CRN November 15, 2011 by UBM India

The loudest, largest and most celebrated incentive program takes you to Rio! Get on board Cisco’s Race to Rio and experience the world’s most celebrated festival – The Rio Carnival. The program’s philosophy is simple - Sell Participating SKUs, Earn Points, Fly to Beautiful Brazil! Only the top performers will savour the richness of Brazil’s culture. The program spans across the SAARC region, thereby intensifying competition.

contents

November 15, 2011 l Volume 5 Issue 14

Cover Story Hundreds of millions of people have embraced the likes of Facebook and Twitter. How can the IT channel benefit from these platforms?

22 NEWS Analyses

Channel Chief

IBM goes soft on partners

HP PSG finding its way back

VMware increases focus on partner enablement for VCE

Asus to triple resellers

Rajiv Kapoor Country Director, Leviton Network Solutions India, speaks about the Indian passive networking market and his company’s future strategies

16 Market Focus Attractive income opportunity The All-In-One PC has come of age. The sales figures are not really huge, but it’s the fastest-growing segment in the desktop market

18 Special Focus

READ More Editorial 12 Opinion

Feedback

Channel Buzz

New Products

Shadow Ram

Get Personal

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Solving biz challenges with tech Cost-effective IT solutions are not only helping SMBs to address business challenges such as low working capital and increasing customer demands, but are also providing new growth opportunities

30 Role Model Manojkummar Garg COO, Taashee Linux Services, talks about his company’s successful journey as a pure-play open source solutions provider

starting line MUST

Read

HP PSG finding its way back HP’s decision to cancel the proposed sale or spin-off of its $40 billion PSG business has brought joy to its partners. Said Ujjwal Mhatre, Director, Orient Technologies, “A spin-off would have impacted at least 20 percent of HP’s global business. It could have affected contracts with large enterprises, as well as the company’s IPG and servicing, both of which are huge profitmaking businesses. Separating the PC division would have diminished HP’s buying power with component makers because HP would have lost economies of scale.” To many partners, the initial news of the sale came as a shock because the uncertainty meant they had to continue selling products that had no clear future roadmap. “Due to the lack of proper guidance by HP, many tier-3 partners started promoting other brands. Our normal sales of 1,000 laptops per month dipped by 10 percent R Krishnaswamy in September to 900 units; however, it returned to more than 1,000 units in October due to the festival season,” informed Sandeep Garg, Director, Cyber Park. Added PL Suhasaria, Director, Caltron Group, “The confidence of the HP sales team was at a low, therefore HP PSG lost about 20 percent market share to Lenovo and Sony.” On the enterprise front however the impact was not much. “The enterprise segment understands that mergers and acquisitions are part of business, and it was quite confident about the status of ongoing contracts. Still, we observed delays in new contracts from the enterprise and SMB segments,” said Rajeev Mehta, CEO, Innovative Enterprise. But now it’s business as usual. “With the reversal of the decision, customer confidence is back. We expect the execution of the contracts which were delayed due to the confusion,” said Rajeev Krishnaswamy, Director, Infobahn Technical Solutions. n — Amit Singh

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IBM goes soft on partners n SONAL DESAI

he partner structure at the IBM Software Group (ISG) has come a long way since its evolution in 2009. The group has streamlined its initiatives, both tactical and strategic, and wants to enable all its 250 partners in as many competencies as possible. “We want to grow with our tier-2 partners, and strengthen them in the SMB and mid-market segments. We want our partners to move beyond commodities,” said Pradeep Nair, Director, ISG. The company will push all its software offerings—Lotus, Websphere, Rational, Tivoli, Cognos, etc—through its tier-2 partners in the country. Named Project Praveen, the project has established 150 COEs in engineering colleges across India and certified more than 55,000 students. In the process, it has built a pool of resources that a partner and customer can hire. IBM has opened 13 offices in the last one year. “We see the fastest growth outside the top three metro cities,” informed Nair. “We are spending a lot more money in selling to SMB and mid-market customers, and expanding outside metros. SMBs currently contribute 50 percent of our business, and we want to grow this manifold.” To aid its SMB partners, the company started a 24x7 call center called Techline. “A partner can get his solution validated by talking to the tech team on Techline. It is a free service, and provides partners with some level of system assurance. We are now looking at developing industry-specific solutions and certifications under this program,” Nair said. IBM will release solutions around six industries in early 2012. The company is also encouraging mid-market partners to opt for more technical trainings and certifications. Nair said that IBM has made it compulsory for

“A partner can get his solution validated by talking to the tech team on Techline. It is a free service, and provides partners with some level of assurance” Pradeep Nair

Director IBM Software Group

partners to achieve certification to participate in bids. “The logic is simple: you need to have the requisite skills-set for deployment. Also, it dilutes the crowd and reduces competition.” He cited the example of Mumbai-based MindCraft which has grown rapidly as an expert in Websphere. Similarly, a Mumbai-based partner helped a housing finance company to run its credit appraisal system and proposal approval system on Lotus. In another instance, a Kochi-based partner enabled a bank to adopt Facebook; it also provided security for the account as a value-add. Partners who enter such deals are entitled to a software value incentive whereby they can earn anything from 25 percent upward. Explained Nair, “As we evolved we wanted partners to manage not just payment and credit but also solutions. As we started doing analytics, systems management and security, deploying it was critical. We acquired new companies—such as Cognos, Q1 Labs, Netezza and Guardium—at a fast pace. Consequently, we have built a broad portfolio and provided partners with up-sell and crosssell opportunities. A lot of our Websphere partners are picking up collaborating and adjacent areas. They are also evolving in areas such as analytics and DB.” n

starting line MUST

VMware increases focus on partner enablement for VCE

Asus to triple resellers

n SONAL DESAI

Read

Asus’ System Business Group (SBG) is eying the No 3 position in the mobile PC segment in the next two years. The company also expects to be one of the top-2 players in the netbook segment by the end of December 2011. To achieve this, it is investing in manpower, infrastructure, distribution and marketing. Said Unaez Quraishi, Director, Sales & Distribution, Asus SBG India, “We expect to increase our present market share of 5 percent to 12 percent.” Asus has decided to open 100 exclusive stores of about 250-600 sq ft by the end of 2012; it has already opened eight stores that are contributing 5 percent of the overall revenue. “We will open two more stores this year, and beginning next year we are planning to open 10 new stores each month,” he disclosed. The company has also increased its regional distributors from 10 to the present 15. Informed Quraishi, Unaez Quraishi “We will revamp the distribution structure and add a zonal distribution tier. We will increase the number of resellers from 500 to 1,500 in 2012.” Asus has opened eight branch offices in Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Kochi, and plans to add three more. In addition, it has invested in a new 28,000 sq ft office for its headquarters in Mumbai. At present it employs 120 people, of whom 80 percent are sales executives. Plans are to double this figure by next year. In marketing, from January onward, Asus’ consumer products will be visible in all its ATL and BTL activities. Said Quraishi, “We will include popular print media in cities where we have a strong presence.” Asus also wants to increase its ASPs. “Currently, Rashi and Neoteric, our NDs, double as our ASPs. From now onward the RDs will also take care of this,” Quraishi said. n

— Abhijeet Mukherjee

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Mware is betting big on VCE opportunities in India. The company has acquired five vBlock customers in the country till now, and believes that since the opportunities are immense, with the right kind of product offering and partner training these can be optimally tapped. Deepak Jadhav, Director, VDA Infosolutions, a Mumbai-based solutions provider and the only tier-2 partner to deploy the vBlock solution for a large customer, explained the concept. “A vBlock is essentially a block of real estate to be used for deploying VDI or virtual desktops, storage and servers comprising solutions from VMware, Cisco and EMC. The entire concept of deploying the virtual infrastructure is called VCE.” According to Douglas Smith, Vice-president, Global Partner Strategy & Operations, VMware, “There’s a lot of interest in VCE, especially implementation in virgin deployments.” “However, the concept is yet to mature, so we are not talking volumes,” explained Ganesan Arumugam, Director, Channels, VMware. “We are looking at large enterprises—customers with 800 to 1,000 virtual machines—and also at the SMB segment through our service providers.” VMware packages its IP into solution enablement toolkits. These toolkits are then packaged with the competencies (technology) and released as frameworks. The company has released a one such framework for VCE. “We have done close to 80 percent work. We have released 2,000 templates for VCE. EMC and Cisco have to do the balance 20 percent, add a logo, and put it out in the market,” said Smith. Jadhav said that a vBlock can be installed at a large corporate

“For VCE, we are looking at large enterprises, customers with 800 to 1,000 virtual machines, and also at the SMB segment through our service providers” Ganesan Arumugam Director, Channels VMware India

