contents
September 15, 2013 l Volume 2 Issue 22
Cover Story Decline and volatility of the Indian rupee has hit the domestic IT industry hard as it is hugely dependent on imports. But rather than complaining, some partners are taking advantage of the depreciation
14 Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik
NEWS Analyses
Channel Chief
EMC strengthens the VNX range
6
Trend Micro bets big on SaaS
6
Quantum eyes big data opportunities 9 Intel ships new Xeon processors
9
Adobe defines its cloud strategy 11
Jonathan Belcher Vice President, Partner Sales, Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks, speaks about the company’s channel agenda and trends in the enterprise networking and security space
12 Tech Focus 10 trending cyberthreat attacks in 2013 Ransomware is hijacking systems in greater numbers, and AutoRun malware infections, spread by thumb drives, are also rising, according to McAfee’s latest threat report
READ More
Channel Buzz
Editorial 08 Opinion
10
Feedback
10
New Products
33
Shadow Ram
38
Get Personal
38
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22
Get ready for the transformation With paradigm shifts underway in the IT industry, the sixth edition of the CRN Leadership Summit 2013, was the perfect platform to discuss and debate the future of IT and channels. With the right mix of content, new technology showcase, awards, networking and fun, the event was a roaring success
starting line MUST
EMC strengthens the VNX range
Trend Micro bets big on SaaS
n SONAL DESAI
Read
Trend Micro is looking at its new solutions such as Deep Security and Web Application Security—its new security-as-a-service (SaaS)—for growth. The company expects double-digit growth in FY2013-14. “We see opportunities in the three main areas of consumerization of IT, cloud and data center, and cyber threat prevention. With 665 million websites and one-third of the population present on the Internet, consumerization of IT is on a fast track. Data centers are also going through massive change because most applications are being virtualized. We see a good opportunity in catering to these areas,” said Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director, Trend Micro, India & Saarc. The company is banking on its advanced network security solution—Deep Discovery— which is seeing good traction. “Deep Discovery is gaining popularity among large Indian customers, especially the government, which is concerned about APTs and has allocated budgets for it. We have won a few projects for Deep Discovery in the range of $400,000 each,” he disclosed. In addition to Deep Dhanya Thakkar Discovery, Trend Micro’s server security solution called Deep Security is also becoming popular among Indian enterprise customers. “The solution is popular in verticals such as BFSI, manufacturing, government and ITITeS. We have won some very large projects in the government and BFSI sectors,” Thakkar informed. In addition, following the acquisition of IndusGuard from Indusface, the company has plans to soon launch it in India as its new security-as-aservice called Web App Security. The company is bullish about its growth prospects, and intends to invest in newer offices in Mumbai and Delhi which will house the Deep Discovery and Deep Security labs for partner training. “We have 40 SI partners who we want to train for our solutions. We have made substantial investments in terms of training and demo units. We are also taking care of deal registrations to ensure partner profitability,” added Thakkar. n — Abhijeet Mukherjee
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D
riven by the increasing need for new solutions in the wake of new trends such as social media, cloud, mobility and virtualization, EMC has launched a new series of its VNX family. Targeted at the mid-market segment, the new series uses new EMC MCx (multi-core optimization) software which accelerates virtual applications and file performance by up to four times compared to previous generations. According to Joergen Jakobsen, Vice President and General Manager, Channels, EMC, Asia Pacific and Japan, “Software applications and workloads are driving IT investments in the midmarket. We therefore developed a workload-centric storage approach for our VNX family—our most successful partner-led solution for the volume business.” He said that in the new version EMC has redefined price-performance. “We got 4x6 times the performance in the new products. We can build a midrange platform which can support up to 6,600 virtual machines and 735,000 Oracle and SQL IOPs. As the demand for converged networks rises the need for faster response times will also increase, and this solution is 2x6 faster than any other version.” EMC has also optimized the operating system to face multicore (Intel Sandy Bridge 32 cores) between 2 SPs to leverage the functions of flash-optimized arrays. A new product called Xtrem Software allows 31 percent more caching on the server resulting in more IOPs and 65 percent less latency. Another improvement, said Jakobsen, is the virtual data movement which enables seamless data movement across three generations—within and between
“There are opportunities around tech refresh. Microsoft and Oracle databases come with built-in workloads; we are training partners in that” Joergen Jakobsen VP & GM, Channels EMC, APJ
the arrays. “The new series can support up to 1,500 drives, store one million IOPs, and is ideal for financial and government organizations which require high availability. We have a lot of deduplication at the database level and this saves up to 50 percent.” Speaking about opportunities for partners he said, “There are products which are three to four years old, so there is an opportunity around tech refresh. New prospects are a focus as well. In addition, Microsoft and Oracle databases come with built-in workloads, and we are training partners in that.” EMC is on-boarding partners for its Taking it to the Streets training program under which it trains its partners in the same classroom as its in-house sales teams and engineers. In India the company has trained 82 partners in VSPEX. “Although only 68 partners have been able to sell VSPEX, they sold it in substantial numbers,” he said. The low-end products are priced sub $20,000 while others can go as high as $200,000. EMC sees adoption coming from server virtualization environments, with good traction also coming from VDI (both VMware and Citrix), and Microsoft Exchange. n
edit opinion Rupee depreciation has a silver lining dhaval valia
U
ndoubtedly, what we have seen happen to the rupee over the past one month is unnerving and has further dampened the sentiments of the Indian economy. At around `64 against the USD, the currency has shed close to 16 percent of its value in 2013. Compared to other industries, the depreciation has had a deeper impact on the domestic IT industry as it is largely import-led. The timing of it has been rather unfortunate as Q2 of the fiscal is usually when commercial buying kick starts. Many partners who were expecting the Q2 to bring in good business are disappointed as either their customers have put off their IT investments or in the light of increased costs are reworking their IT investments priorities. Many rate contracts which came up for renewal have been retained at older rates thus. Many CIOs are now compartmentalizing projects into categories such as must-have, nice-to-have and not-so-important. The impact for the consumer market is expected to be even more telling as we enter the festive season. After a comparatively weak first two quarters of the fiscal many vendors were hoping that the festive season would provide some boost. However, with the rupee declining—most vendors have been forced to increase prices of their wares by 5-12 percent—the outlook for the festive season has turned grim. For vendors and distributors, the depreciation is leading to losses and the acute volatility has meant that they can’t even take forward cover as there is no certainty about how the dollar will swing. But despite the precarious scenario, several partners are doing their best to sustain their business. Many are strengthening their focus on export-led sectors like textile, IT & ITES, agro products, and engineering goods. Those focused on the education sector expect domestic enrolments to grow as dollar appreciation has made foreign education woefully expensive. Interestingly some partners are focusing on open source as they believe that the appreciated dollar will accelerate its adoption. In my view the rupee depreciation has a definite silver lining. The sudden depreciation of the currency has created panic among the government and has compelled it to take bolder economic decisions. It has already made some big ticket policy announcements and managed to pass some important bills. Probably our government required such a jolt to get back on the economic reforms’ path which it had deviated from since 2008. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 8
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Volume 2, Issue 22
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Joji George Kailash Pandurang Shirodkar Anees Ahmed Dhaval Valia Ramdas S Sonal Desai Amit Singh (Delhi) Abhijeet Mukherjee (Mumbai) Deepjyoti Bhowmik Yogesh Naik Shailesh Vaidya Jinal Chheda, Sameer Surve Samta Datta Viraj Mehta Nilesh Mungekar Nitin Lahare Aditi Kanade Yogesh Mudras Satyendra Mehra Jagruti Kudalkar
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starting line Quantum eyes big data opportunities n RAMDAS S
S
pecialized storage vendor Quantum India wants channels to accept its new avatar of being a big data solutions vendor and a data protection expert. The vendor is working with partners on several niche ideas including enabling them to build storage and backup services. “Globally we have shed the image of being a tape vendor though the tape business accounts for nearly 40 percent of our revenue,” said Guna Sekaran R, Country Manager, Quantum, India & Sri Lanka. “In India at least the top 10 systems integrators have accepted our new position in data security and big data solutions. Now we want more mind-share among tier-2 channels as they explore big data opportunities.” At the center of Quantum’s big data dreams is their StorNext range of appliances that supports the StorNext SAN file system with management features for tiered storage architecture based on policies, distributed data movers, partial file retrieval and objectbased storage. Sekaran said that since 2005 StorNext file systems have powered petabyte-plus installations in the country. Quantum plans to work through its value-added distributors iValue and Technobind to scout for partners who are looking at building various storage services. “We have new pricing models which allow a partner to build a backup or archival as-a-service business through a pay-as-you-go model. You can more or less put up a POC without investing much with our free entry-level DXi V1000, a virtual appliance that supports up to 15 TB of de-duplication,” Sekaran said. He also informed that a couple of partners are in the final stages of launching backup services along
“We have new pricing models which allow a partner to build backup or archival as-a-service business as a pay-as-you-go model” Guna Sekaran R
Country Manager Quantum, India & Sri Lanka
with Quantum. Dismissing allegations that the tape market is dead Sekaran said, “At the entry-level we have seen some cloud-based archival solutions and disk-based storage offering some advantages. However, with de-duplication thrown in, if a customer’s data capacities are in excess of 20 or 30 TB you will see tapes being more cost-effective.” According to him, the new LTO-6 tapes offer up to 6.25 TB of storage per tape at about $100. Yet another space which Quantum is betting on is the emerging market for deduplication within small businesses. “Till a few years back no one in the SMB segment was considering de-duplication for storage or archival,” he remarked. “They were investing in cheaper NAS boxes and were stacking them. Our NDX series allows an SMB customer to de-dupe data in the ratio of 1:40 and helps him to save on costs.” Also on the radar are virtualization workloads and data security. “Quantum vmPRO Software backs up VMs in a native VMware format. This enables users to restore or boot VMs in seconds without the use of a backup application,” Sekaran said. n
MUST
Read
