integrated solution for high avail-
ability, DR, migration, cross-platform data sharing, cloud protection, virtual machine protection, back-up and database conversion. According to Kuppuswamy, “Double Take offers host-based replication, hence it supports all virtualization platforms, applications and OSs, and needs no hardware change. It guarantees application and data availability by ensuring that they fail-over and fail-back during any event.” The company will introduce a new version of Double Take with additional support for Linux virtualization during April-June 2013. Kuppuswamy informed that SMBs contribute 65-70 percent of the company’s revenue. “In the last four years we have doubled our business in India and have acquired more than 500 customers. Of this, more than 100 were acquired last year, majorly in BFSI and IT-ITeS. The projects range from `10 lakh-1 crore.” n
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starting line RSA wants partners for security analytics n SONAL DESAI
R
SA will involve tier-2 partners for its new security analytics initiative. The company defines security analytics as an investigative tool to enable IT organizations to map incidents and obtain intelligent reports based on event processing, network forensics, data mining, etc. RSA has merged the features of its enVision security information event management platform with its NetWitness network appliance. It has added EMC’s Greenplum analytics management capabilities, Silicium Security’s enterprise compromise assessment tools, and Silver Tail Systems’ web fraud detection tools. While RSA is currently working with tier-1 partners, it is also scouting for 5-8 tier-2 partners for security analytics. “We want to work with solution providers who can offer the solutions as a component of their
“As these are high-end deals which start at $250,000, we want serious partners who can dedicate resources, and make investments with RSA” Kartik Shahani Country Manager RSA
systems integration projects, and managed security service providers who can offer reports and incident management as a service. They can also offer white-label services and introduce a rate-card,” said Kartik Shahani, Country Manager, RSA. The demand for analytics will come from compliance-driven
verticals. “We even see demand from start-ups who have to protect their IPs,” Shahani said. While the sales training is free, the services training will be charged for. Said Shahani, “Because these are high-end deals which start at $250,000, we want serious partners who understand the segment, can dedicate resources, and make investments with RSA. For example, partners opting for SecureID specialization need a pipeline of at least 10 leads, whereas a NetWitness partner needs at least one lead in the pipeline.” Those trained under the RSA SecurWorld partner program will be tiered as Affiliate, Focus and Premier partners. The first training will start by May 2013. Though RSA has not disclosed the pricing of the solutions for India, they are likely to start at about $75,000, and increase depending on the capabilities and size of the deployment. n
AMD to add stores, sub-distributors n RAMDAS S
A
MD India is planning an aggressive push for its consumer notebook business. Said Chandrahas Panigrahi, Country Head, Consumer Business, AMD India, “We have grown from less than 1 percent market share in 2010 for consumer notebooks to 14.1 percent in Q42012. From less than three SKUs in 2010 in the retail segment today we have 61 SKUs across seven OEMs. At least three OEMs have reported that their AMD SKU is among their top three selling products in the market. This suggests that customers are accepting the AMD brand.” AMD is banking on the consumer segment because it believes that commercial desktops and notebooks will de-grow in 2013. “Consumer desktops and the entire commercial market are either flat or growing negatively. Our energies will therefore be focused on consumer notebooks,” informed
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“Consumer desktops and the commercial market are either flat or growing negatively. Our energies will be focused on consumer notebooks” Chandrahas Panigrahi
Country Head, Consumer Business, AMD India
Panigrahi. For this, AMD is strengthening its Warlords tier-2 distribution program and is expanding its retail presence. “We have 50 Warlords sub-distributors, a number we plan to increase to 75. We also intend to increase the number of AMD stores from 19 to 45 by the end of 2013,” Panigrahi
disclosed. AMD’s biggest challenge is to increase the ASP of its notebooks. In 2012, 75 percent of the AMD notebooks sold sported Brazos, the low-end APU with notebook prices ranging from `17,500-`24,000. “With the launch of our new APU platform Richland, customers can experience better visual performance as these new chips are based on the Radeon HD 8000M graphic processors,” Panigrahi added. “By April most OEMs will be shipping new models based on Richland which will take the pricing of the AMD notebooks to `24,000`32,000.” The Richland platform will also help AMD gain traction in the ultrathin market, its answer to Intel’s ultrabooks. “We will aggressively push this category and expect demand to pick up with prices expected to drop below `40,000 within the next quarter.” n
channel chief “Our focus is partner enablement” James Forbes-May, Vice President, Data Management, APAC, CA Technologies, spoke to Sonal Desai about the data management software market, the company’s plans for its partners, and his outlook for 2013 It has been estimated that the data management software revenue in APAC will increase by 30 percent from 2012 to reach $209 million in 2013. What will be the drivers of this growth?
How different are things after the reorganization of the data management unit?
The demand for integrated solutions is coming from customers who want to upgrade their Microsoft OS and server, companies looking at standardizing their IT infrastructure on one platform, or those transitioning from virtualization to the cloud. In addition, frequent power outages in India are increasing the need for backup, recovery and replication. Second, with the growth of enterprise applications, IT organizations are scouting for data management solutions. We have not come across a single organization which has not seen 3060 percent data growth because of new applications. Third, a very small number of Indian enterprises conscious of their recovery point objective and recovery time objective are looking at replication solutions for storage, servers, etc. In such instances the opportunities for partners include not only replication or data management but also MS licenses and professional services.
From a product and solutions perspective, how prepared is CA? Our strategy is two-fold. On the product front we will offer backup and recovery software from ARCserve, data modeling software from ERwin, and the IT monitoring and service desk from Nimsoft as stand-alone products; we will integrate them to pitch solutions for backup, recovery, replication and high availability. At present we are supporting both customers with one server and customers with thousands of servers running on Windows and Linux. We also have customers running on Oracle, VMware and Citrix. I believe that partners should evolve with the changing times, and be ready to service their customers moving toward cloud IT services as an alternative to on-premise IT management tools. The two key elements of CA’s push in that area are Nimsoft and ARCserve.
“I have a solid channel team under Rai; the team is currently articulating the message for our partners. Additionally, the team is helping partners develop domain expertise”
Since the reorganization in November 2012 we have become more agile and focused. Our teams are working as one unit, and we did not face teething problems. This is because I let the different data management teams mingle with Nimsoft—and that included sharing information on opportunities and new leads. It is now official, so there is a lot of harmony among team members. From a company perspective we are ready with the right products and solution stacks; from a partner perspective we are hand-holding them. I have a solid team in India under Vijayant Rai; the team is currently busy articulating the message for our partners. Additionally, Vijayant is asking his executives to develop domain expertise among channel partners, thus preparing them for larger opportunities.
What will be the impact of the new strategy on your GTM? CA is already a partner of choice for customers. For partners, there are some moves we want to make. One, to utilize the MDF in a more meaningful way, and two, to shift some of our enterprise customers to our tier-2 channel partners, both physical and managed service providers (MSPs). To do this, we will revamp our partner program, and introduce specializations or competencies. Our inside sales team will initially identify select performing partners and train them in architecting and implementing solutions. White papers and data sheets will be mounted on the partner portal every quarter. We are fine-tuning our training calendar, and will soon share it. The idea is to train sales and technical executives of partner organizations every month. These will be very high level sessions, and competencies will be awarded based on the certifications obtained. The certifications do carry a charge, but I am looking at funding that charge through my marketing budget.
What will be the additional benefits for specialized or competent partners? These partners will be the first to have access to new product information and updates. Besides, there will be a difference in how they transact, and how fast they can
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channel chief close a transaction. We are mounting information on new products, marketing collateral and certification, as well as the names of and information about sales guys. We are giving ourselves a time-frame of six months to get there; partners who invest time and resources in scaling up will automatically qualify for the leads and the rebate program. The qualified partners will have access to reselling and solutions opportunities from $5,000-$20,000 in inside sales on hardware, software and implementation.
