CRN India - January 1, 2011 by UBM India

starting line End of double taxation? n Ramdas S

he recent notification from the Finance Ministry has raised the hopes of the software channel that the long-pending double taxation issue will soon be resolved. In a notification dated December 21, 2010, the Finance Ministry has abolished service tax on all types of canned software. Canned software is defined as any product with an MRP sticker containing both media and license. “In February, the government had issued a notification removing service tax on single-user retail pack. With this notification, service tax on all types of multi-user, shrink-wrapped software has been removed,” explained Harinder Salwan, Secretary, Indian Software Dealers Association (ISODA). This, ISODA believes, will exempt nearly 50 percent of the software sold in the country from the double taxation net. However, the recent notification lays down certain conditions for service tax exemption, said KS Omkarappa, a leading tax consultant in Bengaluru. “Whether the software is imported or produced locally, the developer, or the manufacturer or the importer need to pay custom duty or excise duty as the case may be. Otherwise software will attract service tax. The onus of seeking service tax exemption lies with the reseller. He will need to ensure that customs or excise is paid by his supplier,” he explained. The other hitch, Salwan foresees, is that all multi-user packs will need to have an MRP sticker to get service tax exemption. “Many canned multi-user software packs do not carry MRP stickers as software pricing is very dynamic. We have already written to vendors and distributors to have MRP stickers on all shrink-wrapped software.

“The new notification dated December 21, 2010, removes service tax on all types of multi-user canned software” Harinder Salwan Secretary, ISODA

We are hoping they will comply immediately,” said Salwan. However, not everyone is interpreting the new notification positively. “Government has opened a Pandora’s box by bringing multi-user canned software under the MRPbased excise duty regime. Multi-user pricing is a tricky issue as it depends on factors such as number of licenses, customization and support required. Putting a MRP sticker on canned software is tough,” said S Sivakumar, Director of Bengaluru-based S3 Solutions. Sivakumar contends that importers will find the new notification problematic. “An importer, I believe, will choose to pay service tax rather than go through the complication of paying excise duty on MRP. The process of calculating MRP after factoring the 15 percent excise abatement on software makes the process cumbersome,” he opined. Salwan, however, believes that for the good of the larger channel community both vendors and distributors will need to work out the right mechanism. “ISODA has been fighting tirelessly to address the double taxation issue. The notification provides the solution. While I agree that vendors and distributors may have to do a bit more documentation than before, it is the right option to take,” he added. n

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Trend Micro to pump up the volume Security vendor Trend Micro aims to triple its volume business and has recently signed Neoteric Infomatique as national distributor. “We never focused on driving the volume business in India till now, but we want to change that. Our strategies for volume business are designed for the long term,” said Amit Nath, Country Manager, India and Saarc, Trend Micro. While on the consumer front Trend Micro has an abysmal market share, in the small business segment it has been doing reasonably well. Amit Nath “In small business space we are currently adding close to 600-700 new customers every quarter. The plan is to more than triple it to 1,500-2,000 customers per quarter. The partnership with Neoteric, and the launch of the latest edition of Titanium and Worry Free range will help us get there,” he said. Nath added that Titanium has been priced very competitively keeping in mind the price sensitivity of the Indian consumer. “Since its launch, Titanium has been getting rave reviews. We have priced it at `1,200 per user, per year— which is very competitive in terms of price-performance, when compared to its peers. The new edition of Worry Free also includes several new features and is much lighter.” Trend Micro plans to triple its partner base and has identified 25 tier-2 and tier-3 cities where it will soon embark on a major reseller enrollment program along with Neoteric. “We have lined up a series of events in these cities and have rolled out incentive programs for small-city resellers. The whole objective between now and end of March is to get our coverage right,” Nath said. The company has increased its marketing and channel development budget by almost 70 percent. n — Sonal Desai

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contents

January 01, 2011 l Volume 4 Issue 17

Cover Story

18 NEWS Analyses

Channel Chief

End of double taxation?