Intel ships new Xeon processors Intel has started shipping the next version of its E5 2600 series Xeon processors based on the new 22 nanometer silicon technology. The vendor is readying a number of partner-led solutions based on the Atom C2000 platform which it is pitching against ARM processors which are being used by vendors such as Caldera and HP for their microservers and hyper-scale servers. “Our new Xeon E5 2600 v2 provides up to 50 percent better energy efficiency and close to 35 percent better performance compared to the previous generation,” informed Narendra Bhandari, Director, Intel Software & Services, APAC. The new Xeon E5 2600 v2 has been priced on par with the previous generation E5 2600, but most models ship with additional cache or with less power consumption. “Our real-life tests have shown an average performance gain of 19 percent for the new platform for virtualization loads which is significant because the costs are not going up,” said AS Rajagopal, MD, Nxtgen Cloud Services, Bengaluru. Narendra Bhandari Several Intel partners have been roped in to showcase their products for the Atom server platform C2000 which scales the Atom processor up to eight cores and is targeted at high-density servers. The new processors have TDP ratings of 6W-20W. The company’s partners, Bengaluru-based Inforce Computing and Advantech, are shipping platforms which support between two and eight Gigabit Ethernet ports for solutions such as firewall, proxy servers, routers and low-end unified storage platforms based on the new Atom processors. Intel is also working on other innovations around the data center in partnership with manufacturers such as Corning. For instance, a new fiber optic connector produced as a joint effort can move data as photons instead of electrons between components on a rack or between racks across a data center at transfer speeds of 1.6 Tbps. n — Ramdas S
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edit opinion The role of a CIO in a digital world Great recognition
Srikanth RP
L
ast year, research firm Gartner, predicted that by 2017, the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO. Gartner’s assumption was made by the fact that as more and more consumers adopt new digital channels, the role of marketing in influencing IT spend will only accelerate. In this new world, which is heavily influenced by what Gartner, calls the nexus of forces (the convergence of social, cloud, mobile and information), marketers have a huge opportunity to unlock hidden insights by engaging with customers using customized and contextually relevant conversations and offers. Today, enterprises do not look at social media as just a medium for educating customers about their products or solutions. Most smart organizations are now using social media to not only address customer concerns quickly, but to also co-create products with their customers. One of India’s most socially savvy organizations, Café Coffee Day, uses social media to ask its customers what they would like to be served or the exact flavor of chocolate that they prefer. It uses these insights drawn from its huge base of customers on social media to cocreate products. Understanding the huge reach of social media platforms, ICICI Bank, one of India’s largest private sector banks, allows customers to access their bank accounts through Facebook. The bank has also set up fully electronic branches that enable customers to undertake realtime transactions. Similarly, IndiaFirst Life Insurance is equipping its agents with tablets, enabling them to issue policies to customers within minutes. For discerning analysts who question the ROI of social media, the example of Shoppers Stop generating incremental sales directly attributable to social media is a real eye opener. As these examples show, the IT function can play a much bigger role than what the traditional IT function has typically played. This is an exciting time for CIOs as there are far more opportunities than challenges. With their immense understanding of technologies, CIOs can act as a bridge between IT and business, and show how technology can be used to amplify business opportunities for their respective firms. n
Srikanth RP is the Editor of InformationWeek. Email him at srikanth.rp@ubm.com
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The CRN Leadership Summit 2013 is an experience we wait anxiously each year. I am indeed very thankful to CRN for bestowing upon us the immense honor that is associated with CRN Xcellence Awards. Believe me, it strengthens our belief that we are on the right path and doing things righteously. On behalf of my entire team, I express my gratitude to CRN and the awards Jury. Ajay Maitin Graphic Trades Patna
Oasis in a desert I express my sincere
gratitude to the entire CRN team and the Jury for CRN Xcellence Awards 2013 for receiving the award for best network integrator in the country. This recognition is extremely encouraging and will help us move forward in our pursuit for excellence. The award has indeed added more responsibility on our team to achieve our goals with more commitment. As I mentioned while receiving the award, “If the current business scenario is like a desert, then this award is an oasis.” Anil Kumar TV Dhanush Infosol Bengaluru
Send your feedback at editor@ubmindia.com or post your views on www.crn.in
Advertiser Index Company name
Page No Web site
Sales Contact
Emerson
2 emersonnetworkpower.com
marketing.india@emerson.com
Seagate
3 www.seagate.com
www.seagate.com/goflexsatellite
Canon
5
1800 180 3366
Rashi
7 www.rptechindia.com
feedback@rptechindia.com
HCL
13 www.hcl.com
oarespnd@hcl.com
17 www.rchostingsummit.com
www.rchostingsummit.com/register
www.canon.co.in
Resellerclub Directi
Thomson Reuters 34
www.thomsonreuters.com
sales@thomsonreuters.com
Plextor
35 www.plextor.com
sales@primeabgb.com
Adata
36 www.adata-group.com
adata_in@adata-group.com
Quick Heal
37
info@quickheal.co.in
Biz
38 www.indiaantivirus.com
sales@indiaantivirus.com
Sony
39 www.sony.co.in/vaio
sonyindia.care@ap.sony.com
EMC
40 www.emc.com
india_mktg@emc.com
www.quickheal.com/in/enterprise
starting line Adobe defines its cloud strategy n AMIT SINGH
“For just `499 per application per month, SMBs can have the applications they want. They will also get 20 GB of cloud storage”
A
dobe has redefined its cloud strategy and is increasing its focus on SMBs for its cloud offering, Creative Cloud. The company has developed a three-pronged strategy for its cloud story: affordability, availability and awareness. In order to make its cloud offering affordable, Adobe has introduced a single app plan for the Creative Cloud. It lets customers buy any application from Adobe’s product portfolio instead of the whole bouquet of 14 applications which they were forced to buy earlier. “Based on partner feedback that purchasing the entire portfolio was not feasible for small customers, we introduced the single app plan,” explained Gaurav Kanwal, Head, Distribution Channels, South Asia, Adobe Systems. “Now, for just `499 per application per month, SMBs can have the application(s) they require. Moreover, they will get 20 GB
Gaurav Kanwal
Head, Distribution Channels South Asia, Adobe Systems
of cloud-based storage to view, edit, store and share files across teams.” He added that it will be a winwin situation for customers and partners because the lower pricing will make the applications affordable to customers and thus reduce piracy. The whole suite of 14 applications is available at `41,780 per annum for existing users and `58,500 per an-
num for new users. On the availability front, Adobe is offering Creative Cloud exclusively through its Certified, Gold and Platinum partners, and has plans to expand its base in tier-2 and -3 cities. “Our focus is to increase depth by graduating our Registered partners to the Certified level so that they can sell Creative Cloud. By this they can make an extra 5-7 percent margin. Achieving the Certified level also makes them eligible to register deals and get rebates on deal registration,” Kanwal said. The company currently has 200 Certified, Gold and Platinum partners, and 500+ Registered partners. To create awareness, Adobe has started its Create Now roadshow, and has already trained partners in seven cities. The company has also doubled its number of channel managers in the last one year. It now has two channel managers in the north, three in the west, and two in the south. n
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channel chief “The hype around SDN is warranted” Jonathan Belcher, Vice President, Partner Sales, Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks, spoke to Sonal Desai and Ramdas S about the company’s channel agenda and trends in the enterprise networking and security space There is a lot of buzz about Juniper’s 2-3-7 GTM. How does it fit in with your channel plans? 2-3-7 stands for our 2 customer segments—enterprise and service, which target 3 businesses namely routing, switching and security, across 7 domains viz data centers, core networks, WANs, network edge, campus networks, mobile devices, and access & aggregation. This is a holistic change because we are approaching the market with both the R&D and sales efforts. It cuts across our systems and software divisions. Overall we believe that this enables us to conduct business-focused conversations with our customers, and help them to address their most pressing business challenges.
How is Juniper’s overall channel engagement in the region? What more can partners expect from the company? Our $800 million revenue from the APAC region is 100 percent channel driven. The value proposition for enterprise channels has been our technology leadership. In 2012, we launched our Partner Advantage Program which brought in financial incentives, sales resources and deeper engagement with our enterprise partners. We also announced a services initiative through channels, the Partner Advantage Services, whereby we will rope in more partners from this region. Unlike the competition, Juniper is not over-distributed, and there’s headroom for growth for both our existing partners as well as new ones.
What are the services opportunities Juniper offers to partners? Partners who are keen to build a services portfolio will find us ideal since we do not compete with them, but are dependent on them to deliver services. Depending on their skillsets and the investments they are willing to make, the services offerings can range from break-fix to high-end network optimization and audit. Today, customers are not looking for partners who sell products but who can offer products as services. An example would be security. You cannot secure a network by simply setting up a firewall and conducting a
“Our $800 million revenue from the APAC region is 100 percent channel driven. The value proposition for enterprise channels has been our technology leadership” 12
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yearly audit. Customers need constant monitoring, updates, upgrades and fixes. As more devices get connected to the enterprise network, its performance gets affected. Customers need partners who can deliver security and network performance as managed services.
There is a lot of hype around SDN, but not many partners have reported success stories. I wish to assure you that the hype around SDN is warranted, but we are yet to see the real benefits or a large number of project roll-outs. I agree that in India we do not have success stories of local partners especially in the tier-2 sector. However, it’s just a question of time. Indian enterprises are building larger and complex networks, and cannot depend on proprietary protocols and APIs. With 4G/LTE roll-out across the country, we will see acceleration. SDN’s biggest promise is that you shift the power of manageability from the hardware to the software API. Juniper and most of the industry have issued firmware upgrades to their previous-generation network hardware to support OpenFlow. SDN means that customers can now realign networks and create policies through a software programming interface, but many of them will not do that themselves and will require a partner.
Not many partners in India have the capability to deliver such services. Yes. That’s why we are trying to work with select partners depending on their customer base and patience levels, and the investments which they are willing to make. Our products ship with SDKs which they can use to build products and services. In the years ahead I see several partners building such capabilities internally because that’s where the money is.
A common notion is that Juniper cannot be positioned for everyone. For example, you do not fit into the SMB market. We do not play in the lower-end of the networking and security market though there are several SMB segments— notably healthcare, education and manufacturing—which are buying Juniper. We are clear that we want to be a serious player in the mid-market, so we are shying away from any deal where we do not offer at least 20-30 percent more benefit in terms of overall value compared to the competition.
Security has been a major focus in the recent past.
channel chief “You will soon see shorter lead times as our local distributors will carry stocks of our products. This issue will be a matter of the past in the immediate future” What is your GTM on the security front? In early 2012, we acquired security firm Mykonos and have successfully integrated its team, technology and product line. The Junos WebApp Secure is the first intrusion detection system which detects, tracks, profiles and prevents hackers in real time. Traditional Web application firewalls are flawed because their reliance on a library of signatures to detect attacks makes them susceptible to zero day Web attacks. In addition, there’s convergence between security and networking. Self-healing networks—where network management teams can create on-the-fly templates to automate network management—is another idea that’s gaining momentum. Yet another threat is DDOS attacks; our SRX series of high performance routers is enabled to deal with all security threats as well as act as a router.