(500-1,000 users) in four working days. Besides, it offers tangible and intangible ROI in terms of compliance and data security. “I am sure that more than 50 large enterprises will opt for vBlock solutions this year alone. Partners should ideally talk to enterprises moving toward tech refresh.” He said that VMware is training partners in product, pre-sales and post-sales, and has now increased the reach of its training centers to tier-2 cities as well. The only hitch, warned Jadhav, is that VMware products are priced higher than those of the competition, hence the company needs to take partners and customers into confidence and explain the concept and the reason for the higher pricing. Indeed, Citrix has emerged as tough competition to VMware in the desktop virtualization segment. It is also giving competition to VCE with the newly-formed partnership with Microsoft in the server space. Commented Jadhav, “VMware will have to start propagating the new features and benefits of VCE and vBlock to gain market share. No doubt the concept and the product are both superior, but the company would need to give a compelling story to customers to sell the same.” n

edit opinion Volume 5, Issue 14

Farming, not hunting dhaval valia

’m a great believer in the power of social media (SM) due to some of my recent experiences. However, my experiences with SM have been of a personal nature and not from a business-enabler perspective. I have watched some of my industry friends use SM effectively for business gains. For instance, Sanjay Mehta, CEO of MAIA Intelligence, a business intelligence (BI) software company, has been using Facebook (FB) and LinkedIn to brand his company and promote his expertise in BI. He has been running a BI group on LinkedIn since 2006. The group now has 30,000 members. He also has a BI blog which now records 800-100 unique visits per day. Mehta says that social networking sites are a great way of staying in people’s minds as they offer an unobtrusive way of reaching out to the target audience as compared to calling them up. He keeps his customers and prospects abreast of new developments by posting videos and photos of various events and awards on his FB page. Another benefit of online networking is that it keeps Mehta updated on CXO movements, and helps him maintain relationships even as people shift jobs. Suresh Ramani, CEO of Mumbai-based solutions provider TechGyan, is another avid social networker. He has been using FB to brand himself as an expert in Microsoft technologies. His blogs on FB have brought him projects and opportunities. A partner who read his blog on cloud computing recommended him to his customer, which eventually got Ramani a deal. Sampath Iyengar, CEO, Sam7 Networks, has created his own SM marketing firm called Neosocial which is helping companies to market their products and services on SM. Iyengar today has more than 5,000 FB contacts with whom he networks. He has a simple strategy to leverage SM for business—network, help and influence. He networks with people, shares interesting posts on technology, and when his contacts see him commenting on tech matters they approach him for advice on topics related to his expertise. Several of his contacts have been taking his advice on buying technology products and also for troubleshooting computing and smartphone issues. This led him to create his own SM firm and also sell IT products to many in his circle of influence. But SM marketing is more strategic in nature, and as Iyengar puts it, it is farming and not hunting. If you go online with the intention of selling your products or expertise, it will not work. What this also means is that, just like farming, leveraging SM for business is hard work. Online social networking is emerging as a new mode of communication, branding and marketing for IT channels, and it is hard to ignore it any more. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 12

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edit opinion Where in the cloud do you sit? Robert Faletra

e keep talking about the journey to cloud computing and the changes it will bring to business models and channel programs as it unfolds in the coming years. While there’s a lot that has yet to be determined, we are seeing some common attributes among solution providers that fall into the three categories we have identified: vintage, progressive and transformational. Vintage partners have traditional on-premise, solutionbased models with no significant plans to drive recurring revenue through off-premise hosted solutions. Progressive solution providers are still driving more than half of their business through traditional on-premise solutions, but are growing the off-premise and hosted portions of the business by greater than 50 percent as they drive the recurring revenue model. Transformational partners have a pure- or near pure-play business that focuses on cloud-type deployments. The majority of the channel sits in the progressive category, but I don’t see any single business model emerging. The fact is there are going to be many business models, but essentially all partners can fit into one of these three categories. What else do we know about them? Progressive partners are far more likely to be larger than the other two, and are predicting steady growth over the next 18 months. Transformational partners tend to be the smallest of the three but are experiencing a growth spurt. Only the vintage players are seeing stagnation in revenue growth. IT departments may be fighting that trend but line-ofbusiness (LOB) executives are pushing back, and cloud computing is allowing them to take back more control of tech deployments. This point is something that’s increasingly going to shape the future. LOB executives will increasingly be decision-makers in the world of cloud computing, and solution providers and vendors need to work together to attack this change. There are going to be many more customers inside of a customer than there have been traditionally. LOB executives can make operating expense decisions whereas capital expenses need higher levels of approval. With cloud solutions largely being operating expense payments, the decision point is shifting. This is going to require partners to have greater proficiency in sales and marketing expertise. Many of the progressive and transformational partners I have been talking to have already begun to engage with LOB executives and other CXO-level decision-makers. Progressive partners are also most focused on growing their customer base, and see a third of their business in the next two years coming from customers they have yet to touch. It is clear that vintage partners will have to focus harder on becoming progressive and realigning their business models with the emerging IT marketplace in a cloud economy. n Email Robert Faletra at robert.faletra@ec.ubm.com 14

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End or evolution? Kudos to team CRN for writing a balanced article on the PC era. Not only has CRN touched upon the various sentiments regarding the PC or what life would be like after the PC, it has also pointed out that the PC will not die soon. I wish to state that the PC will rule the roost at least for the next half decade or so. (There is a slight rise in PC sales in Gartner figures for the next year.) India is a price-sensitive country, and we still prefer big boxes to smaller devices for core work. Tablets and smartphones will continue to be purchased as a second PC—at least till the tablet/smartphonesavvy younger generation takes over. P Subramanium Mumbai

Channel Chief: C Panigrahi I loved reading Panigrahi’s interview. Panigrahi has very well laid bare

strategies for AMD’s consumer business, and has tightly integrated those with his foresight on how his OEM partnerships would be, and what each of those would entail. AMD no doubt is giving a tough fight to Intel, but it needs to loosen its purse strings and be more visible in the market. The company has to spruce up its marketing initiatives and strategies. Poornima Shah Vadodara

CDRS debut CRN has always adopted a very distinctive, creative approach to the IT channel community/fraternity, and has truly worked for the cause and upliftment of the community in many ways. I am sure CDRS will add one more feather to the successful cap that CRN/ UBM is wearing. I wish Dhaval and his team huge success for the same. Suresh Vruksham Bengaluru

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

Advertiser Index Company name

Smartlink Smartlink Viewsonic Cisco Compuage Rashi Schneider Schneider Compuage Epson Fujitsu Boston Fujitsu Tyco HCL Unistal + Symantec e-scan Netgear Kaspersky Iomega

Page No Web site

1 www.digilite.co.in 2 www.digilite.co.in 4 www.in.viewsonic.com 5 www.ciscoracetorio.com 7 www.compuageindia.com 9 www.rptechindia.com 11 in-care@schneider-electric.com 13 in-care@schneider-electric.com 15 www.compuageindia.com 17 www.epson.co.in 21 http://sg.fujitsu.com/scanner 25 www.bostonindia.in 27 www.in.fujitsu.com 29 41 hclpartners@hcl.com 42 www.unistall.in 43 www.escanav.com 45 www.netgear.com 47 www.sakri.in 48 www.iomega.com

Sales Contact

helpdesk@digilite.co.in helpdesk@digilite.co.in service@in.viewsonic.com odyssey@compuageindia.com response@rptechindia.com

emp@eid.epson.co.in rohit.grover@.infujitsu.com sales@bostonindia.in marketing-india@ts.fujitsu.com anupam@fortune-it.com / marketing@unistall.com marketing@escanav.com sales@sakri.in malaia@iomega.com

channel chief “We want to bring sex appeal to passive networking” Leviton Network Solutions Country Director Rajiv Kapoor spoke to Ramdas S about the passive networking market Schneider’s acquisition of Digilink has raised eyebrows, especially because of the high valuation of the deal. What do you reckon? I do not want to speculate on the valuation of the deal. But on the whole, we are happy with the development. Consolidation helps in an industry, and the passive networking space has seen a number of mergers and acquisitions in the past, a notable one being Krone’s merger with Tyco last year. The high valuation definitely indicates that the Indian market is very promising, and is set to see healthy growth rates. It gives us the confidence to invest in India, and build a brand. We have already pumped in over $2 million in India business.

What’s Leviton’s USP? We are a privately held US-based company which has over a hundred years of history, and has been managed by generations of the same family. All our products are manufactured in the US, and go through hundreds of quality tests before they reach our partners and customers. Unlike other manufacturers, we do not indulge in batch testing. Each and every component is tested, qualitycertified and shipped. Again, unlike the competition which has a different product catalog for India, with a list of part numbers exclusively for the Indian market, we sell the same product line across all territories. Partners need to be aware of this difference. When you buy Leviton, you buy the same product line that’s used in North America or Europe. We don’t compromise on quality just to introduce a product line which is of lower quality just because the Indian market is price-conscious. We are however providing special pricing for India to help Indian channels compete.

The structured cabling market is dependent on copper prices. How do you keep prices stable? We have contract pricing directly with large mines and suppliers so it does not affect us as much. However, with the fluctuations in the price of copper, there are several

“There are several spurious makers around who are shipping cable with less or no copper; this means the channels are being duped, and in turn, customers” 16

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spurious makers around who are shipping cable with less or no copper; this means the channels are being duped, and in turn, customers.

Partners say that passive networking product decisions are being increasingly taken by interior designers, architects and electrical contractors. What are Leviton’s plans to address this? Unfortunately, over the past two decades, vendors in the passive networking space did little to increase the industry’s appeal in this country. Very few CIOs take interest in cabling and other passive networking deployments. We are trying to change this. We are trying to bring sex appeal to passive networking. We have started doing this by educating customers, and having interactions at a CIO, and, if needed, at the CXO level. Since around 5-6 percent of passive networking is implemented by non-tech sectors like electrical contractors or interior designers, we are educating these sectors and showcasing our product line and technology.