Are you targeting a specific number of partners? We currently work with four kinds of partners. In the first category are partners who talk about our products. The second category consists of those who sell integrated solutions, but do not deploy them. In the third category are partners who are involved from the pre-sales to the implementation stage. Partners in the fourth category take care only of our key accounts. I don’t want to put off these partners by setting a minimum revenue target, but I want to tell them that if you give me access to resources and marketing I will share my resources with you. In India we have a little more than 150 partners, but only 30-35 percent of them transact with us regularly every quarter. So while I am not looking at a significant increase in the number of channel partners in the country, I am certainly working on ways to increase the engagement of the other 65 percent.
The company has increased its focus on MSP partners. How important is an MSP to you? MSPs are an integral part of our partner program. We have launched a dedicated MSP licensing program to meet the growing demand from service providers to offer customers data protection, recovery and availability products. We now want them to increase the level of engagement from just transactional to providing SLA-based services. We recently launched flexible licensing options whereby MSPs can charge their customers on a per-server, per-workstation, per-socket, per-virtual machine or per-
“2013 is the year of partner enablement. We will on-board performing partners for the new program with whom we will share several of our named enterprise accounts” terabyte basis. We have also included SKUs of smaller products to tap SMB and mid-market customers.
Overall, what are the three key things CA has planned for its partners? 2013 is the year of partner enablement for us. We will release a complete docket of the revamped partner program by 2014. We want to initially on-board select performing partners for the new program, share enterprise accounts with tier-2 partners, and share the case studies of thousands of companies worldwide using ARCserve for data management. We are also formalizing a three-stage, presales enablement program which includes promotional activities with local distributors and those at the APAC level.
What’s your outlook for 2013? While the trends apply to enterprise customers across verticals, I am largely seeing customers on server 2012 going for upgrades. Some are looking at consolidation, especially those companies which have been running different solutions. Virtualization and the cloud are two more determining factors. In any quarter there are big-ticket deals in which CA is invited to work on. The main thing is that people are investing in data, and making the right level of investment considering how much it will cost if they lose that information. Big data is one more driving factor. With petabytes of data being generated every year, enterprises have realized the need to back it up. n
Consistent Credible Clear Competent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing
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special focus Driven by regulatory compliance, need for stringent surveillance, and by the growing trend of online retail, the gems and jewelry segment is investing significantly in advanced ICT solutions n AMIT SINGH
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are more tech-savvy and understand how IT can help he overall gems and jewelry (G&J) market in India them to gain a competitive edge.” stood at `4,30,000 crore in 2012. There are an Compliance with the Kimberley Process is a major estimated 2.5 lakh small and large shops, 28,000 reason for increasing investments in IT. “To stem processing units, 6,000 offices and 34 lakh workers in the the flow of conflict diamonds, the global Kimberley industry. Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) imposes extensive “The G&J sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14 requirements on G&J companies to certify shipments percent from 2012 to 2014, and the IT spending in this of rough diamonds as conflict-free. Indian diamond vertical will grow at an annual growth rate of 17 percent exporters have to regularly share export and import during this period,” says Dev Chakravarty, Manager, data with the government and the World Council. Research, AMI Partners. “The growth in G&J is supported If they don’t they can’t trade with global companies,” by the robust consumer demand for jewelry despite the explains Moin Shaikh, Director, Innovative Telecom & prices of precious metals shooting up. India continues to Softwares, Surat. be the largest consumer of gold with 20 percent share of the overall global market.” According to estimates, the ICT spend of this sector Physical security ranges from 0.8 percent of the total market size; this The biggest demand from this vertical is for physical amounts to `3,200 crore. security and surveillance solutions. “This is natural, Security is the main driver of IT consumption in this because the industry deals in products that could be vertical. Other drivers are greater adherence to standards worth lakhs and even crores. Many are using advanced (such as the Kimberley Process for diamonds); the video analytics for people counting, face recognition, need for automation to manage business functions; the motion detection and sound detection,” observes Holla. emerging demand for applications such as CRM, SCM Adds Vinod Bhatheja, VP, Tech Support at the and BI; and the growing trend of online retail. Surat-based Geo Integrators, which has executed several Sudhindra Holla, Country Manager, Axis physical surveillance projects for jewelry firms, “We Communications, says that the recently did a project for a small major adoption of IT solutions has diamond cutting and polishing firm Sector snapshot so far been among large jewelry in Surat with 500 workers. The manufacturing and diamond customer has deployed 200 HD Industry size: `4,30,000 crore processing units which opt for the cameras in a single location.” Some industry figures: 2.5 lakh best-in-class solutions. “However, Geo Integrators has also done showrooms, 28,000 processing units, there is also huge opportunity among projects where IP cameras are 6,000 offices, 34 lakh workers small and medium manufacturers installed at the retail outlets of Demographics: Southern states and and retailers who are looking at IT to jewelers. “Many firms in Mumbai Gujarat for gold; Surat, Jaipur and optimize their business and venture and Surat are venturing into retail Mumbai for diamonds, Hyderabad for into online retail to reach newer and have set up their own stores pearls markets.” or through franchisees. Setting up IT spend: 0.8 percent of annual According to Manish Bahl, Vice surveillance has become mandatory market size President and Country Manager, India, for shops,” informs Bhatheja. Opportunities: Surveillance, IBMS, Forrester, “The other aspect which is Innovative Telecom too has done ecommerce, data security, virtualization, driving the adoption of ICT in the G&J several advanced IP surveillance analytics, cloud, video conferencing sector is that the next generation of projects with analytics and highSource: Industry estimates business owners is taking over. They end access control solutions. “Many
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special focus “The growth in G&J is supported by the robust consumer demand. India continues to be the largest consumer of gold with 20 percent share of the global market” Dev Chakravarty
Manager, Research, AMI Partners
customers are opting for advanced technologies such as face recognition to restrict the movement of workers. With every physical security deployment there is a huge business for network infrastructure, compute and storage,” says Shaikh.
IBMS solutions The other opportunity is for integrated building management system (IBMS) deployment. IBMS integrates solutions like power, access control, surveillance, fire alarm, networking and data center. According to Shaikh, “In the last two years large exporters have been compelled to follow the Kimberley Process. As a result, many are taking a holistic view and deploying IBMS solutions.” Innovative has executed many such projects in Surat. “We have already completed 15 projects in the last two years and currently have four projects under implementation and five under discussion. Not just big customers, even small and medium gem export firms are looking for these solutions which cost from `1.5 crore to `3.5 crore,” he informs.
Web and ecommerce Until recently, jewelry retailers relied almost exclusively on walk-in customers; however, this is changing as retailers like the Gitanjali Group and Caratlane.com have expanded their online operations. Others, like PP Jewellers and Rajesh Exports, are looking to open their estores over the next few months. According to one estimate, the jewelry online retail market in India is worth around `424 crore and will grow at 80 percent annually. “A huge opportunity lies in the G&J vertical in terms of website creation since a large proportion of firms do not have their own websites. Such websites will enable them to market their products beyond geographic borders at a much lower marketing and promotional cost,” states Chakravarty. There’s also huge scope for B2B portals. The large
“One key factor driving ICT adoption in G&J is that the next generation of owners is taking over. They understand how IT can help gain a competitive edge” Manish Bahl
Country Manager, India, Forrester
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Network Techlab virtualizes TBZ
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umbai-based Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ) is a jewelry retailer with showrooms at 15 locations across the country; it employs 950 people. Prior to implementing virtualization, TBZ was running 35 servers, about 20 of which resided in a primary data center while the others were scattered across its various locations. Due to the distributed architecture, TBZ’s IT team was facing challenges with regard to the availability and performance of critical databases and applications. Network Techlab implemented VMware vSphere 4, and enabled TBZ to run key databases and applications such as Oracle Database 11g and Oracle E-Business Suite on 60 virtual machines on four host servers supported by networked storage. The virtualized environment is managed from a single remotelyaccessible console. According to Haresh Gada, Haresh Gada Director, Network Techlab, “With a 7:1 server consolidation ratio, the deployment saved `40 lakh in hardware costs for TBZ, cut the required rack space by 16 racks, and improved uptime from 70 percent to 98 percent. In addition, it reduced the number of administrators required to run the environment from 10 to one, improved performance by 30-34 percent, and boosted CPU utilization from 3-4 percent to 70 percent.” n
With a 7:1 server consolidation ratio, the deployment saved `40 lakh in hardware costs, cut the required rack space by 16 racks, and improved uptime from 70 to 98 percent manufacturers, exporters and retailers have already got portals through which they exchange design, inventory and trading information. Explains Shaikh, “In a B2B environment diamond dealers place their inventory online providing access to controlled business buyers who can log-in, see the inventory and place orders.”