What are the specific opportunities in the data center that Juniper is targeting? The data center market is seeing major revolution with virtualization and the new concept of software- defined data center which is aligned with our vision of SDN. We have partnerships with every major compute, storage and software vendor in the DC space, and this means that partners have ready-to-deploy solution stacks. Today, the biggest concerns of a data center’s management are security and high performance which our next-generation firewalls, routers and switches are wellequipped to deal with. Our solutions provide an open, extensible, network-automated software which helps eliminate complexities and streamline operations.
What are the biggest trends in network security? The future trend will definitely revolve around SoCloMo (social, cloud and mobility) and BYOD. SoCloMo is shifting the network traffic considerably from within the LAN to the WAN, and presents the enterprise with new challenges including additional security on the authorization and authentication front. The challenge with BYOD is how to ensure the security of what goes in and out of the corporate network. The question partners need to ask is whether the vendor has solutions that can play well with the existing enterprise software to deliver security without compromising on the performance.
Partners complain of delays in supplies of Juniper products. How are you addressing this issue? We are cognizant of this matter and are already addressing the issue. You will soon see shorter lead times as our local distributors will carry stocks of our products. We assure channels this issue will be a matter of the past in the immediate future. n
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cover story
Decline and volatility of the Indian rupee has hit the domestic IT industry hard as it is hugely dependent on imports. But rather than complaining, some partners are taking advantage of the depreciation n ramdas s
T
he Indian rupee, which has depreciated considerably against the US dollar over the past five months and shed 21 percent of its value since the beginning of the fiscal year has caused a lot of heartburn to the IT channel ecosystem. The impact of the shrinking rupee has been manifold because the Indian IT industry, with no domestic manufacturing facilities, is heavily dependent
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on imports. The falling rupee has not only increased the cost of IT products but also set up inflationary trends which are having a ripple effect on the purchasing power of the consumer as well as the enterprise. While confidence-building measures, some of them desperate, and a new governor at the RBI have stalled the rupee’s fall temporarily, and even strengthened the rupee by a few points, most partners are wary.
cover story “We have been watching the rupee carefully. For the IT industry to rebound we need a stable currency so that customers can execute their plans”
“When we were doing IT budgeting the exchange rate was around `54 to a dollar. Today it has neared `66, which means a difference of more than 20 percent”
Alok Ohrie
Vijay Sethi
MD & President, Dell India
VP & CIO, Hero MotoCorp
The mayhem in the financial markets aside, the free fall of the rupee has dampened the spirits of many in the industry. “Since May we have been watching the rupee carefully, and clearly for the IT industry to rebound we need a stable currency so that both customers and the industry can execute their plans,” says Alok Ohrie, MD & President, Dell India.
Unsettling plans The biggest impact of the softening rupee has been on the plans of enterprise customers. Unfortunately for many enterprise customers, the timing has been bad since most of their planning is often done at the end of the financial year for the next year. “When we were doing IT budgeting in FebruaryMarch the exchange rate was around `54 to a dollar. Today the dollar has neared `66, which means a difference of more than 20 percent. This has led to a significant increase in hardware costs and software license costs over the last few months. This in turn has put significant pressure on our IT budget,” says Vijay Sethi, VP & CIO, Hero MotoCorp. Several channel partners also reported that their customers have put off decisions, or are asking them to stick to rate contracts agreed earlier, or are haggling on the price. “Very few customers are willing to cut some corners to fit their budgets, or increase their budgets to help us execute. Some are pushing us to forgo margins and complete the transactions, so there’s definite pressure on margins. Most distributors are unwilling to do much, and are understandably unable to do anything especially on back-to-back transactions,” says Prarthana Gupta, CEO, Cache Technologies, New Delhi. CIOs such as Sethi say that most decision-makers will try to spend as much of the budget as possible by compartmentalizing projects into categories such as must-have, nice-to-have and not-so-important. He said that such a classification would mean that some projects may take a backseat but that critical ones will go ahead as per schedule. Most IT industry leaders see a bigger impact on consumers especially with the festive season starting in September. “After a comparatively weak first two quarters of the financial year there were high hopes that the festive season in the next two months would bring cheer back to the retail markets. However, with the rupee declining, and prices climbing, the outlook would be grim,” says S Rajendran, CMO,
Acer India. More than the price hikes, there are other macroeconomic factors which are having a domino effect that could hurt the consumer market. Rajendran says that the net effect of prices going up by around 20 percent is absorbed by the vendors to a small extent because of some expected drop in the input cost of components. He also feels that customers will not shy away from spending an extra 10 percent if they had already budgeted. “However, the inflation rates are substantial, and they have hit consumer disposable incomes considerably. After spending on fuel, food and other essentials, the average white-collared worker has a limited budget for a new PC or an upgrade, and may postpone such buying decisions.” Despite RBI’s promise to not take any hard decisions, many financial pundits are expecting higher interest rates on auto and home loans which would further increase the EMI pay-outs of customers. Inevitably, several retailers have complained of slackening sales. “It’s tough explaining to customers that rates have shot up at a time when many are approaching us for better deals,” says Ashiq M, CEO, Radium, Thiruvananthapuram.
Long-term recovery While the current sentiments are low, many partners are optimistic that in the long term the impact may not be as severe as it would appear to be. Says S Sriram, CEO, iValue InfoSolutions, Bengaluru, “The present situation is a result of the weak economic policies of the past. I am sure the government will wake up soon. There are already some signals that they are finally getting their act together. This could set things on the right track.” Many are betting on more measures from the government to bail out the rupee because the country is heading for an election year. “There could be some more measures which could strengthen, or at least arrest, the free fall,” hopes AL Srinath, CEO, Shell Networks, Hyderabad. Suresh Pansari, CMD, Rashi Peripherals, is optimistic that till elections at least the government will do level best to keep the figure under `70. There are others who feel that a stable currency, even if it is at a lower exchange rate, is the need of the hour. “Let the dollar be at `70, but stay at that figure for a few years. This will allow the entire country to re-plan, re-budget and re-execute,” says KV Jagannath, CEO, Choice Solutions, Hyderabad.
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cover story “We are evaluating our import strategies and it’s difficult to speculate. But we are exploring more vendor partnerships where billing will be in INR”
“Don’t worry about the USD and the rupee as long as you are not importing, or borrowing in USDs. The focus should be the customer, receivables and revenue”
George Thomas
Suresh Pansari
CEO, Aldous Glare Trade & Exports
The worst scenario for just about every partner is a fluctuating rupee—or the rupee falling further. “Today it’s impossible for any importer to predict and plan because of the instability. When you order a consignment you cannot be sure whether you will make profits or lose money,” explains Sudhir S, CEO, Inspan Infotech. Many are hoping that Raghuram Rajan, who took over as the new governor of the Reserve Bank, may turn out to be a miracle worker and strengthen the rupee. While Indian business leaders are hoping that the government, RBI and the other policy influencers will work in tandem to arrest the rupee’s fall, strategy changes may save the day despite a fluctuating rupee. Though a cross-section of the channel has been sounding desperate, others are reacting or refocusing to keep the momentum going for their businesses.
Sectors to bet on Despite the slide of the rupee some sectors have done well. Stocks of well-known IT service providers who are dependent on dollar revenues have jumped by an average of 30 percent. The perception is that many of them, at least in the short term, have booked extra profits and would have also created excess cash. “We are hoping that many IT-ITeS companies which have been postponing their technology refresh cycles will use this window to invest in infrastructure,” says Suresh HR, Director, Central Data Systems, Bengaluru. Other export sectors such as textiles, agro-products and engineering goods are also expected to book some cash profits in the short term; they may be able to pool money for infrastructure investments. The government is also likely to continue being a benevolent investor in technology, hence channels must consider making investments in the government sector. However, most experienced government contractors are advising partners to stay away from rate contracts. Says Inderpal Singh, CEO, Aman Technologies, Jammu, “Unfortunately, DGS&D rate contract proposals have gone up in the April-May period, and it will be very difficult for distributors and vendors to support these rates.” Yogesh Godbole, Director, Ace Brain Systems, Pune, agrees, and says that the solution provider has reduced its dependence on the supply of systems, hardware and software to the government. “We are focusing on projects, especially in biometrics, where a large portion of our bill of materials is derived from in-house-
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CMD, Rashi Peripherals
developed software and manpower costs.” The spike in the dollar is expected to increase the cost of foreign education, and there are expectations that some students would opt for Indian colleges instead of going abroad.The local education sector, which had slowed down, would therefore be another segment to bet on.
Hedging & finance While large distributors have reported that they have been hedging to reduce risks, most of the smaller importers feel that hedging may not always work. “Right now everyone is clueless about where the rupee is headed,” says J Ramesh, National Business Head, Ralco Synergy, Chennai. “It has shown promise of strengthening, but at the same time some experts are saying it could touch even `70. At Ralco we have decided to take it as business as usual, and look only at market demand as the barometer to plan our imports.” Ramesh adds that when the rupee value dipped many companies, including Ralco, booked profits on existing stock. “We had imported products at various price-points from `54 to `68. Today the USD is at `63, and we may lose some money on those products purchased when the USD was `68; this will offset some of the gains we made in earlier transactions. However, such gains and losses must be treated as part of the business.” Jayamuni Rao, CEO of the Bengaluru-based Sogo Computers, says that there were surprise benefits on the existing stock the sub-distributor was carrying. He however adds that with the rupee firming up he will be more careful about speculating. Many others recommend going slow on imports while increasing rupee purchases. “We have been evaluating our import strategies and are going slow; it’s difficult to speculate. Meanwhile, we are exploring more vendor partnerships where billing will be in INR,” says George Thomas, CEO, Aldous Glare Trade & Exports. Pansari, informs that his organization has been hedging at a value between `60 and `65. “Hedging has its risks, hence we are not hedging on a fixed price for all our imports but on multiple price-points between `60 and `65 depending on the product imported, the brand, and the expected demand.” Pansari expects overall finance costs to rise between 1 and 2 percent on all rupee borrowings as a direct impact of the strengthening of the USD. “This must not
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cover story “Except Microsoft, every other vendor has increased its prices. Microsoft has kept its word on keeping the USD-to-rupee ratio constant”
“Most vendors have absorbed some of the price hikes. While the rupee has depreciated up to 20 percent, prices on the street have gone up by only 10 percent”
Amarnath Shetty
S Rajendran
MD, LDS Infotech
CMO, Acer India
deter channel partners; it would be ideal if channels could negotiate with banks and financiers considering the tough economic situation globally.” For partners addressing end-customers his suggestion is to stay focused on the business. “Don’t worry about the dollar and the rupee as long as you are not importing anything or have not borrowed in dollar. The focus should be the customer, receivables and revenues.”