What are the major trends in the space? The data center is fast emerging as the biggest market, while greenfield projects are back. The market has shifted heavily toward enhanced Cat 6a, which we believe has 85 percent market share. We feel Cat 7a will take off as data centers upgrade beyond 10G, and explore 40G and 100G.

How are you distributing your products in India? We have two national distributors in Anixter India and Grainger, and have close to 60 systems integrators (SIs). We have a couple of regional sub-distributors in the west and south. We have today managed to do at least one transaction with all the national SIs. We are not the cheapest in the market, and are specifically positioned for the enterprise market.

What are the plans for channel partners? To help partners address opportunities in 100 percent EOU and other special economic zones, we are setting up a bonded warehouse. We have a POC center which’s open for partners and their customers to learn and see for themselves the latest innovations we have introduced. We are training channels in both technology as well as sales. Finally, we are investing in an inside sales team which will walk hand-in-hand with our SI partners and meet customers jointly. n

market focus

Attractive Income

Opportunity

The All-In-One PC has come of age. The sales figures are not really huge, but it’s the fastest-growing segment in the desktop market n Abhijeet Mukherjee

he hype surrounding All-In-One (AIO) PCs is finally becoming justified as both vendors and partners are reporting renewed interest among customers for these smaller footprint desktops. These customers include both individual and enterprise users.

Growth factors Affordable pricing and captivating designs are being seen as the primary reasons for consumers to buy AIOs. At the same time, enterprises are seeing the benefits of smaller footprints because they occupy less real estate on the desktop. IDC India has predicted that by 2013 small form factor products like the AIO have the potential to account for nearly 38 percent of the overall desktop market. Gartner India estimates the present market size to be less than one lakh units per quarter, which is approximately 7 percent of the Indian desktop market. “The numbers are not really big, but it is certainly the fastest-growing segment in the desktop market,” observes Vishal Tripathi, Principal Analyst, Gartner India. Says Shishir Singh, Director, Product Marketing, CSMB, Dell India, “Two years ago the AIO market share was only 1 percent, but according to Q22011 IDC data, the market share for AIOs is 15 percent in the consumer segment and 20 percent in SMBs.” “AIOs have certainly been a hit with consumers, especially the buyer looking at a desktop for the entire family. With additional features such as a TV tuner card, high-end graphics and DVD bundles, PC vendors have certainly done their bit to bring in customers,” remarks Tripathi.

Demand from segments Consumers are driving the AIO business in India; the consumer segment accounts for at least 55 percent of the demand while the rest comes from the enterprise segment, including SMBs. “At present the consumer market is

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growing at the rate of 35 percent, and the demand is more from families with kids,” adds Singh of Dell. To strengthen its focus on the consumer segment, Dell India has started promotional activities for its Inspiron range of AIOs. The company is taking the products, priced at `33,000-35,000, to students across schools and to residential housing societies in the top six cities of the country. The promotional activities include ‘Study Buddy’ for schools and ‘Coolest AIO Family’ for residential complexes. For the consumer segment Dell has models which come with Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, as well as screen sizes ranging from 20” to 24”. Another segment driving the business is the commercial segment, especially the SMB, SOHO, BPO and retail sectors. According to market analysts, there are 50 million SMBs in India; this translates to huge potential since out of this only 20 percent companies are using PCs. “The commercial segment has great potential in India as most of the demand is coming from the retail sector, which is growing tremendously. With the increasing number of BPOs every year, the demand for AIOs would be on the rise,” observes Meraj Ahmed, Country Manager, Desktop Organization, PSG, HP. The Indian retail industry is growing at a rapid rate. It is estimated that total retail sales in India will grow from $395.96 billion in 2011 to $785.12 billion by 2015; the demand for AIOs will also grow, feel analysts. The Indian BPO industry keeps growing, and Gartner expects higher demand through 2015. “AIOs are in demand in the commercial segment because their sleek design enables them to occupy less office space, and because they consume 40 percent less power,” explains Ahmed.

New SKUs Keeping in view the increasing demand, vendors such as HP have come up with AIOs dedicated to business use. The HP Compaq 8200 Elite AIO Business Desktop features a 23” full high-definition LED monitor, an integrated Webcam, a microphone and speakers. It comes with a 1-year HP Virtual Rooms license which allows businesses to conduct presentations, team meetings, training events and classes in an easy-to-use online conference center. Besides, it features a number of advanced HP Elite-class security tools to help protect critical business data; these include a standard embedded TPM 1.2-compliant security chip for hardware-based encryption.

market focus “To attract SMB customers we have included special features such as two heat pipes instead of one to make the PCs silent as these are used by professionals”

“AIOs are in demand in the commercial segment because their design enables them to occupy less space and because they consume 40 percent less power”

Shishir Singh

MERAJ AHMED, Country Manager, Desktop Organization, PSG, HP

Director, Product Marketing, CSMB, Dell India

Dell has its Vostro range of AIOs dedicated to SMBs. “Our Vostro 360 is the most popular product. To attract SMB customers we have included special features such as two heat pipes instead of one to make the PCs silent as these are used by professionals like fashion designers and photographers,” informs Singh. Meanwhile, Lenovo has introduced a range of sleek and space-saving AIOs, the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70z and Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z, apart from its A series (A58, A70 and A70z) that’s dedicated to small businesses. These AIOs consolidate a traditional desktop with a monitor in a single, compact unit offering a blend of sophistication and simplicity. The company has outlined a 360-degree approach to the market to make a decisive impact in the high-growth SMB segment. Says Rajesh Thadani, Director, Consumer Business Unit, HSB Lenovo India, “Globally we are the No 1 vendor in

the AIO space. We have been focusing on introducing affordable models, and have a range starting at around `20,000 on the street.” Better pricing by PC vendors has also helped. Comments Gireesh Kumar, Proprietor, Techies Zone, a retail shop in Bengaluru, “Initially these products were priced very steep. In many cases, when you compared an ordinary desktop to an AIO of similar configuration from the same brand, the pricing was almost 20-30 percent more. The premium is now down to less than 10 percent, hence fewer consumers consider price as a reason not to buy an AIO.” He says that he sells around 25 desktops per month, and that one out of every two desktops sold by his retail shop are AIOs. “Today there are just two types of consumer desktop buyers—those who are valueconscious and buy an assembled machine, and those who buy an AIO.” n

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market focus

Hard days ahead The floods in Thailand have wreaked havoc on the HDD industry. Don’t expect an improvement any time soon n RAMDAS S

nalysts say that though the third quarter of 2011 was perhaps the best quarter ever for the PC market in terms of the number of shipments, rising hard drive prices, high inflation and the weakening of the rupee against the dollar is likely to make the fourth quarter weak. “I am expecting the numbers to slide between 10 and 15 percent over Q32011. The hard drive shortage is a real crisis, and will affect both PC OEMs as well as system builders. Apart from that, prices are going up because of the rupee’s depreciation against the dollar,” says Vishal Tripathi, Principal Analyst, Gartner India. Both Seagate and Western Digital have announced that the drive shortage will continue into Q12012 following the massive floods in Thailand, where close to 30 percent of drives are manufactured. The region is also responsible for 70 percent of the components that go into hard drives. Hard drive prices, which rose by as much as 50 percent by the fourth week of October, shot up by 200 percent by the second week of November. “You could buy 500 GB SATA drives at $34 in quantities of thousands in the second week of October, but now it’s difficult to get shipments even at $108,” says J Ramesh, VP of Ralco Synergy, an independent distributor. Meanwhile, UK-based Probrand, a leading distributor of Seagate, has published a report which states that the disk drive industry in Thailand would take at least 56 days to return to normalcy. The report says that this would affect normal supply well into the second quarter. According to Ian Bowles, Director, Probrand, “Global demand for HDDs continues to grow, and in the last quarter hit 177 million units, which equates to 59 million units per month; this is forecast to hit 180 million next quarter. The impact of the floods is expected to cause a 20 million unit shortfall per month.” Some system builders are even seeing the end of the road. “Till now, for a mainstream SKU, we were at least `3,000 cheaper than an Acer or Lenovo. With the

“The shortage of drives is affecting everyone, and will certainly affect our prices. No one is immune, including PC OEMs” SAJI KUMAR