Data security Apart from physical security, the adoption of data security products has also increased in a big way. “Besides the large players, small and medium G&J players are realizing the benefits of securing their data. Many players have branch locations or are expanding their retail network; some are setting up B2B or B2C portals. These factors have increased the demand for data security solutions,” says Bhatheja. Geo Integrators has done 22 data security solutions projects ranging from `50,000 to `2 lakh, for G&J firms in the past two years. Adds Bhatheja, “In smaller deals we have provided 25-50 UTM licenses, but in large projects it goes up to 300. The demand for endpoint is also on the rise.”
special focus “Surveillance demand is huge because the industry deals in products worth lakhs and even crores. Many are using advanced video analytics solutions”
Innovative deploys IBMS for Fine Star
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Sudhindra Holla
Country Manager, Axis Communications
Software solutions The adoption of business applications such as ERP, CRM and BI is on the rise among G&J entities. KPCS compliance is a key driver for companies to implement ERP, while the need for CRM and BI is being driven by the expansion of the franchise network and online retail growth. “We have successful deployments of BI and analytics among large players,” informs George Varghese, Senior Director, Application Sales, Oracle. “These companies are using advanced tools for demand planning, retail expansion and design trends, with a few players showing interest in Social CRM.” Among the small companies, regional or city-based jewelry retail chains are deploying business applications developed by local ISVs. “This is a huge market, with a large presence of ISVs. A SaaS ERP or CRM would work very well with these smaller players,” opines Chakravarty. Sensing big opportunity here, vendors like Oracle and Microsoft are now offering ERP and CRM on the cloud. According to Varghese, “While an on-premise ERP may cost as much as `60,000 per user per annum, a cloud solution is available at just `200-300 per user per month with basic modules.” “Since on-premise solutions are quite expensive for small players who currently rely on local ERP solutions with non-integrated modules, we are planning to introduce a cloud-based ERP solution in the next six months,” Shaikh discloses.
Virtualization and VDI With an expanding network and increasing focus on ecommerce, the IT footprint of some G&J players is as big as those of companies in other verticals, hence these players are investing in virtualization and VDI. Mumbai-based Network Techlab has completed more than 10 virtualization projects in this vertical in the last two years. “We have moved our large customers (who have large infrastructure spread across locations)
he Surat-based Innovative Telecom & Softwares has implemented 15 IBMS projects in the last two years. One of its recent implementations was at Fine Star Diamonds, a Surat-based diamond company which was facing issues of shrinkage (through stealing) of diamonds which they were unable to trace with their analog surveillance solution. They also had issues with managing their analog fire detection system. Innovative implemented an IBMS for better security and asset management with centralized control. The company installed IP-based HD surveillance, access control, fire control, a paging system and a data center with IBM server and storage to support the infrastructure. Innovative executed the project in three months. With the access control and surveillance solutions offering analytics such as people counting, motion detection and voice detection, Fine Star expects to break even on the project cost of `1.5 crore in just a year. “We used to lose 6-7 high-value diamonds of an average price of `25 lakh totaling `1.5 crore-1.75 crore in a year. With this solution, we can centrally manage everything from surveillance to fire control. Shrinkage has now reduced to zero, hence we will retrieve our investment in a year,” says Nanji Vaghasia, Director, Fine Star. n
We used to lose 6-7 diamonds of an average price of `25 lakh totaling `1.5 crore-1.75 crore in a year. With this solution, shrinkage has reduced to zero to a virtualized infra,” says Haresh Gada, Director, Network Techlab. “The projects range from `5 lakh-`25 lakh, depending on the additional server and storage requirements. In fact, many of the customers are now upgrading to VDI.”
Video conferencing According to AMI Partners, G&J organizations are showing interest in video conferencing solutions to collaborate with international suppliers, traders, designers and customers. “With this they can discuss terms of the contract, showcase their actual products, and get suggestions about design changes—all in real time,” says Chakravarty. He adds that Skype, a basic IP-based technology, is popular among smaller firms in this sector as a means of communicating with their peers around the world.
Conclusion The G&J vertical is dominated by small and medium family-driven firms often led by the new generation with large sums at their disposal. This makes it a good vertical to bet on for IT channel partners. As Shaikh puts it, “The need is to educate them about the benefits that IT brings to the table. Being a closely knit community, this vertical offers continued business once you get started.” n
“The Kimberly Process imposes strict requirements on G&J firms to certify rough diamonds as conflictfree. If they don’t comply they can’t trade with global companies” Moin Shaikh
Director, Innovative Telecom & Softwares
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cover story
Open source has evolved into a reliable business model and is gaining acceptance across the IT landscape. Partners can build a practice around it to earn margins that are a lot higher than those offered by proprietary software solutions n RAMDAS S
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ree and Open Source Software (FOSS) got transformed a long time ago from being an idyllic philosophical movement led by geeks to a business model that is evolving every day. Both IBM and HP have reported revenue in excess of billions of dollars from open source for the past few years, while some of the biggest names on the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook) run multi-billion dollar businesses
that are driven by FOSS-based solutions. With FOSS Android gaining market share in tablets and smart phones, it’s expected that by the end of the year more computing devices will be powered by FOSS than proprietary closed source software. Linux, the original poster-child of the FOSS movement, is today a 20-yearold operating system, ships in thousands of flavors, and powers everything from thumb-drive-sized devices to
Tips to build Your OPEN SOURCE business Practice what you preach: Unless and until you start using Linux or other open source software within your own organization, selling it cannot be a convincing experience and you will find it difficult to relate to customer needs. Build an open source culture: Remember, writing code is not the only way to contribute to FOSS. You can do so by filing bug reports, helping with documentation, and answering questions on forums. Encourage your employees to participate, and build a small incentive model around community contribution and collaboration. Join communities: Every city in India has a Linux User Group
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or other user groups involved in different FOSS stacks such as PHP. There are several niche online communities across social media platforms. Participate to build references. Offer free workshops: The FOSS world works on the principles of Freemium, hence offering free workshops, training and software is the best way to get users interested. Focus on a few: The FOSS world is big, and many partners get carried away with the amount of software available. But for building a profitable business, it’s important to focus on a just a few areas and a few stacks. n
cover story large mainframes. Despite this, very few channel partners in India have been able to leverage the advantages offered by the availability of thousands of enterprise-grade software that are absolutely free to download, use and build solutions. There are reasons for this, the most common one being that very few FOSS vendors have been able to deliver channel models that can be easily adopted within the known frameworks that partners are comfortable with. Explains Keshav Rao, Director, Open 2 All Systems, Bengaluru, “A small reseller depends on day-to-day transactions for survival, and it’s not easy for such a reseller to understand the value offered by an open source platform, build a business case, and educate customers. Frankly, there has been no real SMB or even mid-market initiative around FOSS that is channel-friendly. On the enterprise side there have been many initiatives, and that’s why enterprise-focused partners have seen success with FOSS.” Others point out that most partners are not cut out for chasing opportunities because of their attitude toward the solutions-based business. “It requires a lot of patience, constant skills retraining, and belief in yourself. In the first year of my business with Red Hat we ended up doing just about `50,000. Last year our revenue from FOSS related business stood at `3 crore,” says Manojkumar Garg, Director, Tashee Linux Services, Hyderabad.