Expectations from vendors Many partners feel that vendors can do better to bail them out, or at least arrest the impact of the falling national currency. “Except Microsoft, every other vendor has increased its prices. Microsoft has kept its word on keeping the USD-to-rupee ratio constant. We are now in talks with vendors such as Autodesk and Adobe,” says Amarnath Shetty, MD, LDS Infotech, Mumbai. Rajendran of Acer defends the rise in prices. “Most of the vendors, including Acer, have absorbed some of the price hikes as a result of the rupee softening. While the rupee has depreciated up to 20 percent, prices on the street have gone up by only 10 percent.” Some of the partners want vendors to cover all pricepoints by introducing more models especially in the low end of the market. “We have been listening to our partner feedback, and are working on introducing some aggressively priced models that would help channels keep addressing customers looking for lower pricepoints,” says M Krishna Kumar, Executive Director, CSMB, Dell India. A few vendors also believe that the USD spikes would increase acceptance of the pay-as-you-go model. “We believe that customers would start opting for nonperpetual licensing models. This would give them the advantage of an opex model,” says Ganesan Arumugam, Senior Director, Partners & SMB, VMware India. However, hardware vendors would find it difficult to opt for such models. “Our advice for partners is to send quotations with shorter validities, take written clearances on back-to-back prices, and don’t allow customers to lock prices for long periods,” says Rahul Agarwal, Executive Director, Relationship Business, Lenovo India. Anoop Krishnan, VP, Quadsel Systems, Chennai, says this is the time for partners to work closely with vendors. “In August-end we received excellent support from HP, hence we could service some orders despite the hike in prices. Vendors such as HP give a lot of
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importance to single-vendor partners, and in such difficult situations loyalty pays.”
Inputs for the government Almost everyone in the industry feels that the softening of the rupee is the result of the government’s lack of strong initiatives on the economic front together with some global macro-economic factors. “The government has moved rather slowly on some of the economic reforms so we cannot blame global economic trends,” says Pansari. “The government must act toward creating investor confidence especially among global investors.” Many blame the lack of a manufacturing base in the country as a reason for the over-dependence on the USD for imports. Says Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director, MAIT, “We are hoping that the government will accept our proposal for making India a global manufacturing hub and bring an all-inclusive policy for IT manufacturing so that at least in the future the IT ecosystem can withstand such an impact.” However, some analysts feel that the government must work on larger economic factors to keep the rupee stable rather than micro-manage industry-specific issues. Poor economic growth in the manufacturing, agricultural and mining sectors has dented the investors’ sentiments and they have become wary of investing in India. Reflecting the slowdown, industrial production in June contracted by 2.2 percent while RBI cut its growth forecast for the fiscal year from 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent. Despite all the decisions to undertake reforms in India, the government has failed to sustain FDI inflow into the country. Instead, India has witnessed the withdrawal of major projects by global giants such as ArcelorMittal and Posco. In fact in 2012 Indian companies spent more abroad compared to investments made by foreign investors in India.
Export revenue The softened rupee is also forcing several partners to rethink their service strategies. One of the key ideas which many partners are exploring is building dollar revenue. “There definitely exists a market for RIMS and automated services for Indian partners. The depreciation of the rupee will make it far more
cover story “Our advice to partners is send quotations with shorter validities, take written clearances on backto-back prices, don’t allow prices to be locked for long periods”
“We believe that by using FOSS products customers can save 20-50 percent on the TCO which could offset any negative impact of USD on their IT budgets”
Rahul Aggarwal, Executive Director, Relationship Business, Lenovo India
CEO, Futurenet
L Ashok
attractive for customers to outsource the support business to India,” observes Nanda Kumar, VP, Kaseya India. Adds Vikram Kole, COO, MAIA Intelligence, “As an Indian business intelligence software product company, our 1KEY BI sales have been happening in the Middle East and African markets where we conduct transactions primarily in USD or the local currency.” He added that since MAIA is an Indian software company, and its global price list is in USD, it has certainly seen a higher yield in its transactions. “We therefore urge the partner community to target overseas geographies.” ValuePoint Systems is another partner which has explored and spun-off companies focused on KPO and IT services. RS Shanbagh, MD, ValuePoint, is optimistic that some of the entities set up by him will actually benefit from a weakened rupee. With software licensing costs spiraling, many
companies, especially in IT-ITeS, are expected to embrace open source and free software. Infosys and iGate have announced initiatives in this direction. “We are already saving millions for customers with our pervasive use of FOSS products. We believe customers can make savings of between 20 and 50 percent on the TCO which could offset any negative impact of USD on their IT budgets,” says L Ashok, CEO, Futurenet, Chennai.
Conclusion The message from most market leaders is that whether the rupee strengthens or weakens IT channels must treat it as just another market occurrence and stay focused on their core business. “If I were a channel partner I would pay more attention to the balance sheet, receivables and customer relationships than to the exchange rate,” says Praveen Sahai, VP, Channels, EMC, India & Saarc. n
Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing www.crn.in
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tech focus
Trending Cyberthreat Attacks In 2013 Ransomware is hijacking systems in greater numbers, and AutoRun malware infections, spread by thumb drives, are also rising, according to McAfee’s latest threat report n Robert Westervelt
M
alware has risen sharply over the last three quarters, according to the McAfee Threat Report: Second Quarter 2013. McAfee said it currently has more than 147 million malware samples. Spam is also on the rise, helping spread malware and phishing attacks. Mobile threats are also increasing, including new backdoor Trojans and banking malware targeting mobile devices this quarter. Malware that uses stolen digital certificates to pose as legitimate software increased by 50 percent. In addition, Web-based attacks, designed to target vulnerable browser components comprise almost three-fourths of the Internet’s malicious activity. Here’s a look at the latest attack trends and hacking techniques.
Kaspersky Lab recently analyzed two new JavaScript worms that are both designed to spread using AutoRun functionality. Once a corporate network is infected, the worms are difficult to wipe out because they quickly spread by copying themselves into the root folders of logical volumes of removable storage media and network disks.
AutoRun malware AutoRun malware, a longstanding threat targeting Microsoft PCs using malware on thumb drives, doubled at the start of the year. Microsoft addressed the issue years ago, but it continues to target PCs that haven’t been patched with the latest security updates.
Rootkits in decline Rootkits which are designed to evade detection and remain on victim’s systems for a lengthy period of time, continue to decline. According to the McAfee report the rootkits have been trending downwards since the middle of 2011. The rootkit itself is only designed to remain stealthy, but it typically contains other malware, such as keyloggers, designed to record keystrokes, and password stealers. Rootkits are also used to bring an infected machine into a larger botnet. ZeroAccess is the most prevalent rootkit, according to recent studies. According to Sophos, ZeroAccess is often connected to popular
Once a corporate network is infected, JavaScript worms are difficult to wipe out as they copy themselves into the root folders of logical volumes of removable storage media
The Shamoon malware contains destructive functionality, giving cybercriminals the ability to erase the entire hard drive of a victim’s system and the servers of businesses
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tech focus exploit toolkits including Blackhole. It is used to fuel click-fraud campaigns and spread spam. Mobile spyware rising Security vendors have been increasingly labeling freely available Android applications as spyware due to their behavior of uploading SMS messages, call logs and location information to a remote server without informing the device owner. The threat is increasing. One of the latest attacks detected by the company uses a mobile app that masquerades as a legitimate font installer app for Android devices. Another threat pretends to be software for syncing a user’s phone. A recent report by Lookout Mobile Security tied mobile spyware activity to Russian cybercriminal gangs. An affiliate network has earned some attackers up to $12,000 a month. Master boot record malware Master boot record malware, which can add malicious functions when a user starts up the PC, declined slightly in the second quarter, but it remains at a level that is the second-highest figure McAfee has recorded. One high-profile malware called Shamoon targets Windows NT systems and was used in the attacks on Saudi oil production firm Aramco. The attacks are dangerous because the malware contains destructive functionality, giving cybercriminals the ability to erase the entire hard drive of a victim’s system and the servers of businesses. The attacks prompted security experts to call for system redundancy and offline backups of critical systems and files. Ransomware rising Ransomware, which locks a victim’s infected machine and demands payment for the unlock code, has been steadily increasing, McAfee said. The number of new, unique malware samples this quarter is greater than 320,000, more than twice as many as last quarter. Ransomware attacks are growing in popularity over fake antivirus software because attackers have figured out that they can use anonymous payment services to keep security researchers and law enforcement from tracking them down. Suspicious URLs rise The number of suspicious URLs that lead to sites hosting malware and phishing attacks continues to increase. McAfee said it logged more than 74.7 million suspicious URLs by the end of June, which represents a 16 percent increase over the first quarter of 2013. Google, Bing, Yahoo and others join McAfee and other security firms to constantly rate the reputation of websites. McAfee said it will label a URL suspicious if its automated systems find combinations of questionable code and functionality. The 74.7 million URLs it is tracking refer to 29 million domain names, up 5 percent from the previous period.