Product Marketing Head, Acer India

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500 GB price going up by `3,000, whatever advantage we had on the price front has disappeared,” complains Sudhir Sankar, CEO, IBS Systems, a Bengaluru-based system builder. Toshy Mathew, CEO, ABC Systems, Kochi, agrees. “This short supply has spelt doom for assemblers. In Kerala, assemblers have a healthy market share of over 50 percent, but we see this slipping.” In response to the shortage, PC manufacturers are planning to increase their prices. “The shortage of drives is affecting everyone, and will certainly affect our prices. No one is immune, including PC OEMs,” says Saji Kumar, Product Marketing Head, Acer India. Inflation is cited as another reason for sluggishness in the market. “Post-Diwali there’s definitely been a slowdown in the market. Prices of commodities have shot up, customers have become wary, and this is affecting PC resellers,” says Kishore Makhija, MD, Priyanka Computer Services. N Sivakumar, VP, Strategic Marketing, Product Management & Service, DS Division, Toshiba India, underplayed the emotions. “Q4 is traditionally a weak quarter in India. While prices will naturally go up because of factors such as the fall in the value of the rupee, this should be just a temporary aberration.” Leading research agency 451 has forecast that the drive shortage would shift customers faster to flash and SSD drives. However, not too many in the Indian market are willing to buy the argument. Argues Ajay Kogta, Country Manager, Strontium Technology, “The present price of a 500 GB SATA drive is `5,000 or so on the street. The price of a 128 GB SSD is still above `10,000.” n

cover story

Hundreds of millions of people have embraced the likes of Facebook and Twitter. How can the IT channel benefit from these platforms? n SONAL DESAI & RAMDAS S

ocial media marketing is fast becoming the biggest opportunity for businesses to reach customers in India. Yet despite the hype surrounding social media (SM) and the fact that by virtue of being in the IT trade most channel partners are tech-savvy, they have not been able to make best use of this cost-effective route to enhance their business. This looks likely to change. With vendors and potential customers making faster progress in using SM tools, the IT channel is now thinking of embracing SM to boost its image, connect with customers, hire staff and grow revenue. However, plotting a strategy has not been easy for most partners as many believe that the market is still in its infancy. “Though I am fairly active on Facebook and Orkut, I have not planned any strategy for my company as yet because the market we address is very niche, very regional,” says Francis Lazar, CEO of Absolute Infotech, a software reseller and systems integrator based in Bengaluru. There are others who subscribe to the view that their customer base is not yet ready. “We are aware that corporates are into SM. However, our customer base is

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largely education and government, and there’s no impact of the SM there, especially in the government space where a certain amount of secrecy and formality is expected,” explains Akhil Ranjan Jha, CEO of Comprehensive Consultancy Services, Kolkata. Some of the smaller resellers, especially in the retail segment, point out that since the vendors they represent do a good job, they do not see much of a role for themselves in Internet presence or SM-based promotions. Others differ. “If you are into marketing or promotion, you must not ignore SM at all. Today, it’s definitely the cheapest and most cost-effective way to address your customers irrespective of your business or target audience,” says Subbu Jois, CEO of 360 Buzz Ads, Bengaluru. Look at the statistics. With 800 million netizens, if Facebook were a country it would have been the third most-populated. Nielsen Media Research says there are around 140 million Internet users in India and they represent virtually 90 percent of Indian consumer power. Facebook represents 40 million of these users, and on an average they spend not less than 16 hours a

cover story week on the SM network. By comparison, average TV viewing is estimated to be around 14 hours a week for the average Indian. According to a company press release, LinkedIn— which has 110 million users globally including 10 million from India—is the biggest business-related social network. Comscore Media Matrix says that as of April 2011, Twitter, the micro-blogging platform, has 220 million users of whom four million are from India. “For any business, being visible in front of customers is of paramount importance. We are comfortable with all types of media including print, TV, Web and below-theline activities. Since our potential customers also spend a number of hours on SM networks we have to be visible there too. This is true not only for a brand like Netgear but also for our partners,” stresses Atul Jain, the MD of Netgear India. According to studies conducted by AMI Partners, one out of two SMBs is showing activity on SM networks and is using the Internet to grow its business. “We have found that, cutting across segments, SMBs in India are adopting SM tools to reach customers. Today they are using SM for reaching information to their customers, tomorrow we expect them to reach their suppliers through these tools. It’s therefore imperative for IT channel partners to adopt SM if they want to keep pace with their customers,” opines Neha Jalan, Senior Associate, AMI Partners India. Several partners do understand the need, some have already taken steps to use SM tools, and many are contemplating an SM strategy. For instance, Mumbai-based Orient Technologies has been promoting the use of SM tools internally so that key executives can explore opportunities and grow the business. “We are using conventional media like print, but believe that customers come through word-ofmouth publicity and references. We have internally used Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with customers and suppliers,” says Umang Vyas, Pre-Sales Consultant & Head for Networking Projects at Orient. Others feel they may have missed the bus. “We regret that we have not really taken any steps in this direction, and are late to the party. Though I am personally on Facebook and LinkedIn, I have not been active, nor have we tried promoting our company [through these sites],” says AL Srinath, CEO of Shell Networks, Hyderabad. Curiously, while they successfully sell best-of-breed technologies, many Indian systems integrators do not have a functional Website or one that’s regularly updated. Admitting that it’s paradoxical, Srinath explains, “We have discussed this issue among peers, and the common

“Today, SM is definitely the cheapest and most cost-effective way to address your customers irrespective of your business or target audience” Subbu Jois

CEO, 360 Buzz Ads

Taking the social media plunge Some channel partners have taken the plunge and set up social media consultancies. Bengaluru-based Subbu Jois has literally brought his 16-year-old software services and reselling outfit Compusol Software to a halt, and is completely involved with his new baby, 360 Buzz Ads. He has signed on several new corporate customers, and has been involved in building SM engagement activities for them. He is very gung-ho about the new outfit, and is building two products for real-time SM marketing. “We are betting big on next year when we see SM taking off in a big way. We have an ambitious target of `10 crore-15 crore for the next fiscal.” Mumbai-based Sampath Iyengar, till a few years back, was known as the promoter of systems builder Sam7 Computers. However, his passion for the Internet and SM transformed him into an SM guru, and he has started a new enterprise called NeoSocial 7 Media Solutions. “Community building and connecting has been a passion, and now it’s a bread-winner too. I would like to clarify that Sam7 is still around, but I am out of its day-to-day operations.” Jois and Iyengar lament the fact that the majority of their peers have not yet taken the SM plunge. “It’s not very different from brick-and-mortar social networking which all of us do in real life. Of course, in the virtual world the opportunities are more, and the chance to scale is larger,” Iyengar points out. Jois says that targeted marketing, which can go down to your specific business locality or target age group, is now possible with the real-time marketing tools which his company is building. “You can plan a road-show and do a pre-event marketing campaign; then, if any person logs on to Facebook he can see your advertisement for the road-show.” Nevertheless, Jois points out that resellers have to be very wary of online reputations. “Many are not even aware of the unsavory comments made against their businesses, and the impact this has across SM Websites. Reputation management is a must.” Iyengar sums up. “It’s all about engagement, and how you go about engaging with communities which are critical to your business.” n

Social media are not very different from brick-and-mortar social networking which all of us do in real life. Of course, in the virtual world, the opportunities are more view is that all of us have been so involved with our daily transactions that we have not paid enough attention to important issues such as having a presentable Website to keep customers, peers and vendors informed about our latest activities. In fact, a couple of times, potential customers and vendors have also pointed this out to us.” For the past 2-3 years vendors have been betting heavily on SM and making considerable investments in it. Most of the leading PC vendors have dedicated teams in India looking into SM activities; they especially focus on reputation management, and use SM tools for surveys and product promotions.

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cover story Even consumer and SOHO brands have been fairly keen to use SM to their advantage. “At Belkin India we have been replicating our global best practices with a local flavor. In India we have a dedicated agency to manage our activity on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn,” says Mohit Anand, MD, Belkin India. The company has used Facebook extensively in the recent past to run schemes that are very localized. It has an Indian icon (named Bahadur Sherpa) which is being promoted through Facebook. The company has also run schemes for reaching 50,000 customers in India, and offered an exclusive photo-shoot opportunity with its brand ambassador, actress Amrita Rao. Anand says that the plan is to get another 50,000 customers to connect over the next three months; the company intends to offer freebies (such as film tickets) to reach these customers. “We have also used SM to effectively communicate our schemes to channel partners,” Anand adds. “We are using LinkedIn to connect with specific groups, communicate through white papers, share Web trends, run surveys and so on. We also have 5,000+ Twitter followers, and the number is growing.”

“Being visible to customers is of paramount importance. Since our potential customers spend hours on SM networks, we have to be visible there” Atul Jain

MD, Netgear India

Western Digital is another vendor that has been heavily investing in SM, and has been using both Facebook and Twitter. “Sometimes customers approach us with RMA requests on our Facebook or Twitter page, and these are addressed on a priority basis. Over Facebook, we have now started directly connecting local resellers with customers who are looking to buy a WD product in smaller towns,” says Sushil Bhandi, Country Manager, Western Digital India. Intel, which has been funding qualified Intel Inside partners to use their Websites for promotions using Google Ads, has been investing heavily in SM to educate

Tips for building a social media strategy “Quality always wins over quantity in SM marketing” Unified Approach. Don’t treat your SM activity as something separate from your other marketing initiatives. Feature links to your SM profiles in your email signature, on your business cards, in your ads, and as a standard block of copy in your weekly HTML email newsletter, if you have one. In addition, make sure that the links are featured prominently in your SM profiles, and that Facebook fan page visitors and blog subscribers are offered the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter and attend your online and offline events. Make your SM profiles a part of your address copy block and you will soon see adding them to all that you do as an automatic action.

leads from anywhere—it’s just that the care you must take to do it right is amplified by the ‘no selling allowed’ culture of most SM sites. As a reseller, you need to keep lead generation as your key activity since brand-building for a vendor may not take you places.