Traditional models While the pundits see several models for building a profitable business, what has worked well is selling traditional support subscription models. Says Venkatesh Swaminathan, Country Head, Suse Linux India, “This has worked over the past several years, and with constant tweaking we have been able to make it work better every year. And unlike the traditional software business based on proprietary licenses and closed source, the margins which channels make are very healthy.” Swaminathan puts the typical margins on selling enterprise Linux support (along with associated revenue in consulting, implementing and training) at above 30 percent of the TCO of a proprietary solution. “I believe that the TCO of an enterprise FOSS based solution will be 30 percent cheaper than that of proprietary software, which means a customer makes 30 percent savings while the revenue will be shared by the vendor and partner.” He says that at the best partners end up making low two-digit margins when they sell proprietary software. Many partners have seen more success in supporting
“The TCO of an enterprise open source solution is at least 30 percent cheaper than proprietary software; savings can be shared by the vendor and the partner”
FOSS helps Nxtgen SAVE Millions
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engaluru-based Nxtgen Data Center & Cloud Services has saved more than $4,000 per server in terms of licensing costs for setting up private clouds by using the open sourcebased OpenStack cloud virtualization platform. “Since we offer a cloud data center as a service, a serious component that adds to our costs is virtualization software, and depending on whether it was Microsoft or VMware it used to cost us $3,600-$4,500 per server,” explains AS Rajagopal, MD, Nxtgen. OpenStack consists of a series of inter-related projects that control large pools of processing, storage and networking resources throughout a data center, all managed through a dashboard which gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a Web interface. The project, under an Apache license, is supported by leading players in the industry including AMD, Dell, Canonical, IBM, Intel, HP, Red Hat and Rackspace. Rajagopal notes that while OpenStack does not ship with all the bells and whistles of private cloud solutions such as those from Microsoft or VMware, there are no stability issues. “Our engineers may have to spend a couple of hours more in configuring and setting up the virtual servers, but when we can pass on a better cost advantage to our customers, that effort is worthwhile.” Currently, 160 physical cores, and around 4 TB of RAM, spread AS Rajagopal across 25 servers, have been virtualized using OpenStack at Nxtgen’s Bengaluru data center, and are being powered to run a gaming portal and a mobile video-on-demand service which are expected to consume up to 850 MB bandwidth at peak hours. Additionally, Rajagopal notes that the cost of expensive shared storage was eliminated. “With the KVM block migration in OpenStack, we did not incur any additional cost for the shared storage for any VM migration; this has meant that for every 2-3 servers there was additional savings of at least `2 lakh.” n
We save more than $4,000 per server in terms of licensing costs by using the OpenStack cloud virtualization platform free software by themselves without paying anything to the vendor. “The thought process is simple: since you don’t share any revenue with the vendor all you bill is the margin. However, I believe that less than 3 percent of the channel base actually has the capacity to build a profitable business model out of this since it’s not easy,” says Swaminathan.
Hybrid revenue Many partners have chosen to opt for a mix-and-match model of revenue by having an official relationship with vendors, but choosing to share revenue with vendors only when the customers’ requirements demand it.
Venkatesh Swaminathan Country Head, Suse Linux India
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cover story How Netcore built A `50 cr BIZ with FOSS
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umbai-based Netcore Solutions provides solutions around messaging, and has been using Linux since 1998. The company’s estimated `50 crore annual revenue comes from three businesses—email infrastructure, email marketing, and voice/SMS marketing solutions, each powered by free software. Netcore runs its core email infrastructure on top of a homegrown platform based on Postfix for Mail Transfer, Cyrus IMAP for Mail Delivery, and SpamAssassin and ClamAv for anti spam and security. The company has also developed a host of utilities written in free programming languages (PHP and Perl) to manage the infrastructure. “We have two models. One is a cloud-based model which powers over 1,00,000 mailboxes for our customers, the other is an on-premise model with more than 1,70,000 mailboxes,” informs Kalpit Jain, COO, Netcore. Most of Netcore’s revenue comes from its email marketing solutions for which the company has set up an infrastructure consisting of 170 servers and over 16,000 static IP addresses; it runs CentOS on each server to send approximately two billion emails a day for over 1,500 customers. Says Jain, “Some of the top banks use our solutions to send information such as statements and transaction details. The solutions are powered by Postfix, and for their management we use a number of other niche open source tools and a home-grown application developed on PHP, Perl and MySQL.” Jain estimates that over the past several years, in terms of software licensing Kalpit Jain costs alone, the company has saved $2 million. “However, the biggest savings are in terms of R&D. Open source allows you to learn and understand code, and helps you to build solutions faster.” For the digital marketing platform which uses voice and SMS to provide interactive marketing solutions, Netcore uses Asterisk, and has developed a Java-based platform in-house. “The platform is presently being used by companies such as Hindustan Lever to do marketing to rural consumers.” n
In our estimate, over the past several years, in terms of software licensing costs alone, we have saved $2 million For example, Chennai-based Futurenet Technologies, a VMware partner, sells both the FOSS community edition of Zimbra as well as the commercial network edition. “Depending on the customer’s budget and requirements we select and sell the edition. While we work with the standard partner’s margin on the commercial version, we price the FOSS edition attractively. Customers who require premium features will require the commercial edition, and are comfortable paying accordingly,” explains L Ashok, CEO, Futurenet. The hybrid model has been explored by several companies to build cost-effective yet highly profitable revenue streams. Mumbai-based Netcore Solutions sells hybrid email hosting where, depending on the precise
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“FOSS in its purest form is a source code. For an average customer, you need add-on features and interoperability with his existing software” Limesh Parekh
CEO, Enjay IT Solutions
user profile, the customer can choose MS Exchange, Lotus or plain Linux-based email. Adds Suresh Shanmugham, Head, Business Information Technology Solutions, Mahindra Finance, “We have carefully chosen a set of FOSS software, and have done value-additions to make it easily adoptable by users. Today, 70 percent of our users are almost completely using FOSS stacks while just 10 percent of the senior staff is using commercial software. This has provided us with tremendous cost savings.” Both Suse and Canonical offer advanced support which allows partners to pick and choose the services they require, and they bill customers according to their specific demands. “We have partners who provide L1 and L2 support, and buy Ubuntu Advantage—our premium annual support contract package—to provide L3 support for critical servers and desktops. Apart from the very healthy margins they make, they build strong services revenue that is replicable,” says Prakash Advani, Regional Manager, APAC, Canonical.
Value additions The biggest strength of a stable FOSS product is the hard work that has gone into building one by the community, hence the most lucrative business model would be to build on the platform by selling either services or addons. For example, over 10,000 programmers have together committed in excess of 15.8 million lines of code to the Linux kernel. And Debian, a free Linux distribution, is powered by 68 million lines of code which have been tried and tested by over three million tech-savvy users— and it comes absolutely free. “One of the most lucrative businesses is to support stable and free FOSS software by investing in trainers and educators. The biggest way a partner can contribute to an SMB is by educating the customer and helping him to use FOSS stacks effectively. You need not write a single line of extra code,” says Joel Divekar, GM, Information Systems, People Interactive, which owns Shaadi.com. Divekar recently migrated 95 percent of the company’s desktops
“One of the most lucrative businesses is to support free OS by investing in trainers. A partner can contribute by helping a customer to use FOSS stacks effectively” Joel Divekar
GM, Information Systems, People Interactive
cover story “If a partner can help a customer to save costs, the customer will share the saved cost with him— and that would be more profitable than selling proprietary software”
Leveraging Open source telephony
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Prakash Advani
Regional Manager, APAC, Canonical
across 50 locations from Windows to Ubuntu, which led to savings of more than `80 lakh in licensing alone. “IT service providers should also highlight the other advantages of FOSS,” Divekar continues. “For example, we used to have a virus attack on at least 20 desktops a week; this drastically reduced productivity. After migrating to Linux we have had no such cases.” Many have leveraged the availability of free code and community support to build very cost-effective solutions. IP telephony is one area where a number of partners have built a strong revenue base. Asterisk and FreeSWITCH have evolved as highly-scalable and feature-rich platforms which are adopted by enterprises because they promise cost savings of over 70 percent on capex alone. Says Devasia Kurian, MD, iTECS, Bengaluru, “We completely rely on the incredible community support of Asterisk. Our contribution is mostly ensuring that our engineers are updated and trained to troubleshoot and provide value-added services such as writing plug-ins to connect an Asterisk system to a third-party tool.” Another company that’s betting heavily on FOSS to offer cost-effective services and products for small business is the Bhilad-based Enjay IT Solutions. Enjay focuses on telephony, CRM, desktop support and network storage, and all its products are powered by free software. Points out Limesh Parekh, CEO, Enjay, “FOSS in its purest form is nothing but source code. For an average customer to make use of the software you need packaging, add-on features and inter-operability with the existing software that the customer uses.” Enjay has set up a team of 45 engineers to enhance its different product lines. Parekh feels that the biggest opportunity is in inter-operability. “Most customers use Windows desktops and Outlook Express to access mail. We have written software which integrates Outlook better with SugarCRM, Android smart phones and the Asterisk PBX system, and customers are seeing value.”