Cutwail is connected to the spread of banking Trojans and malware embedded in malicious document files. The bulk of the latest Cutwail infections are in India, Iran and Mexico Phishing attacks decline McAfee is charting a decline in the number of new phishing URLs over the last quarter. The firm said the number of new phishing URLs ebbs and flows throughout the year, trending upward typically during the holiday season. The top five industries being targeted by phishers include finance, online auction sites, government, shopping and services. Companies in the US are the most frequently targeted, with Amazon, American Express, Deloitte and eBay leading as the top companies being targeted. Spam on the rise Spam volume has now reached 2010 levels at 2 trillion messages, McAfee said. Spam volume also rises and falls throughout the year. Spam in the United States decreased by 16 percent, according to the McAfee report. The US hosts the most sites used for spam purposes. Delivery service notification teasers remain popular as well as drug offers. Much of the spam identified in the last quarter contained subject lines related to the Boston Marathon bombings. Many of the messages contained links to malware. Botnet infections rise, Cutwail king Botnet infections had been on the decline since May of 2012, but McAfee said it has begun charting an increase in the last quarter. Cutwail remains the largest botnet, infecting 6 million PCs during the second quarter, according to the McAfee report. Cutwail sends out spam, but it is also connected to the spread of banking Trojans and other malware that are embedded in malicious document files. Researchers said in May that a new Cutwail communications mechanism makes it more resilient to take downs. The bulk of the latest Cutwail infections are in India, Iran and Mexico. Attacks target e-currency Distributed denial-of-service attacks against the infrastructure that supports the Bitcoin have resulted in wild swings in the virtual currency’s value. Law enforcement cracked down on some of the cybercriminals behind the attacks. But, malware is available on the black market that can be used to infect PCs and servers to use the computing power to mine Bitcoins without the owner’s knowledge. Account holders are at an increased risk of attack from phishers and attackers attempting to drain accounts, the McAfee report said. Other forms of e-currency are available and also come with serious risks. n
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Get ready for the transformation With paradigm shifts underway in the IT industry, the sixth edition of the CRN Leadership Summit 2013 was the perfect platform to discuss and debate the future of IT and channels. With the right mix of content, new technology showcase, awards, networking and fun, the event was a roaring success n CRN Network
T
hemed Get Ready for Transformation, the sixth edition of CRN Leadership Summit (CLS) has added yet another feather to its cap by organizing a successful event. It has earned the reputation of being widely recognized as the largest and most influential congregation of leading system integrators, solution providers and vendors in the country. The summit, held at picturesque The Leela, Kovalam, from August 22-24, 2013, was attended by over 100 leading technology integrators and over 75 senior channel managers from 17 leading IT companies. The delegates were enthralled with sizzling performances from
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Lakshya 56, a DJ night and quiz sessions apart from keynote addresses, panel discussion and technology presentations. Rushabh Shah, CEO, Graham Information Systems, and President, TAIT, anchored the conference program for the fourth time and regaled the audience with his humor. The main attraction of the event was the 13th edition of CRN Xcellence Awards ceremony anchored by Lakshmi Rebecca wherein top 26 enterprise VARs and system integrators were recognized on the scintillating evening of August 23, 2013. The conference was streamed live with 680 unique visitors from across the country virutally participated
from the comfort of their offices.
Keynotes Flourish or perish Vijay Wadhi, Managing Director & CEO, Locuz Enterprise Solutions, explained the need to re-look at our businesses and identify areas where change is necessary. He said that in the current scenario there is a need to overhaul businesses, and the speed at which organizations can transform their businesses will determine whether they flourish or perish. He said the biggest change in IT is being brought about by the consumerization of IT. “Mobility is the biggest trend. Because we are surrounded by many devices,
unstructured data is growing five times faster than structured data. Moreover, customers are now demanding XaaS—anything-as-aservice—to cut down on capital expenditure.” Giving the example of his own company, Wadhi said that the time has come for Locuz to think beyond being a solution-focused company. “Solution provision is a given thing now. In an era of XaaS, the need is to be services-focused. We are growing our services business, which includes cloud and managed services, at 50 percent YoY. We expect it to grow from the existing 15 percent of the total business to about 33 percent by 2016.” He also stressed on the need to offer white-labeled services to survive in a highly competitive market. “If we want to increase margins we need to build our own portfolio of services.” Locuz has an NoC in Chennai with 25 people for its managed services. Concluding his presentation Wadhi said, “Only those who constantly try to adapt to change will succeed when the actual change happens.”
the public cloud services market in India is expected to touch $443 million in 2013, growing at 36 percent from $326 million in 2012. About $4.2 billion will be spent on cloud services in India from 2013 till 2017. “With more organizations willing to take the entrepreneurial plunge, and an overall rise in IT spending by Indian firms, there is a wide playfield for companies offering cloud computing solutions in the Indian market.” He informed that Infrastructureas-a-Service (IaaS) continues to be the fastest growing segment. It is expected to grow at 39.6 percent from $43.1 million in 2012 to $60.2 million in 2013. Gupta however cautioned that IaaS will be commoditized soon. “There is no value-add we can do, plus there will be tough competition in this space. I believe that Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) will grow heavily, and that’s where partners can make huge margins because it offers large scope for customization.” He said that it is easier for IT partners to become cloud resellers as the margins are currently around 1520 percent. “But these margins are not sustainable. One can earn higher margins by being a cloud service provider. That takes a complete business lifecycle.” Gupta stressed that to become a cloud service provider one should establish strong R&D, product management and service delivery practices.
Building a cloud practice Sanjeev Gupta, Managing Director, Albion Infotel, pointed to the increasing spends on the cloud and gave some tips on how to build a cloud practice. Quoting Gartner, Gupta said that
Ride the waves of change Akhil Ranjan Jha, Director, Comprehensive Consultancy, spoke about the changes in the IT landscape and the opportunities for partners because of these changes. He explained, “The radio took
“CLS is a positive amalgamation of ideas and people. Year on year, the innovative approach of CLS gives new dimensions to our business and enables us to face new challenges Sandeep Vahi
Director, Compton Computers
n Panel Discussion: L-R— Keyur Jathal, Executive Director, Ishan Infotech; Navin Kapur, CEO, Comparex; RS Shanbhag, MD, ValuePoint Systems; Deepak Jadhav, Director, VDA Infosolutions; Sandeep Vahi, Director, Compton Computers; Suresh HR, Director, Central Data Systems; N Jagannathan, CEO, Fourth Dimension Technologies; Ajay Sawant, MD, Orient Technologies and KV Jagannath, MD, Choice Solutions; in an interesting discussion on Are we ready for the transformation?
n Vijay Wadhi, MD & CEO, Locuz Enterprise Solutions, stressed on the need for business transformation as IT is changing rapidly
n Sanjeev Gupta, Director, Albion Infotel, shared tips on how to build a successful global cloud practice
n Akhil Ranjan Jha, Director, Comprehensive Consultancy, highlighted the changes in the IT landscape and opportunities for partners
n Alok Ohrie, President & MD, Dell India, described the impact of transformation on global markets and its impact on the IT industry
n Rushabh Shah, CEO, Graham Information Systems, and President, TAIT, anchored the event with his characteristic wit
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n Jonathan Belcher, VP, Partner Sales, Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks, shared his company’s market strategy and new partner programs
n Ravi Chauhan, MD, India, Juniper Networks, and Jonathan Belcher, highlighted the opportunities for partners in SDN and network security space
n Ganesan Arumugam, Senior Director, Partners & SMB, VMware, spoke about his company’s vision on software defined data center
n Praveen Sahai, VP, Channels, EMC, India & Saarc, threw light on the opportunities in storage services and how partners can benefit working with EMC
n Rohith Balakrishnan, GM, Sales, Enterprise Channel, Schneider Electric, highlighted the new solutions introduced to address needs of SMBs
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38 years to mature while television took 13 years. The Internet took only four years to reach 50 million subscribers while social networking site Facebook acquired 50 million users within just three months of inception. These figures prove that the rate of change has increased swiftly. According to IDC, tablet shipments will surpass desktops in 2013 while mobile subscriptions will surpass the world population by the year-end.” Jha said that tablets and smartphones are huge opportunities with very high growth due to the increasing adoption of mobility across verticals. “Mobility is a segment partners cannot afford to ignore. For solution providers there are immense opportunities in application development, the integration of mobile clients with IT infrastructure, enterprise asset management and mobile device management.” Besides, trends like the cloud, data explosion and the growing dependence on software-defined layers will drive businesses to solution providers. IT vendors have already started adapting to the changes. “For instance, vendors who had taken the lead in the hyperscale servers required for cloud environments are now leading the markets,” said Jha. “It’s for the solution providers to adapt to change and work in that direction.” He concluded with the observation, “It is the early starter who takes all the benefits. Ride the waves of change for profits and do not drown in shallow waters.”
“CLS has always been a most awaited and cherished event of the year for knowledge sharing, networking and pleasure. It is a great forum to understand the latest of IT from the leaders Inderpal Singh
CEO, Aman Technologies
Transformation enabled by technology Alok Ohrie, President & Managing Director, Dell India, described the impact of transformation on global
markets and how transformation is affecting the IT business. He cited the examples of how Iceland broke away from being a fishing-dependent economy to becoming one that relied on banking services, and how the Indian textile industry switched from small batch production to mass production. “Technology has been critical to transformation in business in every decade in the past 50 years, and it will be even more critical in the next decade,” predicted Ohrie. He mentioned three important ideas that IT channel leaders must inculcate. “Engage at the business-problem level and not at the IT-problem level. You should engage earlier in the decision-making process, thereby impacting decision-making and delivering a higher value-add,” Ohrie advised. According to him, “It’s important to be involved in the customer’s business decision-making process.” “Customers want to engage with 2-3 providers with end-to-end capabilities instead of multiple single-domain providers,” he said. “Build engagements with end-to-end providers to increase your chances of winning.” Ohrie pointed out how Dell transformed its business from being a PC-only vendor in 2008 to becoming a complete technology player with software, server, storage, services, security and
n Bimal Raj, CEO, Smartlink Network Systems, identified SDN as the next big opportunity for partners
n Manoj Grover, Head, Channel Marketing, HP India, said that converged infrastructure will be the dominant trend in future
“CLS is regarded as the best channel event. One suggestion is to have workshops on business and financial management. Vendor presentations need to be more engaging Akhil Ranjan Jha
Director, Comprehensive Consultancy
network stacks. “Customers want everything. While it’s important to have a lower cost of both capex and opex, it’s equally important to be inter-operable. While best-of-breed solutions continue to be in demand, they also need to be a best fit.”