RAJIV NARAYANAN

Magnify. Use your SM activity to create awareness about and amplify your content housed in other places. This can go for teasing some aspect of your latest post on Twitter or on your Facebook status, or pointing to mentions of your firm in the media. Remember, quality always wins over quantity in SM marketing. Rehash. Taking content that appears in one form and twisting it in ways that make it more available in another, or to another audience, is a recipe for success. Remember, as a channel partner you may not have enough content, hence rehashing is a must. Focus On Lead Generation. Effectively generating leads from SM marketing is really no different from effectively generating

Go Viral. Keep using every possible tool. Remember that presence across multiple SM tools is going to help you because you can never be sure where your next lead is going to come from. Hence, even if a social bookmarking tool (such as Digg or StumbleUpon) is not popular in India, it does not matter. Go ahead and keep building pages.

Start Learning. It’s very important that the CEO or promoter of an IT reseller gets involved in the entire SM marketing process. Set up an RSS reader, subscribe to blogs, visit social bookmarking sites, and read what’s popular. Create custom Twitter searches for your brand, your competitors and your industry, and closely follow on Twitter people who have a reputation for putting out great content. Then just listen and learn. Do all these yourself. Only after you know you are getting results should you delegate this job. Finally, never stop learning. n By Rajiv Narayanan, Regional Director of Ad Magnet, a digital media consultancy based in Bengaluru. As told to Ramdas S.

It’s very important that the CEO or promoter of an IT reseller gets involved in the entire SM marketing process. Set up an RSS reader, subscribe to blogs, visit social bookmarking sites

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cover story Tools to start your social media strategy While SM content holds immense potential for getting transformed into business insights, it’s imperative for a partner to understand the different options and what might work in which scenario. Facebook. Facebook has 40 million users in India, and it’s believed that 80 percent of these users spend 85 percent of their Internet time on this SM site. Since many users provide demographic data such as place of residence, the company they work for, age, sex and so on, it makes sense for even a small retailer to do a campaign on Facebook. Facebook appbased advertising is not cheap, but, according to Nielsen, it is still believed to be the lowest-priced. Facebook is also perceived to be an excellent site to manage reputations. LinkedIn. With 10 million users in the country, LinkedIn is recommended as the best place for an IT partner to start his SM strategy. Since it’s a network of professionals, LinkedIn can help a partner connect with customers and be notified of critical information (such as a key decision-making executive leaving a customer or a vendor). LinkedIn is also recommended for building communities.

Twitter. The micro-blogging platform has four million users in India, and is widely used for information dissemination and support. However, there have been no constructive business models which may appeal to a smaller business. Google+ & YouTube. Though Google+, the latest entry from Google, is yet to have a huge active base in India, industry pundits are unwilling to dismiss this tool. Partners can benefit from YouTube by releasing tech videos on popular subjects that may attract a customer base. YouTube is said to have 20 million users in the country, and is also widely linked through other SM sites. SEO Tools & Adwords. Google Adwords is supposed to be a very effective medium to drive traffic to your Website and generate leads since Google remains the choice of 79 percent of Internet users for searching. Search engine-based traffic is still perceived to be the best mode of promotion on the Web. Social Bookmarking Tools. Popular social bookmarking Websites such as Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon do not have a large following in India, but are still recommended. Constant generation of fresh content is important. It’s also important for channel partners to keep a tab on review sites such as mouthshut.com, justdial.com and sulekha.com where nasty reviews about popular IT partners have been spotted. n

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“We have been so involved with our daily transactions that we have not paid enough attention to important issues such as having a presentable Website” AL Srinath

CEO, Shell Networks

both partners and customers. Comments Sandeep Aurora, Director of Marketing, Intel South Asia, “Over the years SM has gone from being an exploration platform to an engagement platform. Most important is the monitoring or listening to what’s being said about Intel and our industry, bringing feedback inside the company, and using the listening model to help us respond when and where appropriate.” While SM seems to be the right fit for mass consumeroriented brands, even enterprise vendors are taking SM seriously. “We have been using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook primarily to take feedback from our channel community,” says Douglas Smith, Vice-president, Global Partner Strategy & Operations, VMware. “Apart from technical queries, we are able to use the feedback to roll out new initiatives.” Meanwhile, Jain feels that Netgear’s cost of support to both enterprises and consumers has come down because some customers actively involved in SM solve each other’s problems online. Apart from creating an identity and promoting it, partners have been using social marketing tools for recruitment. Hemant Chabria, Director of Chabria Infotech, who has over 500 connects on LinkedIn and over 5,000 friends on Facebook, says that he has used LinkedIn multiple times to recruit. “We had several cases where we needed talent for specific instances and short periods of time based on client demands at locations where we do not have a direct presence. In such instances, LinkedIn has been very useful.” Connecting with vendors is another purpose for which SM tools have been useful. “We had a query on a unified communications solution, and needed to connect two vendors overseas. Using LinkedIn, and then setting up a video chat, helped us connect,” Chabria informs. Adds Vyas of Orient, “For the data center business we needed to connect with civil and electrical contractors, and we had to rely on SM tools for the same.” Peer-to-peer engagement has been another practice that has helped partners. “I have set two sets of

“SM has gone from being an exploration platform to an engagement platform. Most important is the monitoring or listening to what’s being said” Sandeep Aurora

Director, Marketing, Intel South Asia

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agenda. One is to build a brand for myself, Virtual the other Trade for TechGyan. Because of my involvement with the Microsoft Partner Network over LinkedIn and Facebook Enterprise Security I have managed to do both. Potential customers and peers recognize you and recommend you based on your involvement in the community,” says Suresh Ramani, the CEO of TechGyan, Mumbai. Active participation in online clubs and forums on Facebook and LinkedIn also helps. “We are members of over a dozen online forums on security and information management issues. We closed a couple of DLP deals, and used the success stories and discussions with customers to attract others and convinced them to see us face-to-face,” says Vishal Bindra, Founder & CEO, ACPL Systems, New Delhi. Ramani says that while the enthusiasm generated through SM is contagious, it’s very difficult to measure attend and Be Part precise results. “I have generated about foura leads which of are driven by my SM activity for sure, and we are closing two. But beyond this there are several intangible benefits which cannot be measured.” While many agree with Ramani, some point out that customers are increasingly using SM to decide on purchase decisions. “The questions customers ask us every day about our products, the comparisons made with other products, and the advice on how they can make the most of a product point to how they are increasingly relying on online opinions—whether the brands’ or their social peers’—before making a purchase

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Director, Chabria Infotech

decision. We even have customer testimonials that they bought our products because of our SM engagements,” says Bhandi of Western Digital. He cautions resellers not to stay away from SM just because they are scared of increased transparency. He says that since LFRs and large retailers are directly hitting customers, it’s imperative that channel partners also use SM. the Virtual Vendors are emphaticexPerience that partners must jump into SM and start connecting with customers online. “Those resellers who wish to engage with online users must first start at the grassroots and figure out the medium before Organised by they finalize their engagement strategy. Once they’ve decided how they’d like to leverage the medium they should pilot a few different initiatives to see what works best for them,” recommends Aurora. The writing on the Facebook wall is clear: SM marketing is something that no partner—irrespective of size, focus or strategy—should miss. n

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special focus Solving business challenges

with technology Cost-effective IT solutions are ot only helping SMBs to address business challenges such as low working capital, employee attrition and increasing customer demands, but are also providing new growth opportunities n Vinita Gupta

ith over 50 million units, India has the largest number of Small and Medium Business (SMB) companies in the world. Retail represents more than one-third of the total SMB segment both in terms of size and revenue. More than one-third of India’s GDP is attributed to the SMB sector (as per Zinnov’s June 2011 report). In India the SMB sector is fast growing and highly competitive. Even during the recession it continued to grow at a rapid pace. Although these businesses want to adopt new, innovative business strategies to improve their performance, they still face substantial challenges. The foremost challenge faced by the SMB sector is that of working capital followed by employee attrition and customer demands.

“The Internet has matured from a medium used primarily for browsing to a robust backbone which can run mission-critical business transactions”

Another major hurdle which the SMBs face is employing and retaining the right people. An enterprise has access to qualified and experienced technical staff to evaluate suggested technologies on their merits and take care of the network once the installation is completed. SMBs on the other hand typically do not have dedicated staff to perform this role. Attrition is also a major challenge faced by SMBs; people learn new skills from them but then change jobs for better pay and growth opportunities. Most SMBs find it difficult to retain good talent for more than a year. “Some of the known challenges faced by employees working in Indian SMBs include inadequate infrastructure and working environment (due to a sub-optimal scale of operations and fund shortages), a lot of manual work (due to low adoption of technology to deliver products/ services), and travel to customer locations at short notices (due to unpredictability of demand),” says Chetan Indap, Founder & CEO of StaffonContract.com. There are other challenges which are specific to business processes and verticals—inventory management in retail and manufacturing, project management in professional services, and content management in media and entertainment. Besides, SMBs often find it difficult to maintain business efficiency, employee productivity and responsiveness to customer needs. Technology can help SMBs to effectively address these challenges and at the same time accelerate business performance.