Trend Micro to pump up the volume

Speculation shrouds Xerox printer biz

Intel eyes channel for development tools

Samriddhi wants IT partners for surveillance

BenQ aims to double India business

READ More Editorial 6 Opinion 8 Feedback 8 Channel Buzz 30 New Products 31 Shadow Ram 34

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With a dedicated team and significant investment in partner enablement, IBM is making a strong bid for the mid-market, which it recognizes as the single biggest growth opportunity over the next five years

Eric Hoh Vice President, Asia South Region, Symantec talks about the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strategies around unified technology architecture and new enhanced partner program

Channel Chief Sunil Dutt Vice President, Personal Systems Group, HP India, speaks about his rather eventful first year at the company and the restructuring of the commercial PC business

14 Market Focus Teraflopportunity The market for high performance computing products and services in India is estimated at $200 million, and growing at 15-16 percent annually

16 Role Model Ketan Patel CEO, Creative Peripherals and Distribution, shares why his company is regarded among the leading IT sub-distributors in the country

W 19 cm x H 29.8 cm

edit opinion Volume 4, Issue 17

Big Blue gets mid-market fever dhaval valia

n the past several years, IT vendors have obsessed over the midmarket. But the sector has been tough to conquer. Its disparateness and fragmentation has baffled many, and figuring out the right go-to-market has been the biggest challenge. But looking at IBM’s midmarket initiatives and talking to their executives, it seems that the company is rather confident of its go-to-market. That probably is the reason why the company has committed a huge investment to the mid-market business. Not only has the company set up a separate business unit and put in place a strong 80-member team, it has also earmarked substantial investment in geo expansion. Taking such a high-stake dive requires strong conviction. IBM has already put in a significant effort to map the vast universe of mid-market by plotting 40,000 white space customers across 40 cities. Also the plan to leverage its triple-play expertise—hardware, software and services—to offer right-sized service-led solutions, seems like the right step. In my interactions with partners, what emerged as the key highlight of IBM’s new mid-market model is the focus it is laying on enabling partners both in terms of skill building and ensuring growth and profitability. Partners have experienced significant enhancement in their engagement with IBM over the past 12 months. While the new incentive structures have ensured higher profits, focus on cross-solutions sales have resulted in growth. Usually for a company as large as IBM and with such a diverse portfolio, the biggest challenge is often to realign and unify the internal organization. But to IBM’s credit, partners concede that the company has executed this task effectively and has been able to achieve a certain oneness in both partner and customer engagement. IBM should surely take pride in the fact that its mid-market strategy seems to be shaping well, and in the first year it has delivered a reasonably good performance. However, it is not lost upon IBM that the first year is always easy as it is about getting the right organization and the strategy right and the pressure to deliver isn’t high. Year 2011 will be a bigger test as IBM will need to consolidate the initiatives and programs introduced so far; scale the model to more partners and customers; and more importantly plot the ROIs of the mid-market strategy. Needless to say, for IBM’s mid-market strategy to succeed, delivering on the partner component is going to be the most crucial. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 6

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starting line Speculation shrouds Xerox printer biz n Sonal Desai

peculation is rife in the channel that Xerox is moving out of the printer hardware business, and going forward, the company will focus only on providing managed printing services and document management solutions. Recent news that Princy Bhatnagar—who headed the Office Equipment Division at Xerox India for the past three years—has resigned started the speculation. More news about many senior sales managers quitting, fanned the flames further. However, Xerox India said it was business as usual and that the speculation about the company exiting the printer segment is misplaced. While Sharad Gupta, Head, Marketing Communications, Xerox India, did confirm the exit of Bhatnagar, he denied the news that a large number of executives have followed his suit. “Bhatnagar’s decision to quit is to pursue a better career, and the exit of other executives is in line with our HR strategy. The printer business is very large and strategic for Xerox, and there are no plans to exit it,” Gupta added. However, some leading Xerox partners suggest otherwise. “Although Xerox has not made any formal announcement, there are strong indications that it will exit the printer business. In the past couple of months, many senior sales executives—both at regional and national level—have quit the organization. Partners still have no clarity on the future plans of the company. Many have started distributing competing brands over the past few months,” said Jayesh Verma, CEO, Radian Systems, one of the oldest partners of Xerox in Gujarat. Harish Kumar Shetty, CEO of Bengaluru-based Binary System,