Panel Discussion Are we ready for the transformation? It was an interesting panel discussion, and very apt considering the present economic scenario. Moderated by Dhaval Valia, Executive Editor, CRN, the panel debated the changes in customer behavior and focused on the steps to lead the transformation. The major opportunities which partners need to focus on were identified. The panelists also presented their company’s strategies to transform their business models to take on the new set of challenges. Most panelists agreed that customers are now demanding ROI on their IT investments, and investment decisions have gone beyond CIOs. “IT was a cost center, then it became a business enabler, and now it has become a business center. The CIO now has to present the TCO and ROI. Moreover, CFOs, CMOs, CEOs and business heads are now actively participating in IT decision-making,” said RS Shanbhag, Managing Director, ValuePoint Systems. Navin Kapur, CEO, Comparex,
said that CIOs were under pressure. “Till recently the CIO was taking care of IT investments, but now he has to focus on the business perspective. There is immense pressure from the line of businesses.” Suresh HR, Director, Central Data Systems, said, “Every business proposal now contains a ROI sheet in order to be considered for advanced discussion stages. The bill of material is not a matter of discussion now.” Deepak Jadhav, Director, VDA Infosolutions, noted that in the current situation the role of the SI has widened in terms of explaining the tangible and intangible benefits of IT solutions. “CEOs are seeking clarity on the business benefits from IT.” Added N Jagannathan, CEO, Fourth Dimension, “The way forward for the SI business is to go for a specialized approach with a focus on verticals and technologies. The idea is to get into the market at an early stage. That’s where all the money is.” Keyur Jathal, Executive Director, Ishan Infotech, suggested that partners identify their niche area in order to ward off competition in that area. “This is where the large margins are. A few of the promising technology areas are security, storage and virtualization. However, much of the business owner’s time must be spent in meeting decision-makers at customer organizations.” Most of the panelists agreed that the current wave of transformation is driven by the cloud. “Demand is moving toward cloud-based businesses. In fact, most customer organizations will transfer 50 percent of their business to opex in the next couple of years. This is a great opportunity for us,”
n Jonathan Belcher, VP, Partner Sales, Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks, engaged with select partners at the Power Breakfast held to share details of the company’s partner programs and India plans
n Shrirang Deshpande, Country Head, Data Center Business, Emerson Network Power, discussed opportunities in smart data center solutions
n Sarabjeet Khurana, Director, Website Security Solutions, Symantec, highlighted trends in website security and the growth drivers for SSL certificates
n Sunil Kripalani, VP, Global Sales & Marketing, eScan, highlighted the company’s successes in the enterprise segment in India and globally
n Rajeev Saxena, Director, Sales, NetApp, dwelt on the growth of data, opportunities in storage, and benefits of partnering with his company
n Sunil Sharma, VP, Sales, India & Saarc, Cyberoam, highlighted his company’s network security portfolio and shared partner program details
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n Shoaib Ahmed, President, Tally Solutions, urged the audience to think out-of-the-box and be different in order to build a strong brand equity
n Manoj Barua, National Manager, Channels & Alliances, F5 Networks, highlighted the opportunities in application acceleration market
n Arunabh Ghosh, National Head, Channels, Socomec, spoke about his company’s offerings and channel programs
n Anand Naik, MD, Sales, Symantec, India & Saarc, spoke about new trends such as mobility, cloud, virtualization and the threat landscape
n Aashna CloudTech showcased its entire cloud offerings including Netsuite ERP and CRM
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commented KV Jagannath, Managing Director, Choice Solutions. He was supported by Sandeep Vahi, Director, Compton Computers. “The need is to transform the company into a services organization and build a team to tackle the changing scenario.” Ajay Sawant, Managing Director, Orient Technologies, stressed the need to focus on SMBs. “Enterprise accounts are always dictated by OEMs, hence we need to focus on SMBs where we have a hold on the customer and can dictate our own margins.”
“In today’s world of information overload, holding the interest of business owners for three days is not easy. However, CLS was able to achieve it through its intriguing content Philip George
CEO, Axcenta ITES
Technology Tracks
they have somebody to design their security policy. Tell customers that with new threats emerging every week annual audits don’t work. The most logical question in the current scenario is: ‘Can I do some gap analysis?’ This will help you to transform security into a service.”
Client to cloud security Jonathan Belcher, VP, Partner Sales, Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks, spoke about the company’s solutions for data centers and cloud security. Sharing the company’s 2-3-7 business strategy, Belcher explained that the number 2 denotes its customer segments—service providers and enterprises; 3 signifies its basic businesses—routing, switching and security; and 7 its business domains—Edge, Core, Data Center, WAN, Campus & Branch, Customer & Enterprise Devices, and Access & Aggregation. Belcher said that security is not product sales but service. Citing recent trends such as SoCloMo, hybrid, cloud and SDN, he invited solution providers to partner with Juniper. He said there are two types of companies—those that know they have been hacked and those that do not know. “By stalling the firewall you cannot say your customer’s network is secure. You need to put processes in place by which the same problem will not recur.” The pitch is simple, he explained. “Ask your customers if
Leading in the new era Ganesan Arumugam, Senior Director, Partners & SMB, VMware, unveiled his vision of software defined data center (SDDC) and of how IT will be delivered in enterprises. He said that present data centers are still seeing different elements such as compute, storage, networking and software working as silos. According to him, expanding virtualization to a broader range of workloads will certainly extend the cost and availability benefits, but there is a much bigger opportunity on the table—to virtualize the rest of the data center so that all data center services become as inexpensive and easy to provision and manage as virtual machines. Through SDDC a data center can itself be virtualized and compartmentalized into multiple virtual data centers and can be shared by different applications or customers delivering better returns on infrastructure investment. Forecasting that by 2015 more than 80 percent of data center loads are likely to be virtualized,
n Rajeev Saxena, Director, Sales, NetApp, briefed a select group of partners about his company’s go-to-market and partner programs, at the Power Breakfast
“CLS 2013 was more effective in terms of venue, location and topics. It will be wonderful if CLS is transformed in a new format, wherein more partners and neutral speakers engage KV Jagannath
Managing Director, Choice Solutions
Arumugam said that with such high work-loads, migrating to a hybrid cloud environment will be critical for all enterprises. On the client side he said that partners must prepare themselves and their customers for the postPC era, a period where PCs will compete with tablets, smartphones and other devices. Accelerate growth with EMC Praveen Sahai, VP, Channels, EMC India & Saarc, threw light on the expected growth in nextgeneration cloud applications from six million in 2012 to 48 million by 2016. “The cloud is transforming IT infrastructure; this necessitates the uptake of software defined data centers. There is a huge opportunity with EMC because being at the top of the storage market we offer a range of solutions covering transactional storage, big data storage, back-up, archiving, hybrid technologies and big data analytics.” Informing that EMC spent 12 percent of its revenue in 2012 on R&D, Sahai highlighted the company’s mission to help partners build profitability, pipeline and performance. “For us, pipeline is not only about the current month, it is for the next 2-3 quarters. We help partners build such pipelines which give predictability and confidence to the business. Moreover, service is something which we are not interested in; it’s an area where we
place partners at the forefront.” He informed that more than 65 percent of EMC’s global services revenue came through channel partners in H12013. “Our channel focus is proved by the fact that more than 93 percent of our storage revenue came through partners in the same period.” Grow your business Rohith Balakrishnan, General Manager, Sales, Enterprise Channel, Schneider Electric, gave a talk on the products and solutions introduced by the company to address the specific needs of SMBs. He spoke about the rapid uptake of the new single-rack solution (for small offices) with built-in cooling, power, rack and monitoring solution, or DC-in-a-box, launched by the company six months back. “We have signed on 14-15 customers so far. Additionally, we are enabling partners to customize the solution as per the needs of their customers. Other opportunities include IT infrastructure, IT managed services, security services, physical infrastructure, DCIM and RIM,” he said. Balakrishnan invited partners to tap newer opportunities in building management and surveillance with Schneider. “Building management is an integrated solution and requires certification. Once a partner obtains the certification he can access the portal which will help him to design DC solutions for his customers by himself.” SDN: The next huge opportunity Bimal Raj, CEO, Smartlink Network Systems, identified softwaredefined networking (SDN) as a $37 billion opportunity globally, and encouraged partners to train and obtain skills in it.
n NetApp showcased its latest range of unified storage offerings
n MaaS360 by Fiberlink showcased its entire range of mobile device management offerings
n Cyberoam displayed its latest enterprise class NG UTM series
n Digisol showcased its latest range of SDN-ready networking gears for SMB and enterprises
n EMC demonstrated its VSPEX and Isilon scale-out NAS solutions
n Emerson introduced two smart DC solutions SmartCabinet and SmartRow
n eScan Sunil Sharma, displayed VP, itsSales, clientIndia security & Saarc, solution Cyberoam, for a highlighted cloud environment his company’s network security portfolio and shared partner program details
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n Panasonic showcased its entire range of integrated communication solutions
n QuickHeal displayed its range of Terminator UTM and Endpoint Security 5
n Schneider Electric showcased the ISX DC-in-a-box solution for SMBs
n Symantec displayed its entire range of Web security solutions
n Tally SunilSolutions Sharma, demonstrated VP, Sales, IndiaTally & Saarc, ServerCyberoam, 9 which highlighted supports up his to 150 company’s concurrent network userssecurity portfolio and shared partner program details
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Raj said that there is good traction for SDN among enterprises, PSUs, governments and service providers. “SDN is the future of networking. However, its adoption is currently slow because organizations cannot figure out how to manage the hardware. With OpenFlow that will now change. This presents a great opportunity for partners to build their own controllers.” He added, “We have already seen partner-led deployments in the data center and education segments. Revenue can also be earned for support/annuity.” Disclosing Smartlink’s investment of `20 crore in OpenFlow support, he informed partners that the company was product-ready. “In a scenario which is ruled by BYOD and nextgeneration video, you need to convince your customers that the idea is to opt for OpenFlow from the beginning. But for that to happen you should tie up with framework providers, skill your own team, and train on Java. The CCNI and CCNA certifications are more than enough for opportunities around implementation and services.” Power of convergence HP’s message for partners was all about the power of convergence. Manoj Grover, Country Marketing Manager, Channel, SMB and Alliances, HP Enterprise Group, said that convergence is here to stay and will be the dominant trend for the next decade. “In just another two years one-third of all servers will ship as managed resources integrated in a converged infrastructure.” He said that the industry is moving toward a new style of IT which promises opportunities such as lower cost, greater agility, simplicity and speed. “This is where HP converged infrastructure comes in; it is all about simplifying the user experience.” Grover said that HP’s converged infrastructure offering is focused on solutions for hyperscale, mainstream and business-critical apps. “A great solution for hyperscale apps is HP Moonshot. With nearly 10 billion devices connected to the Internet and predictions of exponential
“CLS is an ideal platform for players like us who want to share our solution story with top SIs and VARs, and network with them. Overall, it was well managed & encouraging event Jitendra Gupta, Director, Channels & Alliances, India & Saarc, Juniper Networks