Services to bet on The emergence of the cloud has changed many equations,
“Most CIOs are looking at RoI and deliverables, and because hosted OS applications do not affect user experience they reduce the overall friction for adoption” Suresh A shanmugham
Head, Business, BITS, Mahindra Finance
he Bengaluru-based, `6 crore ITECS Communications sells its IP telephony solutions under the brand *aSTECS. The solutions are based on the open source IP telephony software Asterisk. “Asterisk is today one of the most stable FOSS softwares, and has been in development since 1999. We have built a number of value-added modules for interfacing the IP telephony system with ERP, CRM and other enterprise applications,” says Devasia Kurian, MD, ITECS. The company sells miniIPBX, fixed mobile convergence gateways, call center dialers, voice loggers and IVR systems, all using different components of Asterisk at prices ranging from `24,000 onward. The five-yearold company builds white-box, IP-based PBX solutions at costs which are up to 80 percent lower Devasia Kurian than those of Cisco and Avaya. In 2012, for a multi-hundred seater BPO, iTECS set up a contact center where the cost of the solution was one-third that of Avaya. Since it is based on FOSS, iTECS could afford to give away several add-ons at no cost; these add-ons would have cost extra on a closed platform. “You leverage the FOSS license model, which means that additional users need not necessarily cost you anything. When the customer considered the cost savings on call charges alone, the savings generated over a period of two months covered the cost of the solution.” n
ITECS has built a white-box IP-based PBX solutions using open source at costs which are up to 80 percent lower than those of Cisco and Avaya one being the acceptance of hosted models. Many feel that FOSS stacks can play a bigger role in a hosted digital economy. “Today, most CIOs are looking at ROI and deliverables, and because hosted open source applications do not affect user experience they reduce the overall friction for adoption,” says Shanmugham. Virtualization and cloud software have seen the emergence of some FOSS initiatives. OpenStack, promoted by a host of vendors, and CloudStack, promoted by Citrix, have both gathered momentum. “Amazon, the world’s largest public cloud provider, is on top of Xen. Through our community portal www.Xen. org we are providing support for the open source edition of Xen. We are also urging our partners to take advantage of CloudStack to build cloud offerings,” says Kaushal Veluri, Director, Channels & Alliances, Citrix India. Services for migration from proprietary platforms to open are still thought to be the biggest revenue earners. Many partners say that they charge `1,500 for migrating desktops from Windows to Linux, and provide valueadded support for a year. Others say that it is more
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cover story 5 Vendors to partner with to start your open source business
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or long, commercial open source vendors in the country meant Red Hat and Suse Linux when it came to channel initiatives or structured programs. However, over the past two years, a number of new players have appeared on the horizon, all saying they are interested in channels and have a program to offer. We list five. Alfresco: The company sells enterprise-grade content, document and knowledge management software which has a very widely deployed FOSS community edition. This edition boasts of over seven million users, and can be deployed even on MS Windows. Alfresco set up shop in India around two years ago, and has been on the lookout for new partners. The Indian content and document management market is still in its infancy; however, with a number of mid market and even SMB companies showing interest, this is a market for channels to chase. Canonical: This company owns Ubuntu, presently the most popular desktop Linux with an estimated base of over a million users in India. Banking on Ubuntu’s popularity, Canonical has launched a partnership program called Ubuntu Advantage which offers partners commercial support. Interested partners need to commit at least $5,000 revenue in an year. This may look steep, but the margins offered by Canonical are in the healthy double-digits which scale up as the revenue commitments go higher. Digium: The company is one of the leading supporters of FOSS IP telephony software Asterisk. Over the past few
profitable to migrate applications. “Today, migrating database, middleware and virtualization offers the biggest returns. An entry-level middleware migration to JBOSS ensures us average margins of `5 lakh in services alone,” says Garg of Tashee. Apart from migration services, customers are paying for installation and deployment. Kurian of iTECS recently set up a portal called www.myopensourcestore.com which sells implementation services across several hundred FOSS tools. “Customers are willing to pay anything from `2,000 to `20,000 for deployment, consulting and postimplementation support,” he reveals. With 82 percent of the Indian smart phone market captured by Android, Android-based development is something that channels should bet on. “Mobile applications specifically targeted at small business users will boom. IT consultants who can share their experience
“Amazon, the world’s largest public cloud provider, is on top of Xen. Through our community portal Xen.org we are providing support for the OS edition of Xen” Kaushal Veluri
Director, Channels & Alliances, Citrix India
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years, Digium has built a strong portfolio of solutions including telephony cards, VoIP gateways and fail-over appliances; it now has ventured into cloud-based telephony. Digium has distributors such as Telexcel and Transition Systems. There are also several independent SIs who use Digium cards to build their own VoIP solutions. With the market for IP telephony expected to boom in the days ahead with the expected relaxation of rules by TRAI, mid market opportunities for telephony are going to increase. Nexenta: Based on OpenSolaris, Nexenta has built an enterprise-grade storage operating system that supports features such as de-duplication, unlimited snapshots and multi tiering. The community edition is free, with forum support, and can be used to build SAN systems of up to 18 TB capacity which is good enough for most SMB and even mid market customers. Nexenta has set up offices in Bengaluru, and, according to its local reps, has already bagged orders in excess of 400 TB. VMware: The company has been the biggest investor in FOSS software by acquiring vendors such as Zimbra, Springsource, RabbitMQ and Nicira, all with strong FOSS business models. VMware continues to support the FOSS versions while attempting to strengthen the commercial offerings around it. There are an estimated 30 resellers who are raking in an excess of 40 percent profits on services surrounding the FOSS edition of Zimbra in the country. n n
and expertise will be in demand,” predicts Anwar Bagdadi, CEO, Kashif Technologies, Mumbai. The potential has prompted several partners such as Shell Networks in Hyderabad and Innova Systems in Ahmedabad to form teams to build solutions for Android. Many feel that choosing to align with one or two specialized segments will provide a reseller with enough revenue opportunities. “Today, every segment has FOSS which delivers more or less the same features and performance of paid software. For example, for business analytics a tool like Pentaho delivers similar performance and features to IBM’s or Oracle’s analytics software,” says Rivi Varghese, CEO, CustomerXPS Software, Bengaluru.