Prashant Ranade

IT to grow business

Insufficient capital Most of the smaller businesses in India are operating in a subsistence mode and are caught in a vicious cycle in which customers delay payments which in turn delays the payments SMBs need to make to suppliers. Sudhir Sethi, Founder, Chairman & Managing Director, IDG Ventures India, says that the ﬁnancing pattern of SMBs is radically different from that of enterprises. On an average they get only 15 percent from internal sources (indicating that they are far less proﬁtable), 25 percent from banks and FIs, and 10 percent from capital markets. As much as 50 percent of their total annual funding generally comes from alternative sources such as friends and family equity. Access to institutional finance is very limited owing to their small scale and limited assets that can be used to procure capital.

CEO & President, Syntel

Talent retention

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special focus companies. For instance in 1990, Persistent Systems, a mid-sized company, started its outsourcing business in India. At that time it was difficult for the company to run the business because the outsourcing opportunity was not there, connectivity was poor and expensive, and it was very hard to find a skilled workforce. Then toward the end of 2000 the market started evolving and new technologies were developed; this in turn helped Persistent (which used cost-effective networking technology) to grow its business. Over a period of time, as the IT infrastructure in India improved, and Internet connectivity speeds became more stable and cheaper and offered higher bandwidth, SMBs started exploring the power of the Internet. They saw the Internet as a means to reach out to markets where they could not be present physically. Thus, the Internet became a channel for the SMBs to grow and tap both the national and international market. This is corroborated by a recent (May 2011) McKinsey SMB survey. According to the survey, SMBs using Web technologies extensively are exporting more widely and growing more than twice as fast as those with a minimal Net presence. The survey was carried out across more than 4,800 SMBs in 12 countries. The survey showed that the Internet enabled a 10 percent increase in profitability across countries. Half of the impact on profits came from increased revenue, and

“Last year SMBs spent $7 billion on IT; this was more than 30 percent of total domestic spend. One of the technologies the sector is betting on is IT as a service” Kishan Bhat

Engagement Manager, Zinnov

half from the lower cost of goods sold and lower administrative costs. A case in point is mid-sized IT firm Syntel, which used the Internet to boost client relationships. “We had initiated a number of client engagements through secure VPN connections over the Internet to give a quick start while implementing longer-term network technology solutions like MPLS or dedicated circuits,” informs Prashant Ranade, CEO & President, Syntel. Ranade says that the Internet has matured from a medium used primarily for browsing to a robust backbone which can run mission-critical business transactions. This does not imply that SMBs are content with basic IT systems. They are also exploring other technologies such as ERP, CRM, BI and UC that can help in furthering business growth. This can be seen from the increased percentage of

SMBs eying mobile devices SMB employees no longer need the full functionality of the bulky desktops as they can meet their needs using lighter devices like netbooks, smartphones and tablets. These lighter mobile devices have shown significant increase in penetration among SMBs. With 54 percent of Indian medium businesses currently using these devices, and another clutch of innovations on the horizon, smartphone penetration and spending are poised for growth. In 2011 Indian SMBs are set to grow that spending to $173 million, according to the New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners. Vendors can improve demand for smartphones by continuing to reduce prices as well as offering more and varied plan options. For instance, Nokia Tej, a service that leverages the mobile device to help SMBs streamline complex and time-consuming business processes. Last year CavinKare, a Chennai-based FMCG company, had deployed this service; Nokia Tej has open APIs which have been integrated with the in-house developed systems of CavinKare. With the implementation of this service, the distribution audit data flows on a real-time basis to the central system. The 150-member sales team, including the area and regional sales managers, now have the option of accessing this information and making decisions on a real-time basis. With Nokia Tej, the auditor enters the data as he is travelling from one retailer to another, thereby avoiding the end-of-day rush. Information is captured on all CavinKare brands vis-à-vis

competitor brands. Says S Visvanathan, General Manager, Marketing, CavinKare, “This service on the mobile device has significantly increased the productivity of the audit team. The 2-2.5 hours spent keying in the data is now being redeployed toward more productive activities.” n

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special focus “The CRM solution helped us to reduce the cost and time taken to generate critical business reports from about 5-7 working days to real time”

“Emerging companies like ours need to be more agile to understand market trends. Big companies can define the market but we can write through it”

Tridib Ghosh, Associate VP, Sales & Marketing, The Pride Hotel

Anand Deshpande

IT spend by SMBs on a YoY basis. “Last year the SMBs spent around $7 billion on IT; this constituted more than 30 percent of the total domestic IT spending. Some of the technologies and innovations that the sector is betting on are IT as a service such as SaaS and IaaS, and mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones,” says Kishan Bhat, Engagement Manager, Zinnov Management Consulting, emphasizing the increasing trend among Indian SMBs to spend more on IT.

Adopting cloud solutions Cost is one of the determining factors for SMBs as they do not have huge capital to invest. Hence they are looking at IT as a service options wherein they do not have to make any initial investment and have to pay as per the usage. Also, SMBs know the difficulties of maintaining a department which does not form a part of their core competency, so they are keen on moving toward the cloud model. Sangeeta Gupta, VP, Nasscom, agrees. “The SMBs are looking at technologies that are cost-effective, easy to use, provide customers satisfaction and give them a competitive edge.” Cloud computing provides a vastly more efficient, flexible and cost-effective way for IT to meet escalating business needs. A case in point is The Pride Hotel chain which has 12 hotels in India. Being in the hospitality sector, the company wanted to create a reliable, integrated customer relationship platform. The chain deployed Oracle CRM On Demand (a SaaS solution) which provided integrated end-to-end customer account information such as contact details and booking requirements. “We are focused on developing relationships with customers. The CRM solution helped us reduce the time taken to generate critical business reports— such as employee product revenue and performance reports—from 5-7 working days to real-time. As it is a SaaS model, it was quick and easy to implement and required no hardware investments,” informs Tridib Ghosh, Associate Vice-president of Sales & Marketing at The Pride Hotel. With no upfront investments to make, the SaaS model is perfect for SMBs. “The cloud computing model is the best solution for SMBs though it was SaaS which was initially popular with SMBs, especially midsized companies,” opines Naveen Mishra, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner. According to Vinay Hinge, CEO, Kandor Solutions, the SMB sector looks at the capex model rather than

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Chairman & MD, Persistent Systems

opex as they always want to own the IT system; at the same time, they look at outsourcing too because they lack skilled people. For instance, SMBs will buy the Tally software but outsource the accounting functions. Shailesh Kumar Davey, Vice-president at Zoho, believes that SMBs can get more efficient by moving to the cloud. “This is something that will happen only by cloud evangelization as a whole. These markets may not be efficiently reachable by deploying onfield sales/ support. Cloud vendors or the trade forums can jointly take it forward to evangelize the benefits.”

SMBs prefer tested solutions SMBs are also skeptical about new technologies that break into the market. An enterprise-sized customer is often willing to take a chance on a new technology as the perception of being at the forefront of cutting-edge technology can work in their favor. By contrast, SMBs prefer tried-and-tested solutions and are usually wary of adopting new technologies without a clear understanding of the ROI from the technology. This is because SMBs cannot afford the risk of investing time and money in deploying a new technology, and hence rarely make investments in untested technologies. “To survive is not a challenge, but to keep on growing is. Emerging companies like ours need to be more agile to understand market trends. Big companies can define the market but smaller and mid-sized companies like ours can write through it,” comments Anand Deshpande, Chairman & Managing Director, Persistent Systems. Deshpande explains this by giving the example of cloud computing. “SMBs cannot build cloud computing technologies but can leverage the platform to grow.” The requirements of SMBs are not as expansive or detailed as those of an enterprise. This is because the business processes of SMBs are not as mature as those of an enterprise. In fact, most SMBs tend to have unique business processes which call for heavy customization of IT solutions. To grow in scale, SMBs require technologies to streamline their businesses and ensure transparency in their operations. With the advent of cost-effective and newer delivery models such as IT as a service, traditional business challenges can be effectively handled. Technology is truly powering the SMBs to be flexible to the changing and highly competitive business environment. n

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role model Think big, think AHEAD Manojkummar Garg, COO, Taashee Linux Services, is a great admirer of the legendary Dhirubhai Ambani and his six-word philosophy of business n Amit Singh

anojkummar Garg took his father’s entrepreneurship to the next level but in a different domain altogether. After completing his BCom from Osmania University in 1992, he could have continued to support his family businesses of sanitaryware, a travel agency and an Indian Oil dealership, but, motivated by his friend Arun Subramaniam from SAP Labs (Bengaluru), he instead decided to pursue a career in IT. “In 2000 I earned a Masters in Computer Science from Adam Smith University, US. I completed my third (last) semester as an intern with SAP, Germany, and was subsequently absorbed by the company as a developer,” informs Garg. He returned to India in 2001. In 2002 he joined his friend Abhishek Dutt’s company ELX Linux as Regional Manager, South, where, among other things, he provided consultancy for open source projects funded by Mavcap, a Government of Malaysia initiative. ELX Linux culminated in Taashee Linux Services in 2008. The subsequent rise of the Hyderabad-headquartered Taashee has been spectacular. From a turnover of `50 lakh in FY2008-09 Taashee is now a `10 crore company with a branch in Mumbai.