growth, HP Moonshot will change infrastructure economics.” Next, for customers who are ready to build a cloud environment, HP offers HP CloudSystem, which is a complete integrated offering for building and managing clouds. Grover concluded by saying, “The biggest differentiator is that we can meet all your application delivery needs based on a common modular architecture, common management and common services model.” Smart solutions for scaling new high Shrirang Deshpande, Country Head, Data Center Business, Emerson Network Power, discussed opportunities for partners in smart data center (DC) solutions. He said, “Customers are expecting partners to give more breadth to DC solutions. For that, partners need to restructure their existing portfolio for sustained growth. Smart solutions from Emerson are the new opportunities for wallet-sharing of existing customers.” Deshpande highlighted the need for solutions which balance high levels of availability with efficiency through the proper design and utilization of technologies around UPS systems. Customers are demanding solutions that use technologies which allow data centers to adapt to IT changes for continuous optimization, flexibility and architectures that support rooms, racks and clusters over 10 KV to minimize space and cost. Urging delegates to partner with Emerson, he introduced two smart solutions from the company, SmartCabinet and SmartRow. “While SmartCabinet can scale up to 6 KW and two racks, SmartRow is a modular DC solution that supports 10-35 KW and 2-6 racks. These smart solutions save up to 30 percent
“CLS is best among events organized by different publications. While it tries hard to improve the format, few speakers were not engaging enough to hold attention of delegates B Shankar
Director, Ashtech Infotech
space, 30 percent energy, and reduce the time to go live by 8-9 weeks.” Win with Web security solutions Sarabjeet Khurana, Director, Website Security Solutions, SE Asia, India & Saarc, Symantec, highlighted trends in website security and pinpointed the growth drivers for SSL certificates. Khurana spoke about the importance of the website for businesses and how the Internet is fueling the growth of domain names, and subsequently, SSL certifications. “However, the attach rate of an SSL certificate is only 30-40 percent. This gap is the opportunity for you,” he said. Citing statistics from an internal threat report, Khurana said cyber attackers hacked into 42 percent websites in 2012 which is 30 percent higher than in 2011. One in three of these attacks were aimed at the small business. Khurana lend clarity to the scenario with the help of an analogy. “If, for example, you have an e-commerce site which is hacked, not only have you compromised corporate data but also sensitive customer data—and that is a big NO in any business. Your reputation is at stake—plus the attacker could have penetrated deeper. You should therefore persuade your customers to opt for SSL certification for their websites. SSL is to a website today
what an antivirus was to a desktop five years back.” Beyond traditional security In a joint presentation, Sunil Kriplani, VP, Global Sales & Marketing and Amancio Britto, Manager, Techno Commercial, MicroWorld Technologies, said that eScan is the only antivirus brand which has versions for all Linux distributions and Windows. He said that with increasing internal threats such as data leaks and corporate espionage, security solutions need to go beyond antiviruses. According to Kriplani, another worrying trend from a security perspective is the increasing number of home offices and remote workers which leads to uncontrolled infrastructure usage. With rising BYOD challenges, IT managers and the partners consulting with them will need to rethink their IT security strategy. “IT managers will have to even consider aspects such as issuing USB dongles to users because they connect directly and not through corporate gateways,” Britto pointed out. He said that the need of the hour is real-time antivirus, anti spam and anti phishing support. “The Domain & IP Reputation Check technology of eScan verifies the credibility of web domains by tracking any indication of suspicious activities on the Web page.” According to Britto, another feature in the eScan product line is the total asset management which pulls out details of all hardware and software assets in the network. Partnering with NetApp In a joint presentation, Rajeev Saxena, Director, Sales, NetApp;
n Nilesh Kuwadia, CEO, ITCG Solutions, won a Sony mobile charger
n Manoj Bisht, CEO, MK Infosystems, was the proud winner of Sony mobile charger
n Yogesh Jain, CEO, KPlus Infotech, receiving the lucky draw gift from Gurudutt M, Director, Channel Business, Schneider Electric IT Business
n Jiten Mehta, Director, Magnamious Systems, won an iPad in the EMC contest
n Chintamani Lele, Director, Vintech Electronic Systems, won Micromax tablet in the Passport lucky draw scheme
n Praveen Naik, CEO, Veetrag Computers, receiving the Micromax tablet in the Passport lucky draw scheme
n Chetan Sunil Sharma, Shah, Managing VP, Sales,Director, India & Saarc, XpressCyberoam, highlighted his Computers, woncompany’s 1 TB Seagate network external security HDDportfolio and shared partner program details
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Shyamsundar Srinivasan, Channel Development Manager, NetApp, and Mohan Ram, Technical Partner Manager, NetApp, dwelt on the growth of data and the benefits of partnering with the company. Talking about data growth Saxena said, “The next decade will be all about scalability. The data will scale largely and it will be a challenge to handle and manage that. In this scenario it will be beneficial for partners to associate with technology leaders.” He informed that NetApp developed the first NAS, as well as unified SAN and NAS products. “We are also ahead of the competition with our latest innovation of clustering across unified SAN and NAS, offering a unified management for shared infrastructure environments.” Asserting that partnering is the strategy for NetApp Srinivasan said, “We are not over-distributed anywhere and are more than willing to partner. With equal opportunities for growth, we allow partners to be more profitable.” Ram spoke about the company’s Professional Services Certified
Partner Program and Support Services Certified Partner Program. “Our major focus is to enable partners to implement complex solutions. For every $10 we spend on marketing $1 is spent on partner enablement.” Vision for partners’ aspirations Sunil Sharma, VP, Sales, India & Saarc, Cyberoam, identified network security as a high growth area and suggested that partners be prepared for the future by partnering with Cyberoam. Recollecting that Cyberoam recently won the CRN Channel Champions Award 2013 for network security he said, “Cyberoam has successfully moved from being a push-brand to a pull-brand among large customers due to its consistent market strategies, product quality and performance. Partners must also transform their business strategies to meet new demands in network security.” Sharing statistics about the growing network security space, Sharma said that the network security market in APAC grew 124 percent in 2012 and stood at $589.42
Juniper-CRN Mind Challenge For the second year in a row CRN and Juniper Networks teased the gray cells and tested the IQ levels of the 100 participating partners. The quiz sessions, held between the presentations, achieved the objective of breaking the monotony and refreshing the minds of the delegates. Armed with voting meters in their hands, delegates tested their general knowledge and won attractive prizes over the two days of the summit. Two partners, UR Acharya, Director, Sales, Shell Networks, and Ajay Badrinath, Vice President, Marketing, Vitage Systems, out-performed others with their general knowledge. They won the Juniper-CRN Mind Challenge on both the days. Other partners who took away prizes included Pranav Pandya, CEO, Dev Information Technology; Akhil Ranjan Jha, Director, Comprehensive Consultancy; Jiten Mehta, CEO, Magnamious Systems; Suresh HR, Director, Central Data Systems; Nikit Rambhia, Director, Vardhaman Technology; and Bhaskar Kalita, CEO, BMG Informatics. n 2013
n Winners: Ajay Badrinath, VP, Vitage Systems; UR Acharya, Director, Sales, Shell Networks; Bhaskar Kalita, CEO, BMG Informatics; Suresh HR, Director, Central Data Systems; Nikit Rambhia, Director, Vardhaman Technology
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“CLS is a star event. Having been associated as jury member, I can say that the evaluation process for the CRN Xcellence Awards is extremely clinical, data-driven, fair and unbiased Pradeep Khemani, Country Manager, Channels & SMB Sales, HP Enterprise Group
million as against $475.94 million in the previous year. He said there is huge opportunity for partners to break new ground in the network security market; however, they must partner the right vendor. “Partners should seize emerging opportunities, transform their businesses, and be leaders in their space by partnering a vendor who understands the changing business of network security.” How to be interesting Shoaib Ahmed, President, Tally Solutions, asked the audience to think out-of-the-box and be different. He said that being interesting is the biggest need for any brand or company to keep customers engaged and sales figures growing. “Ever wondered why car ads always have girls in skimpy clothes?” he asked the audience. “The simple answer is that it will not sell with boys as it would look gross.” He engaged the audience, citing examples of how every company can stand out by making a distinction. An example he drew from the marketing and advertising world was the ads that Benetton had run. “Benetton is a global brand and has huge brand recall. Despite this they run campaigns which provoke people, sometimes to the point of disturbing them.” He advised partners to look inside and figure out whether they are making themselves, their company, their workplace and their brand interesting enough to have recall among customers. “You may have to taunt, provoke and maybe even shake them. But never be uninteresting.” Accelerate your business Manoj Barua, National Manager, Channels & Alliances, India & Saarc, F5 Networks, highlighted the challenges in WAN acceleration.
“I really enjoyed the CLS this year as the location was excellent, content was to the point and it presented a vast opportunity to connect with vendors and peers Paresh Shah
Partner, PH Teknow
He said, “Customers want pointto-point solutions which can be consolidated around the physical, the virtual and the cloud.” Talking about the opportunities for partners Barua said, “There are numerous opportunities for partners in application deployment and acceleration, and deeper opportunities for access security. A partner can deep-dive into projects in data center consolidation, activeactive DR, business continuity and DR, virtualization, application deployment, BYOD, and refresh or upgrade. There are more than 300 customers to upsell to.” He also spoke about the company’s GRID portal which helps partners in lead generation. Partners for profitability Arunabh Ghosh, National Head, Channels, Socomec Innovative Power Solutions, urged channels to chase opportunities in critical building infrastructure and renewable energy sources such as solar. “We are enabling channels to pursue newer opportunities, and helping them to build sustainable top-lines with healthy bottom-lines.” He said that with Socomec’s leadership cutting across all sectors, partners will find it easier to build a profitable power business. With India’s growing energy needs, he advised channels to look beyond traditional power solution vendors. According to Ghosh, the
interoperability of existing IT infrastructure and UPS hardware is important. As an example, he said all models in the entry-level ITYS I range have a microprocessor control system which optimizes functionality, while USB connectivity and serial ports allow realtime control and monitoring via Windows or Mac OS systems. “Customers want a partner who can be a trusted advisor, someone who can add value than simply install and do break-fix,” he said. Ghosh also spoke about the importance of investing in energy management software and measuring and analytical equipment. “To build an energy-efficient ecosystem it’s important to invest in tools that help you create efficiency.” Integrated 4.0 strategy Anand Naik, Managing Director, Sales, Symantec, India & Saarc, spoke about the new trends such as mobility, cloud, information explosion, virtualization and the threat landscape. “Data is growing exponentially— in multitudes of zetabytes—and virtualization and the cloud are transforming data centers. Similarly, cyber espionage and APTs have transformed the threat landscape, while malware rose 40 percent last year. Also, as more and more customers move from a systemcentric to a data-centric world, the trends are reflective of the new norms,” he said. Naik unveiled the company’s 4.0 strategy which revolves around integrated products and services, new offerings, and an end-to-end customer and partner experience. “We are talking about creating products and solutions, and launching these innovative solutions from the Symantec stable for you,”
n Team CRN
Naik said. “Our aim is to create an end-to-end customer experience in terms of information security which will change the equation from Best of Breed to Best of Need.” Outlining the benefits to partners he said, “We have enhanced the partner program, and have a detailed framework in place. We will help partners to build a services business around the 4.0 strategy.”