Conclusion FOSS has evolved into a reliable business model that is gaining acceptance across the IT landscape. Channels can definitely build a lucrative FOSS practice by simply helping their customers to take advantage of open source. Advani of Canonical sums it up nicely: “Remember, money saved is money made—and that’s the biggest selling point of free software. If an IT implementation partner can help a customer to save costs the customer will be more than willing to share the costs saved with the partner in consulting and services fees—and that would be more profitable than selling proprietary software.” n
market focus Microsoft partners are finally excited The new version of Office 365 makes it more useful and affordable for SMBs. In addition, certain plans can now be billed by the partners themselves n Amit Singh
M
icrosoft partners are excited about the new version of Office 365 as they expect the new features and pricing plans to increase cloud adoption in the SMB market. They are also excited because Microsoft has introduced certain Office 365 versions to be sold through distribution channels. The company has embarked on a marketing blitzkrieg for Office 365. “With the new pricing and features of Office 365, Microsoft has taken an exponential leap in the cloud computing market,” comments Suresh Ramani, CEO, TechGyan. Agrees Vivek Gupta, Director, Ablaze Infosys, “The new offering and pricing makes it very affordable for SMBs. Also, the ability to run a single Office 365 subscription on up to five devices is a significant addition that will boost sales.”
For more customers Microsoft has launched different offerings targeting almost every type and size of customer with plans ranging from the $4 per user per month for Exchange Online to the $20 per user per month enterprise plan with the full-on Office 2013 desktop suite. The company has integrated Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Office Web Apps with the desktop version of Office 2013 in its Small Business Premium plan at $150 per user per annum. The company has also come out with a separate plan targeting mid-sized businesses with up to 300 users, offering Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and the desktop version of Office 2013 at $15 per user per month. The enterprise plan, available for $20 per user per month, offers even more features such as online document storage and editing, voice processing, and unlimited email storage. “The Small Business Premium plan combines Office 2013 with enterprise-class collaboration features,” says Anuj Modi, Director, Modi Infosol. “We expect major traction for this plan from businesses with 10-25 users.” Partners are also pleased with the new plans for midmarket customers. “Earlier, there was no plan addressing the needs of mid market customers having more than
“Earlier we were not aggressive on Office 365 because Microsoft was billing directly to customers. Now they will bill through partners”
25-300 nodes. While the small business plans were too basic for them, the enterprise plans were too expensive,” points out Manish Tandon, Director, Questa Software. Partners say that the pricing makes Office 365 a lot more affordable to the SMBs. “Earlier, the cloud plan offering SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and Web Apps was available at $8, but customers had to pay an additional subscription of $15 per user per month for availing Office 365. Now the plans are available at $15-20 depending on the size of the customer organization, and these come with many additional features,” says Devesh Aggarwal, CEO, Compusoft.
Partner-led billing The change in billing from direct to partner has also interested the channel. Hitherto, a customer subscribing to Office 365 was billed directly by Microsoft while partners earned commissions on every new or repeat sale. But now a partner will also be allowed to bill directly at least two offerings. The small business pack for 25 or fewer users will be available as a full-packaged retail pack, while the mid market customer pack for 300 or fewer users will be sold as a paper license through distribution channels. Remarks Modi, “Earlier we were not aggressive on Office 365 because the company was billing directly and we were paid only a commission. Microsoft has finally made a positive move.”
Retail packs Microsoft’s move to introduce retail packs for the home, SOHO and small business has been well-appreciated. “Selling cloud services in retail packs will mean more partners will be able to sell the services in small cities and towns. This will increase the awareness and adoption of cloud computing across the country,” opines Tandon. Aggarwal agrees. “Selling packs over the counter and as paper licenses will involve more partners in selling Office 365. It will also help a partner to increase his services revenue around Office 365 sales.”
Conclusion Most partners believe that the new Office 365 shows a radical change in Microsoft’s approach to cloud computing. In the past the company was trying to promote Office 365 but with the worry that this would eat into the product licensing revenue from on-premise installations. It seems that Microsoft has finally embraced cloud computing fully—as that’s the future. n
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role model The power of contrarian thinking
The normal wisdom is that to be successful a sub-distributor must sell MNC brands in big cities. But Manohar Malani, MD, NCS Computech, has made it by championing the cause of Indian brands in unfashionable places n RAMDAS S
M
anohar Malani, the Managing Director of the Kolkata-based NCS Computech, is often described as the man who knows the pulse of emerging markets. While every other major sub-distributor has built topline revenue on the strength of channels centered around a metro or a large city, Malani has positioned himself and his company as the technology supplier to emerging India. NCS Computech operates in markets which are often described as untapped, unexplored and even hostile—all states in east and north-east India; the heartland of UP, Uttaranchal, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh; and interior Maharashtra. What is interesting is that 85 percent of the `114 crore expected by NCS during the current fiscal year would come through software.
The journey Malani started in 2000 as a distributor for Quick Heal. “The IT boom had begun. We considered several options, but the idea of selling an Indian brand appealed to me, so we started with Quick Heal. This relationship is still strong, and contributes 60 percent of our topline.” In the first year NCS clocked a turnover of `12 lakh. “Though it was meager earnings even 13 years back, our margins were in excess of 40 percent,” Malani recalls. The business grew to `24 lakh in FY2003-04. “The doubling of revenue gave me the confidence to look beyond Kolkata for a branch office.” In 2005, NCS set up its first branch at Raipur in Chhattisgarh. “We were already selling to resellers across West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar. The newly-formed state of Chhattisgarh appealed to us because it was unexplored.” Malani says the experience of setting up a remote
“We don’t see ourselves as a distribution company, but as an agency that creates a market for a brand and works with channels to create revenue” 26
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branch and trying to monitor it taught him several valuable lessons. More importantly, it gave his team the courage to chase unknown territories. “Though we were selling to outstation partners, it was the first time we had an outstation branch. It also meant that we had to transform ourselves from a personality-driven organization to a process-oriented one.” While the branch took almost a year to stabilize, the first big turning point was achieved during that fiscal year when the vendor clocked `1.18 crore. “Reaching the `1 crore mark was magical. When we started in 2000 it looked a distant dream, but once we crossed the number, it gave us the confidence to chase bigger dreams.” Adds Malani, “I always believed that a first-mover advantage in an unexplored territory would pay rich dividends. I also realized that since many other sub-distributors were reluctant to explore these territories there would be less competition.” The next state NCS targeted was UP, which was followed by Rajasthan and then Assam. Till 2009, Quick Heal accounted for 100 percent of NCS’ revenue. In 2010, NCS added vendors such as Microsoft, Enjay, Vembu and NComputing.
Current business The last fiscal saw NCS growing 54 percent from `56 crore to `87 crore. The company is expected to close the current fiscal at around `114 crore. The revenue from distribution is pegged at `92 crore, while corporate reselling and solutions will account for `18 crore and corporate training services `4 crore. While Quick Heal will contribute 55 percent of the business, the revenue from other businesses like Fortinet, Enjay and Adobe has been adding up. “With an expanded portfolio we have embarked on geo-expansion. In the last 18 months we have added five new branches. The business from smaller cities is growing at 60 percent,” Malani discloses. The company has beefed up its partner-led solutions business with a strategy called Dig Deep. “With the addition of UTM and thin clients, we have increased our
Role model
On the agenda
2000
Started as a distributor for Quick Heal
2005
MILESTONES
Set up the first branch in Raipur; clocked `1 crore in revenue
2006
focus on solutions by training and helping partners to identify crossselling opportunities,” says Malani. The past year also saw the company revamp its organizational structure by decentralizing decisionmaking. Informs Malani, “We have decentralized the organization by making each region a profit center. Every regional manager is empowered to plan his business strategy and take decisions locally.”
Set up branches in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Rajasthan
Malani says that with the markets slowing down it’s important to bet on winning horses. For this reason NCS has identified close to 600 growth partners who it thinks will grow at much more than the industry average, thus also helping the distributor to grow. In addition, the man has been a big believer in using technology. “I think that you cannot sell technology if you do not know how to use the technology effectively, hence every idea is first implemented in-house before we take it elsewhere.” A key marketing strategy has been the events which NCS conducts. During the last 12 months NCS has organized 172 channel events across more than 50 towns. According to Malani, the real growth of NCS started the day he moved away from transactions and devoted time to planning, partner relationships and analyzing trivial aspects of the business.