The beginning With his pre-sales and service expertise in open source technology solutions, and his experience at ELX Linux, Garg along with Dutt started Taashee with an initial investment of `20 lakh, equally contributed by both partners. “My stint with SAP provided me deep understanding of software development; I acquired planning skills and a value for time and punctuality. These skills helped me in operations and sales at ELX. Dutt was in charge of the technical side of the business,” says Garg. Anticipating that open source would take off in the coming years, in 2008 Taashee ventured into services and selling Red Hat subscriptions as its Ready partner. Recalls Garg, “In the initial days we found it hard to get business for open source tech solutions and services. People did not realize or appreciate the value of enterprise open source solutions. We also found it hard to find employees willing to pursue a career in open source platforms.”

“Initially we found it hard to get business for open source solutions. We also found it hard to find employees willing to pursue a career in open source platforms” 34

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But Taashee’s patience slowly paid off. “Our partnership with Red Hat helped us get leads and pursue projects,” says Garg. “We stuck to one principal, and Red Hat also supported us as a loyal partner. We took on several small implementation projects to earn credibility in the market, then penetrated deep into our customer base.” The company got a major breakthrough with two projects outsourced by Red Hat in 2008. Taashee executed Red Hat cluster implementation projects at the AP Tourism Department in Hyderabad and Cyprus Semiconductors in Bengaluru worth `1.5 lakh and `3 lakh respectively. “The successful implementation of these projects endorsed our status with Red Hat, and enabled us to generate more leads and turn them into real business,” Garg adds. Also in 2008 the company bagged a project valued at `15 lakh to implement open source technologies and maintain the DR solution at Azingo. In 2009 Taashee completed a 1-month virtualization project at Bilcare Research to implement the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) advanced platform with integrated virtualization and clustering technologies, the MySAP business suite of applications, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft SQL Server; this generated `11 lakh as product and service revenue. The company also executed a 1-month clustering middleware solution implementation project, generating revenue of `10 lakh, for Future Bazaar, Mumbai. In the

Role model 2008

Current business

MILESTONES Established Taashee Linux Services

2008

same year Taashee generated `30 lakh from a data center project to implement 200 RHEL for servers with clustering solutions for Etisalat Telecom on behalf of Tech Mahindra.

Bagged Red Hat cluster projects from AP Tourism and Cyprus Semiconductors

blade center in Hyderabad as a center of excellence to offer software solution demonstrations through Webex and Zoho. Its customer support center, with 10 dedicated technical resources, provides 24x7 telephonic and online support to its managed services customers. Besides, there’s “Taashee Research Lab, which is an internal lab where technical resources deliver research work including digging new open source tools,” Garg informs. In 2010 Taashee was recognized as the most committed partner for Red Hat in APAC and recently as its Top Partner India 2011.

2011

2010

2009

2008

In FY2010-11 the company doubled its revenue by recording a turnover of `10 crore compared to `5 crore Implemented open source in FY2009-10. Of its 2010-11 technology and DR solutions revenue, 70 percent came from Red for Azingo Hat and JBoss subscriptions and software solutions; services and Completed virtualization training contributed 20 percent project for Bilcare Research and 10 percent respectively. The company’s current clientele Implemented RHEL for servers includes Tata Communications, Future plans for Etisalat Telecom Tata Teleservices, TCS, Tech Taashee intends to attain revenue of Mahindra, Coca-Cola, Cibil, Crisil, `15 crore in FY2011-12 and more Bagged managed services CCAvenue, Euronet, Lupin Pharma than `100 crore in FY2016-17. Apart and LifeSpring Hospitals. from open source tech solutions, project from Tata “Due to the slowdown in the the company plans to focus on Communications global market in 2009, in 2010 many consolidation, virtualization and companies moved to cost-effective cloud projects. “We partnered Completed application software solutions that added with VMware in 2011 to offer consolidation project to value to open source solutions. virtualization, middleware and establish private cloud for TCS cloud services to our customers. To increase our client base, we opened a branch office in Mumbai We also have plans to tie up with Partnered with VMware and grabbed projects from the Tata companies such as SAP, Salesforce Group, Cibil and Coca-Cola. At the and Amazon,” Garg discloses. same time, the inclusion of more The company plans to establish service contracts added to our bottomline,” informs its offices at Bengaluru in December this year, at Pune and Garg. Such commitment helped the company to earn the Chennai in March 2012, and at New Delhi, Ahmedabad Advanced Partner status of Red Hat for its platform and and Surat by the end of 2012. “By increasing our reach middleware products. across the country, we want to increase our customer base In 2010 Taashee bagged a 3-year managed services by leveraging our CRM for lead generation,” explains project from Tata Communications to manage its JBoss Garg. “We also want to address the government vertical in middleware servers. The same year the company a planned and full-fledged manner rather than by relying completed an application consolidation project (worth on sub-contracts. We have plans to register with NICSI `20 lakh) to establish a private cloud for TCS . and bid for government projects.” To enable easy tracking of a project’s progress and to maintain customer relations, Taashee has implemented On a personal note a hosted ERP system from Workforce Track. Notes Garg, Admiring Dhirubhai Ambani for his ‘think big, think “The system has increased our productivity by almost fast, think ahead’ business philosophy, Garg considers 40 percent. It enables us to streamline our processes and the late industrialist to be his role model. “He dared track our progress. It offers our clients access to realto dream, started a business from scratch, and took time information about the progress in their projects; it Reliance to heights that are envied by businessmen provides them a documented scope of the work, and the around the world.” opportunity to raise any issue. This facilitates clarity on In his free time Garg loves to watch Hindi movies and the progress as well as easy sign-off.” listen to old Hindi film songs. His favorite movie is Teesri The company has also established an enterprise-class Manzil starring his favorite actor Shammi Kapoor. Garg provides financial support to the Bhagwan Mahavir Sanstha which provides artificial limbs to the physically handicapped. “I also find peace by offering Garg provides meals to old-age homes meals and financial support to various old-age homes.” and financial support to the Bhagwan He is enthusiastic about traveling to Mauritius, and Mahavir Sanstha which provides artificial finds spending time with his family a perfect weekend. He wishes to someday own a Mitsubishi Pajero. n limbs to the physically handicapped

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tech focus

ThinkPad

Tablet

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet achieves on the Android platform what many enterprises have been seeking, including QA-tested apps and some nice engineering flourishes n Edward F Moltzen

enovo’s vaunted ThinkPad franchise, which entered this world as an IBM product and wound up with Lenovo when it bought IBM’s PC business in 2004, hasn’t made much in the way of radical departures of any kind in the past decade. Built in basic black with the red Trackpoint button and designed primarily for the enterprise rather the consumer space, the ThinkPad has been a staple of Fortune 500 businesses and a stalwart product for Lenovo channel partners. Then when it became clear in the market that more IT dollars would be spent on thin-and-light tablets, Lenovo got to work adapting the ThinkPad to the new use patterns and market for the new form factors. So here we have the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet, which Lenovo unveiled in August and has now made available for review. We’ve had the opportunity in the CRN Test Center to review most of the tablets launched through the channel this year; Lenovo launched its tablets only after its competitors launched theirs. We were curious to know whether the additional time Lenovo took to launch the ThinkPad tablet made a difference. The ThinkPad Tablet we reviewed was built with an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor at 1.00 GHz, a 10.1” WXGA display with Corning Gorilla Glass, and native USB 2.0, Micro-USB and full-size SD card slot with a mini HDMI output. The hardware specifications are in line with what an enterprise would find acceptable. On the CRN Test Center scale, the ThinkPad Tablet weighed in at one pound, 10.8 ounces. It’s a thicker device than competing tablets like the iPad 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but that’s the tradeoff with the number of media ports built into the device. Lenovo pre-loaded the tablet with Android 3.1, which enterprises are still mulling given the valid concerns over security for the open source platform that was created

There are three stellar features to this tablet that separate it from others: its digital pen, its selection of pre-loaded apps, and the customized GUI 36

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by Google. However, Lenovo has taken a few approaches to make the platform more appealing to the enterprise, namely, the creation of the Lenovo App Shop, an online store of Android apps that have been vetted, quality-tested and security-tested by Lenovo. It’s not a bad app store either. For example, Lenovo presents a number of solid productivity apps, including PDF readers, business card scanners, signable document creators and texting apps. For anyone who has waded into the deep and unknown waters of the Android market, the Lenovo App Store is a welcome development. But that’s not the best part of the Lenovo tablet. There are three stellar features to this tablet that separate it from others: its digital pen, its selection of pre-loaded apps, and the customized GUI. When we first saw that Lenovo had included a digital pen with the tablet (complete with a red cap, to emulate the legendary ThinkPad Trackpoint), our first question was, ‘okay, if it has a digital pen, does it also have a floppy drive?’ Frankly, one seemed as obsolescent as the other. But Lenovo has taken the digital pen into the new tablet era and done a great job. In particular, the use of the digital pen with a pre-loaded app, MyScript Notes Mobile, is a breakthrough in tablet-based note-taking. The pen and the app, combined, do what we’ve seen other solutions try and fail for the last decade: simulate the traditional pen and notebook. (Notes Mobile, by the way, does a nice job