Passport lucky-draw To attract delegates to the exhibition booths, CRN continued the Passport Scheme whereby delegates were rewarded for visiting all the booths. Those who got their Passport stamped by all the booths were eligible to participate in a luckydraw. The lucky ones won gifts like Micromax tablets, Sony mobile chargers and a Seagate hard drive. Chintamani Lele, Director, Vintech Electronic Systems, and Praveen Naik, CEO, Veetrag Computers, both partners from tier-2 cities, became the proud owners of Micromax tablets. Chetan Shah, Managing Director, Xpress Computers, won a Seagate HDD, while Manoj Bisht, CEO, MK Infosystems, and Nilesh Kuwadia, CEO, ITCG Solutions, won Sony mobile chargers.
Conclusion IT partners feel proud to be associated with it. “CLS is an event which figures as an important event in the calendar for all large SIs and VARs. The unique format encourages knowledge sharing in a professional manner yet having personal touch,” shared Rushabh Shah, CEO, Graham Information Systems and President, TAIT. Partners also applauded CLS as the biggest platform for partners across the country as well as an event with major take-aways. “The biggest takeaway of CLS 2013 is the learning that despite of the slowdown, there will be areas like cloud computing, big data, mobility, enterprise social media, which will grow for the next few years. This affirms that we are on the right track. The whole IT partner fraternity looks forward to even more exciting CLS in 2014,” said Suresh Ramani, CEO, Techgyan. n
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Critical Difference Partner Awards Efficiency without Compromising Availability was the theme for this year’s Critical Difference Partner Awards 2013 sponsored by Emerson Network Power. Four of the country’s best data center solution providers won awards for executing some of the most challenging end-to-end data center solutions. The winners have been listed according to the alphabetical order, and not in the order of importance. The first winner of the evening was Mumbai-based Ashtech Infotech which implemented an end-to-end data center set-up to run core banking, a cheque truncation system, and a Real Time Gross Settlement system as per RBI guidelines. The project was completed in record time and helped the customer to excel in processing time and compliance. Hyderabad-based Choice Solutions won the award for implementing a DC solution for Sona Somic Lemforder Components, a project which it bagged against competition from Wipro and Dell. The unique aspect of this project was that Choice was required to execute the entire project within a live IT environment with only a specified time-frame available for cut-over. Most of the implementation was done during night hours when the floors were silent. Delhi-based Compton Computers implemented a 3,000 sq ft tier-3 data center project for the IT consulting and solutions company, Nagarro. Compton was also roped in for capacity planning for the next five years. The project was deployed in record time with 99.999 percent guaranteed uptime. Hyderabad-based Locuz Enterprise Solutions was awarded for the data center project it implemented for the Indian Institute of Science, Education & Research, Bhopal; the project involved building a highly customized and scalable DC solution for highperformance computing needs. The entire DC was deployed in less than 12 weeks with the capacity to accommodate future expansion. “The Critical Difference Partner Awards are a celebration of path-breaking work done by Indian IT channels in building data centers that help businesses to run their IT applications efficiently,” explained Shrirang Deshpande, Country Manager, Data Center Business, Emerson Network Power, India. The winners of the Critical Difference Partner Awards 2013 were decided based on an open nomination process whereby systems integrators were invited to nominate their best data center project in the past 12-18 months. CRN received 20 nominations which were shortlisted to 14 by the CRN editorial team and referred to a jury consisting of industry experts. The jury included Deshpande; Anwer Bagdadi, CEO, Kashif Technology & Innovation; and G Radhakrishna Pillai, CIO, Super Religare Laboratories. The jury considered parameters such as the core active compute, network infrastructure integration, passive networking, power, cooling, energy efficiency and scalability of the data center. Special points were awarded for the management of the project, for meeting customer requirements and delivering ROI. n
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n B Shankar, Director, Ashtech Infotech, receiving the award from Ankesh Kumar, Director, Channel Products and Marketing, Emerson Power Network
n Sanjay Zadoo, Country Manager, Channels, Emerson Power Network, presenting the award to KV Jagannath, CEO, Choice Solutions
n Shrirang Deshpande, Country Manager, Data Center Business, Emerson Network Power, presenting the award to Sandeep Vahi, Director, Compton Computers
n Dhaval Valia, Executive Editor, CRN, presenting the award to Vijay Wadhi, MD & CEO, Locuz Enterprise Solutions
new products Transcend industrial SSDs
Dahua network video recorders
T
D
ranscend has launched its industrial line-up of 2.5inch SATA SSDs, the SSD 630 and SSD 630I. The SSDs are equipped with a SATA II 3 GB/s interface, high-speed DRAM cache, and can reach speeds of up to 225 MB/s read and 120 MB/s write. The drives have advanced reliability features such as TRIM and NCQ support, built-in ECC and wear leveling, full support of the SMART command, and built-in Advanced Power Shield technology which prevents data loss in the event of a sudden power outage. They come with an SSD Scope diagnostic and maintenance tool to monitor SSD health to ensure continued fast, clean and error-free operation. The SSD 630I SATA SSD is offered in 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB capacities, while the SSD 630 SATA SSD is available in capacities ranging from 16 GB to 256 GB, including the new 96 GB solution. The prices range from `3,900 to `17,000; the products carry a 3-year warranty. n
BenQ W1500 wireless projector
B
enQ has launched its FHD 3D wireless home entertainment projector, the W1500. The 5 GHz wireless projector is targeted at home consumers, and enables wireless 2D to 3D conversion from a diverse range of multimedia sources including Blu-Rays, DVD or AV-R players, set-top boxes and game consoles. The projector features the SmartEco Technology which can automatically adjust and maximize the lamp power, saving up to 70 percent. It comes with a lamp life of 6,000 hours and features Texas Instruments’ advanced DarkChip3 DLP technology for higher brightness and deeper black levels for smooth, film-like pictures. The projector is priced at an MRP of `1.75 lakh, and carries a 1-year warranty. n
ahua Technology has launched its next-generation, 128-channel, super network video recorders, DH NVR 6000, DH NVR 6000D and DH NVR 6000DR. These can cover wide areas and record up to 128 network cameras. The recorders are ideal for wide locations such as ports, military land, prisons, power plants and airports. The devices are equipped with Intel Core i5 processors.
All the models have built-in monitors which enable users to view videos on the NVRs themselves, thus eliminating the need for a separate monitor to view video from the unit. The recorders employ RAID 0/1/5 disk management supported by 16 hot-swappable SATA HDDs. The prices and warranties of the devices are available on request. n
Top Notch Zebpad T100 phablet
T
op Notch Infotronix recently launched its 10-inch phablet Zebpad T100 under the brand Zebronics. The device is powered by a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor. It has a 5-point capacitive touch-screen offering 800x600 pixel resolution powered by a Mali-400MP 3D graphics chipset. The phablet runs on Ice Cream Sandwich OS. It sports a 2 MP rear main camera and a front VGA resolution camera. The phablet has 512 MB RAM and 8 GB builtin storage which can be expanded to 32 GB via a microSDHC memory card. It comes with connectivity options via a SIM card slot for 2G data support and voice-call facilities. Additionally, it comes packed with 3G via dongle, Wi-Fi, BlueTooth 4.0 and USB 3.0. The Zebpad T100 is equipped with a 3,200 mAh battery which allows six hours of talk-time. The phablet is priced at `7,777, and carries a 1-year warranty. n
The products featured here have not undergone any benchmarking or testing. The trailers contain information provided by vendors and distributors. To feature your company’s products in CRN, send write-ups with photos to editor@ubmindia.com
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THOMSON REUTERS TAX AND ACCOUNTING LOOKING FOR RESELLERS Thomson Reuters Tax and Accounting is looking for master distributors and resellers for our Tax & Accounting products and solutions in India. We are currently looking to expand the geographic footprint of our Tax and Accounting business in Tier I/II/III cities within India. Our products include TDS software, Fixed Assets, Payroll, Digital Signature, etc. Most of our products are popular/well received/well-known in their respective regions.
Master Distributor Criteria Requires the ability to manage major cities/towns with a span of resellers under you. You should preferably have a service/ technology background with at least ten current employees with a professional office setup.
about thoMson reuters Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, intellectual property and science and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs approximately 60,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges (symbol: TRI).
reseller Criteria Any standalone individual/organization with a good reach and distribution network looking to resell products in smaller cities within India. For further details, you may write to us at sales@thomsonreuters.com or call us on 022-40557080. For further information you can visit tax.thomsonreuters.com or fastfacts.co.in. © 2013 Thomson Reuters. All Rights Reserved. 092013
Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing www.crn.in
shadow ram In appreciation of Rupee depreciation
T
he depreciation of the rupee has brought a lot of pain to IT channels across the country, but there are a few who actually benefited from it. For instance, a Bengaluru-based data center, which managed to secure an investment of about $9 million for an equity stake, is said to have created an excess cashflow of `7 crore because it took seven working days from the time the deal was signed to the day the amount was transferred—and the rupee weakened by almost 11 percent during that period. Then there is this importer who was grumbling that a couple of containers which he had imported were delayed because of some issues which the shipping line had en route. He however ended up making an extra profit of more than `10 lakh on the consignment because local prices shot up by almost 13 percent during the same period. n
GET
Personal
“I would make India tax-free” Ajay Singhania, Managing Director & Founder, Venktron Digital Systems, is responsible for the company’s marketing activities and business administration. He has been an integral part of the IT industry for more than 30 years. If not in the IT industry: I would have been a politician.
Ajay Singhania
Biggest passion: Education for all.
Behind the wheel: Honda CRV. Gadgets I can’t live without: Samsung Galaxy 3. Weekends are for: Family and friends. Favorite holiday destination: London. Hate the most: Dishonesty. Favorite movie: 3 Idiots. Favorite star: Aamir Khan. Role model: My grandfather. Ultimate ambition: To serve society. Wildest thing I have ever done: I cannot reveal that! Thing I most want to do: Help underprivileged children. If I became the PM: I would make India a tax-free country. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Narendra Modi. One person I would like to meet, and why: Sonia Gandhi. I want a lot of answers from her. Deepest and darkest fear: To lose people I love. n — CRN Network
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Computer Reseller News
15/09/2013 www.crn.in
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