2013
2012
2011
2008
Signed up with vendors such NCS has set itself the goal of reaching as Microsoft, Enjay, Vembu topline revenue of `1,000 crore by 2018, a target Malani says is not and NComputing impossible despite adverse market Organized 172 channel events conditions. “We have the processes in place, and we are moving from in 50 towns 270 people to 450 to help us grow the business by 40-50 percent next year.” Reached a turnover of He points out that IT penetration in `87 crore the heartlands of the country is still low, hence the opportunities are Targeting revenue of `114 huge. NCS plans to go beyond the crore; education segment 15 states it is now present in, and is betting on national coverage by 2016. Business philosophy Another priority is adding more vendors, where Malani says that while he had the option of exploring the choice would be push-brands. He feels that in the relations with MNC players, he preferred lesser-known upcountry pull-brands do not have the same appeal as in brands. “We don’t see ourselves as a distribution cities. “The upcountry market is dominated by the SOHO company, but as an agency that creates a market for a and SMB segment, and they need IT solutions that give brand and acts as an educational initiative which supports ROI. We can offer that precisely by aligning with vendors channels to create revenue. What value could we add to to whom we do not pay any premium for the brand.” an MNC brands like HP or IBM?” Malani asks. NCS is also building a team of vendors to sell solutions The company is also clear about its vendor sign-up to the education segment and has already signed up with strategies. “Our preference is for Indian brands over MNC Jodhpur-based Dream Technologies for educational ERP. brands,” says Malani, who is a big believer in the Made in India adage. Over the years, some of his relationships have moved Best practices beyond that of pure distribution. For instance, NCS signed Malani says that many partners do not risk venturing on Enjay IT Solutions as a distributor, but two quarters into some of the upcountry markets where NCS thrives back, Malani joined the board of Enjay. because they think it’s too risky. “If your relationship with partners is purely transactional, it’s risky. Ours is not, and that’s the reason our bad debts have been minimal.” On a personal note He believes that the growth enjoyed by NCS was the Malani is a big admirer of Infosys co-founder NR result of some of the best distribution practices that the Narayana Murthy, and believes that family owned and team has evolved. One of the key strategies has been to go managed businesses should give way to professionally beyond the vendor in all aspects of channel management. managed entities. Reading is his main hobby; his favorite “I believe partners will stop seeing value in you, if all book is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by you are doing is fulfillment. Also, we understood that Stephen Covey. Other passions include learning more channel attention spans are short, hence we need to create about human psychology and studying how people a difference.” work and behave in a group. “Some of what I have learned from psychology, I managed to implement in our organization.” “Unless you start trusting your employees, One bit of advice he has for his peers is to start trusting the ecosystem. “Unless you start trusting your partners and customers, you will never employees, partners and customers you will never believe in yourself, and if you don’t believe believe in yourself, and if you don’t believe in yourself you can never succeed.” n in yourself you can never succeed”
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tech focus
6
tablets that will make you toss your laptop
From full-sized, feature-rich tablets to smaller but powerful minis, here are the tablets that stole the limelight at the recently held Mobile World Congress n Rob Wright
F
aster processors, better graphics and crisper displays—this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona saw many new tablets with more powerful components and better technical specifications, putting them in prime position to cannibalize the PC market.
HP Slate 7 Hewlett-Packard introduced not only its first Android tablet, but an aggressively priced one at that. The HP Slate 7, a new 7-inch Android tablet, starts at $169. Running on Android Jelly Bean 4.1 operating system, the tablet packs a dual-core 1.6 GHz chip based on ARM’s Cortex-A9 architecture with 1 GB RAM and 8 GB internal storage, plus microSD support for expandable storage. The Slate 7 also has a stainless steel frame and packs a 3-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. The HP Slate 7 will be available in the US starting in April.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Samsung didn’t introduce its forthcoming Galaxy S4 smartphone in Barcelona, but the company did turn heads with a new 8-inch Android tablet—the Galaxy Note 8. Samsung’s new device, which looks to compete with other mini tablets, features a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor, 2 GB RAM and a 1280x800 display resolution. Samsung also promises better S-Pen capabilities that allow users to control the tablet’s menu and back buttons with the pen. The Galaxy Note 8 is scheduled to launch in the second quarter. Pricing is yet to be announced.
ZTE V98 While most new tablets launced ran Android, there were some new Windows 8 devices. Case in point—the ZTE V98, a 10.1-inch tablet that runs Windows 8—not Windows RT—and comes with a 1.7 GHz Intel Atom processor, 2 GB RAM and up to 64 GB
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internal storage. There is also a micro SD card slot for an additional 32 GB storage, plus optional 4G LTE capability. The V98 will launch in China in the third quarter, but there is no word on pricing.
Asus FonePad Asus finally revealed its metallic miracle. The Asus FonePad is a mini-tablet with 3G phone functionality, or a phablet. The Android device has a 7-inch display with 1280x800 resolution, a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom processor with up to 16 GB internal storage and 1 GB RAM. The phablet comes with a slick metallic finish. The FonePad tablet is scheduled to launch in March at around $249.
Sony Xperia Z Sony has lagged behind other computer makers in the tablet market, but the company’s new device could reverse its fortunes. The Sony Xperia Z is the lightest and thinnest 10-inch tablet yet, according to the company. The device comes with an HD display powered by Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine 2 for enhanced visuals. The Xperia Z also runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core processor running at 1.5 GHz with 2 GB RAM. The tablet is water resistant when dipped in 3 feet of water for upto 30 minutes. The Xperia Z will be available in the coming month starting at $499 for the 16 GB model.
Lenovo S600 Lenovo unveiled several new tablets, but the computer maker’s mobile home entertainment model stood apart from the rest. The Lenovo S600 Android tablet comes with a 10.1-inch touchscreen display with 1280x800 resolution, a MediaTek quad core 1.2 GHz processor, and the Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 OS. The device also comes with a mini-HDMI port. The S600 will be available worldwide in the second quarter, though pricing has not yet been announced. n
tech focus 5 DANGEROUS WEB APPLICATION FLAWS COVETED BY ATTACKERS Whether it is targeted or a widespread financially motivated attack, cybercriminals find a way into an organization. Here are the most dangerous Web application flaws that attackers can use to hack your customers’ business n Robert Westervelt early 99 percent applications have one or more vulnerabilities, according to the 2013 Application Vulnerability Trends Report issued by application security firm Cenzic. The research found that the median number of vulnerabilities per tested application is 13. Many of the high profile data breaches over the past several months were the result of a common Web application vulnerability. While it may be impossible to eradicate all flaws in Web applications, software security experts say eliminating the most commonly targeted errors could help mitigate the risk of many automated attacks and cause some hackers to move on to easier pickings.
N
Cross site scripting plague continues Cross site scripting vulnerabilities are the most commonly detected vulnerabilities in Web applications. They are also one of the most frequently targeted flaws by cybercriminals. It enables an attacker to send malicious scripts by relaying the script from an otherwise trusted URL, according to Cenzic. XSS vulnerabilities appear in 61 percent of applications, the firm said. While much has been said about detecting and fixing XSS errors, the Internet is still riddled with Web applications that contain them. They can be detected with a Web application security scanner or blocked using a Web application firewall.
Information leakage errors a serious threat Information leakage accounted for only 17 percent of Web applications tested by Cenzic in 2012, but the danger posed by the vulnerability makes finding and eradicating them extremely critical. Web applications can leak information in a variety of ways. Sometimes an attacker can get the application to crash,
While it may be impossible to eradicate all flaws in Web applications, eliminating the most commonly targeted errors could help mitigate the risk
prompting an error message that reveals clues to the underlying infrastructure supporting the application or the application itself. Poorly implemented encryption also can yield information to an attacker.