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tech focus of converting handwriting into digital text.) The pre-loaded apps, including Notes Mobile, were almost all good choices. From Docs-to-Go to Citrix Receiver, from McAfee Security to Google Talk, the preloaded apps ensure the tablet is ready for work right out of the box. This is an area where even the better tablet makers have been a little hesitant; Lenovo’s effort shows that a manufacturer can pre-load basic, effective apps (for tasks like word processing, security and communication) without forcing unwanted bloatware into the box. Additionally, the ThinkPad Tablet is pre-enabled with Absolute Software’s Computrace to provide a ‘persistent connection’ to the device in case it’s lost or stolen. While other tablets support ‘find-my-device’ and remote wipe and lock apps, the pre-enablement of Computrace is a very nice touch. Lenovo has cleaned up the Android 3.1 GUI, and developed a feature called the ‘Zone,’ a butterflylike navigational device on the home screen that will support pre-loaded buttons for features including watching video, email, e-books and music, as well as launch the device’s browser. Additionally, Lenovo has created a sort of wonder wheel to navigate (by touch) screens and apps. Like competing tablets, the ThinkPad Tablet is built with two cameras, a front-facing camera and a rear-facing camera for both video and still images. (The cameras also support scanning documents to PDF or bar-code scanning.) Like competing tablets, the ThinkPad Tablet is built with a GPS antenna. We found its ability to pinpoint locations to be accurate within about 10 yards. The builtin Lenovo file navigation system is also one of the best

If there’s a downside to the ThinkPad Tab it’s the speakers; the audio was much softer than what we’re used to from tablets, even softer than the speakers built into the iPhone 4 we’ve seen in an Android device to date, making it easier and more intuitive than ever to locate documents, photos, music, video or presentations. If there is a downside to the ThinkPad Tablet it’s the on-board speakers; the audio was much softer than what we’re used to from tablets and was actually softer than the speakers built into the iPhone 4. Other vendors have released tablets after falling behind companies such as Apple and Samsung, which have launched mega-successful and very successful tablets respectively. These vendors have had varying levels of success with one, Hewlett-Packard, failing so badly that it wound up getting out of the business after six weeks despite having a unique operating system in WebOS. What makes Lenovo’s effort a successful one, and worth the wait, is that it is exactly what an enterprise could use in an Android tablet: a secure, QA-tested, differentiated tablet that comes in at a competitive starting price of $499. The Lenovo ThinkPad tablet is a great tablet for business, a device that you can actually work on and one that would make a smart introduction for enterprises into the tablet world. The CRN Test Center can recommend this device strongly. n

Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing 38

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channel buzz HP Print Service Providers workshop Hewlett-Packard recently organized the Print Service Providers (PSP) workshop across Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and New Delhi. HP organized the meet for the PSP and their customers to educate them about upcoming trends in the printing industry, to build trust and strengthen relationships, and to develop a platform for information exchange. The 1-day workshop was led by Puneet Chadha, Director, GSB, HP India, and Paresh Shetty, Business Unit Manager, Signage, HP India. They ran intensive sessions on newer printing streams in the graphic solutions business, and upcoming trends in the outdoor and signage industry. The program educated the stakeholders about overall management trends related to customer expectations and customer service, and was thus beneficial for the overall growth and progress of the print partners. During the program HP threw light on its present and future investments in the printing business. It

n Nasscom Chairman Rajendra Singh Pawar presents the Lifetime Achievement Award to Bharat Goenka, MD, Tally

n Puneet Chadha, Director, GSB, HP India, presenting an award to a partner at the PSP meet in Bengaluru

also shared with the print partners upcoming trends in both the commercial and industrial printing industry, product portfolios, the print partners’ network base transformation, and its importance and influence on their printing future. n

n Maqbool Hassan, Executive VP, along with S Kumaran, National Manager, IIS Enterprise Products, Accel Frontline, receives an award from Eric Hoh, VP, Asia South Region, and Ajay Goel, MD, India & Saarc, Symantec

Nasscom Lifetime Achievement Award to Bharat Goenka of Tally

Symantec Partner Engage conference

Bharat Goenka, Co-Founder & MD of Tally Solutions, was recently honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by Nasscom. Said Goenka, “Receiving this has been an overwhelming experience because recognition from peers and contemporaries is very special. The award really belongs to my father, SS Goenka, to all our customers who have given their love and affection, to our partners who have given their loyalty, and to our Tally family. Together, we promise to live up to the award.” In 2010 Bharat had won the CRN Outstanding Channel Contribution Award. n

Symantec recently concluded the Asia South Partner Engage Conference, a meeting of the most senior Symantec partners in the region. Around 150 channel partners attended the conference which had the theme ‘Power Your Business.’ The event offered partners the opportunity to know more about Symantec’s strategy and vision. Symantec also announced the winners of its 2011 Asia South Region Partner Awards. The awards recognized specialized channel partners who demonstrated their ability to deliver the highest levels of services and solutions during the year. n

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

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New Products Xerox WorkCenter 3045

Linksys Xseries router

isco Consumer Products launched its new all-inone home wireless router, the X2000 Wireless-N ADSL2+. The product has been released under the Linksys brand. The router helps consumers to create a high-speed wireless home network that works with both DSL and cable broadband connections with wireless transfer speeds up to 300 Mbps. The Linksys X-series helps consumers to go wireless with their fixed broadband connection and upgrade to wireless-N. The product is also equipped with fast Ethernet ports to connect wired devices, and includes Cisco Connect software that helps consumers to set up their wireless network in a few steps. The product is priced at an MRP of `9,499 and comes with a 1-year warranty. It is available with CCP authorized distributors.

erox has launched a number of entry-level to mid-segment A4 print devices in color which are intended to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) create professionallooking documents in-house. The Xerox WorkCenter 3045 offers multi-functionality at 24 PPM speed and includes connectivity and security features. The product is among the smallest printing devices available in the market, and can fit almost anywhere. It has fewer moving parts, a result of its Q-LED technology. Other features include built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, copy at 600 x 600 dpi and scan at 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution. The product is available for `10,000, comes with a 1-year warranty, and is available with authorized Xerox distributors.

Thecus NAS N4200

hecus Technology, a digital storage solutions company, launched a network attached storage (NAS) device, NAS N4200. The product offers Intel Atom dual-core processor D510 with 1.66 GHz speed in combination with 1 GB of DDR2 memory. Its LCD display offers system information including hard disk and network status. Four SATA II hard disk bays in N4200 offer up to 12 TB of storage capacity. The N4200 comes with multiple RAID modes, including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD. It offers dual DOM (Disk on Module) technology that uses a secondary DOM to reprogram the primary DOM in the event of a failure. The N4200 with 12 TB storage is priced at `84,900 and with 8 TB storage at `54,900. It is available at MB Solution.

Dax Networks DX-137G IP Camera

ax Networks launched its DX-137G-FN50-O-H, a 3G-enabled 2 MP IP camera that comes with a 3G module and is ideal for enterprise surveillance. The 3G module is designed for WAN network surveillance with SD card storage up to 32 GB. It supports H.264 and MJPEG dual streaming up to 30 frames per second for all video resolutions. The camera has a built-in Web server for remote control via browsers. It is a day-night IP66-rated outdoor waterproof camera. Its CMOS sensor and 3G module help detect even the slightest movement. The built-in infra-red LED provides up to 50m of clear night-vision. The product is priced at `52,060, comes with a 3-year carry-in warranty and online support, and is available with authorized distributors.

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

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shadow ram GET

HDD woes

Personal

ollowing the shortage of HDDs and subsequent spike in their prices, there seems to be a rush for older, lower capacity drives in the market. Even old IDE connector-based drives seem to be picking up demand. While 500 GB SATA drive prices were around `5,000, and projected to shoot up to `7,000, 160 GB and 120 GB drives, which have been out of fashion for more than two years, are suddenly in vogue. “Some partners were even ok with 80 GB drives though these products are more than four years old,” said a sub-distributor in Chennai. Meanwhile, a prominent Seagate distributor has warned its partners to be wary of refurbished drives hitting the market. Apparently, a large consignment has been picked up by a parallel importer based in Delhi, and the drives are expected to be offered at prices that are a few hundred rupees less. Meanwhile, competitors are waiting to see if Lenovo can make true on its Elcot tender with the sudden shortage of HDDs and dollar appreciation. The Elcot tender was quoted by Lenovo when the dollar was at `44—now it’s at `50. However, a Lenovo employee said that his company is prepared to execute the order. n

“I want to drive social change” Shailendra Trivedi, Country Manager, Enterprise, R&M, has 12 years experience in the IT and cabling infrastructure industry. Before joining R&M he had successful stints at large OEMs in the industry

Shailendra Trivedi

If not in the IT industry: I would have been a cricketer; I love the sport.

Biggest passion: Reading. I enjoy reading. I read everything from history to business. Behind the wheels: I would like to own an SUV like Volvo xc90. Gadgets I can’t live without: My iPad and my phone. Weekends are for: Family. Favorite holiday destination: Maldives. Hate the most: Lack of commitment. Favorite movie: V Shantaram’s Do Aankhe Baara Haath. Favorite stars: Amitabh Bachchan and Madhubala. Role model: Mahatma Gandhi. Ultimate ambition: To drive social change. Wildest thing I have ever done: Hiking through a forest in the middle of the night. Thing I most want to do in life: Travel. I wish to see the world with my family. If I became the PM: I’d strive to improve the quality of life in India. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Sachin Tendulkar. Deepest and darkest fear: Height and enclosed spaces. n

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— CRN Network

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