Session management most common error Attackers can take advantage of poorly implemented session management, enabling them to interject themselves as valid website users. Session management vulnerabilities were detected in 80 percent of applications tested in 2012, more than any other application vulnerability class. Software security experts at the Open Web Application Security Project say the use of an application framework with built-in session management capabilities is a key to developing an application that maintains user actions within unique sessions. The group discourages developers from implementing their own session management.
SQL injection rising SQL injection is a favorite vulnerability of attackers because automated scripts can be used to get a website to send a malicious SQL command to the underlying database in an effort to expose its content. According to the report, while all other classes of vulnerabilities saw declines in 2012, SQL injection has risen, but the firm said it could be due to improvements of detection tools more than from new deficiencies in security practices. SQL injection accounted for 16 percent of all Web applications Cenzic tested in 2012.
Beware of cross site request forgery errors Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) accounted for 22 percent of all Web applications tested by Cenzic in 2012. The class of vulnerabilities that make up CSRF allows attackers to send pre-authenticated but unauthorized commands using credentials that the application trusts. Attackers can use a CSRF attack to ride the session of an individual on a particular website by using the victim’s browser credentials. In addition to the browser, an attacker can use a malicious script in a Microsoft Office document or Flash file that exploits CSRF. n
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channel buzz Insight holds annual summit Mumbai-based systems integrator, Insight Business Machines, recently concluded its 2-day annual summit for its employees and customers. The summit was centered around the theme of Believe in Self. Apart from knowledge and management sessions, the event focused on team building activities, management games and entertainment. The main attraction was the fashion show where Insight employees walked the ramp, followed by a talent display by various employees. Insight also honored 25 of its performing employees with the Insight Icon Awards, while the three best employees won Excellency Awards. “The rationale of holding an annual summit is to invite all Insightians from across India to bond, enjoy themselves and celebrate our success after a hard year’s work. The theme of the event was to make them believe in their skills and talents,” explained Neel Shah, Director, Insight, who was the overall producer of the event. n
n Neel Shah,
Director, Insight Business Machines, walking the ramp
n Employees
having a gala time during the annual summit
Global HP honor for H&H Technologies
n Parag Dalal, Director, Dynacons Systems & Solutions, and
Pritish Mhatre, Account Manager, GCC, Dell, speaking at the event
Dell concludes road shows Dell India along with its partners, recently concluded a series of Solutions for Success events in 10 cities including Hyderabad, Surat, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Rajkot, Nashik, Raipur and Mumbai. “These events were aimed to empower partners, and served as a platform to reach out to more customers, and showcase our commitment to the Indian market. The events focused on communicating various solutions from Dell which can enable customers to be successful in their business growth,” said Ajay Kaul, Director and General Manager, Global Commercial Channel, Dell India. n
Chandigarh-based H&H Technologies won the HP Partner in Excellence award at the recent HP Global Partner Conference held in Las Vegas, US. The winners were selected by a panel of senior global HP channel chiefs, and presented to partners who have demonstrated exceptional business performance, achieved significant overall growth, delivered innovative solutions to customers, and n Ashu Batta (C) receiving the demonstrated IT award from Jim Merritt (L), Senior innovation through VP and GM, Enterprise Group, APJ, philanthropic HP, and Dion Weisler, Senior VP, APJ, HP PPS activities in their local communities. Said Ashu Batta, CEO, H&H Technologies, “We were the only Indian company to win an award this year at the HP event. We are honored to receive this award, and are confident that it will help us in our future business endeavors.” n
To feature your company’s events in CRN, send write-ups with photographs to editor@ubmindia.com 30
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new products HCL Beanstalk AIOs
H
Dell Inspiron AIO
D
ell has launched the Inspiron 2330 AIO which runs Windows 8 and is powered by the thirdgeneration Intel i7 processor. The AIO features a 2 TB SATA hard drive, up to 8 GB DDR3 RAM and AMD Radeon HD 7650A with 1 GB DDR3. It has a 23-inch full HD display with optional touch screen having a resolution of 1920x1080. The AIO has four built-in USB 3.0 slots, and HD audio with Waves MaxxAudio3 integrated performance speakers. The product is priced at an MRP of `45,990, carries a 3-year warranty, and is available with Dell authorized distributors. n
CL has launched three new models of Beanstalk AIOs—ADV10040, ADV10042 and ADV10038— which have 21.5-inch HD LED displays with a frameless design and come with built-in batteries that offer up to 1.5 hours of power back-up. All models are supported by Intel Core processors. While the ADV10040 and ADV10042 models have 2 GB RAM, the ADV10038 has a 4 GB RAM; all three models sport a 500 GB 2.5-inch SATA HDD. Pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium, the AIOs include integrated stereo speakers, 1.3 MP webcams, four USB 2.0 slots, 4-in-1 multiformat card readers, HDMI ports, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The models—ADV10040, ADV10042 and ADV10038—are priced at `33,500, `40,000 and `43,000 respectively, and come pre-loaded with 3-year McAfee antivirus subscription and edutainment kits. n
Epson interactive projectors
E
pson has launched four projectors—EB-421i, EB-431i, EB-426Wi and EB-436Wi—with 3 LCD technology. The projectors can be used as interactive whiteboards without needing a PC, and have dual pen capabilities that allows two users to write and draw on the projection simultaneously. The EB-421i is priced at `64,699 while the EB-431i is priced at `86,799. EB-426Wi and EB-436Wi are priced at `76,299 and `1.01 lakh respectively. The projectors carry a limited 2-year warranty, and are available with Epson authorized distributors. n
Asus tablet
A
sus has launched its MeMO Pad, a 7-inch tablet which features a 1 GHz processor and 1 GB RAM, and supports Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It sports a WSVGA twisted Nematic display with 10-finger multi-touch and a resolution of 1024x600 pixels. The tablet has a 1 MP front HD camera, 8 GB of internal memory and comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Output ports include one micro USB 2.0 and a micro SD card slot expandable up to 32 GB. The MeMO Pad is available in three colors—sugar white, titanium gray and cherry pink—and offers seven hours of battery life. It is available in India at an MRP of `9,999 with a 1-year warranty. n
The products featured here have not undergone any benchmarking or testing. The trailers contain information provided by vendors and distributors. To feature your company’s products in CRN, send write-ups with photos to editor@ubmindia.com
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Deploy Helpdesk call center on the fly
Multimedia Switches
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shadow ram Yesterday Bengaluru, today Hubli
A
month ago Shadow had reported about four Bengaluru-based partners who had absconded after failing to pay their outstanding dues which ran into crores. Understandably, this had created an uproar in the local market. The good news now is that with the intervention of the local channel body, AIT, three of these partners have returned to the market and agreed to settle their dues over a period of time. They have paid half their dues and the remaining half will be paid over a period of one year. The partners have been allowed to resume their business. The fourth partner is still missing, but AIT is hoping that he too will come back and resolve the matter amicably. Meanwhile, the market is abuzz with rumors that one of Hubli’s largest sub-distributors has declared bankruptcy, and that he owes `4 crore in the market. n
GET
Personal
“I want to start a school” Raj Kumar Rishi, Director, Consumer Business, PPS, HP, joined the company in 1993 and has since managed various functions within the erstwhile IPG and PSG. If not in the IT industry: I would have been a teacher.
Raj Kumar Rishi
Biggest Passion: Creating and developing teams.
Behind the wheels: Mercedes S Class. Gadgets I can’t live without: HP Envy X2. Weekends are for: Family. Favorite holiday destination: Rajasthan in the winters, and Kerala in the rains. Hate the most: Hypocrisy. Favorite Movie: Dil Chahta Hai. Favorite Stars: Amitabh Bachchan. Role Model: Ratan Tata. Ultimate ambition: I want to start a school on my own. Wildest thing I have ever done: Not done yet. Thing I most want to do in life: Sky diving. If I became the PM: No such ambition. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Ratan Tata. One person I would like to meet and why: Sachin Tendulkar. To understand his motivation. Deepest and darkest fear: Nothing in particular. n — CRN Network
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Computer Reseller News
15/03/2013 www.crn.in
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