“Senior managers quitting has added to the speculation. If the company decides to exit the printer business, it will be shocking” Harish kumar Shetty CEO, Binary System

a long-time partner for Xerox, said, “Globally, Xerox has been going through several ups and downs over the past few years. In India, senior managers quitting and lack of clarity has added to the speculation. I wouldn’t like to comment till Xerox sends an official communication. But if the company decides to exit, it will be shocking,” he said. Partners said that recent shortage of Xerox products has also fuelled the speculation. However, Sandeep Bhurke, CEO of Mumbai-based Horizon Info Solution countered, “While there is no denying that there has been a shortage, Xerox is not the only one. Several printer vendors experienced shortage last year.” Many loyal partners believe that Xerox will never exit the printer business. “From what we hear, there are several changes scheduled. But that doesn’t mean they will exit printer business. Xerox invented the technology,” said Nagraj SN, Director, Nucleus Techno Solutions. For the time being, partners are managing their anxious customers with the ‘business as usual’ statement. But if clarity doesn’t emerge soon, they believe Xerox’s competitors will be successful in luring existing and prospective customers. n

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Intel eyes channel for development tools Next on Intel’s agenda are its development tools. Taking a leaf from its global strategy, plans are underway to build an alternate software reseller channel—outside its core OEM and system builder channel—to offer the business a much needed push. Intel’s software line consists of development tools such as Intel Parallel Studio, vTune performance analyzer, C++ compiler and Fortran compiler, and embedded and mobile software from acquisition Wind River Systems’ portfolio. The vendor also offers some of its tools as plugins of extensions for Phil De La Zerda Microsoft Visual Studio. “Our development tools business aims to provide enhanced integrated development environment (IDE) for software programmers,” said Phil De La Zerda, Director, Worldwide Sales and Business Development, Intel Developer Product Division. “Since India is the software hub of the world, we see a huge market potential.” According to De La Zerda, sectors such as finance, banking, engineering, oil and gas, and manufacturing are currently looking for High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) solutions. “Development tools are critical to business. We want developers to create software optimized for latest Intel processors,” he said. “We want them to embrace parallel computing and multithreading, and thereby better the performance of their software. As we acquire more customers, we are laying foundation for multi-core technology.” Intel India has already reported wins in several large R&D and educational establishments such as C-DAC, IIT, IGIB, TIFR and NCRA. “We also have several IT services companies on our radar, and are investing heavily in events and seminars focused on HPCC,” said De La Zerda. “We believe that every Microsoft Visual Studio licensee is a potential buyer, and we want our partners to go after them,” De La Zerda added. n — Ramdas S

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edit opinion Five principles for success Kelley Damore

uilding and managing successful channel programs is downright challenging. You have to stay with it, otherwise it falls apart quickly. Without hard-core support all the way up the executive-level food chain, it’s difficult to remain competitive. But it also isn’t rocket science. It’s more akin to building a skyscraper than the Space Shuttle. A solid foundation, a well-thought-out long-term plan, good subcontractors and steady work each day result in a well-constructed channel. In order to accomplish this, however, there has to be a set of principles behind the thinking that drives the everyday duties of the internal channel team. I’ve netted them down to five core principles for channel success. First, both sides need to look at the contract between vendor and partner as a relationship of equals. In any business relationship, there has to be something of value for both sides or it will fall apart. If the approach to partners is one in which the vendor is trying to extract something from its channel that is detrimental to the partners’ businesses, then it will not work. If, however, the relationship is based on a mutual need to succeed, it clearly has potential. This principle works in the reverse as well. If the partner relationship in return adds little to no value but expects the vendor to pony up for it, then the relationship breaks down. The second principle is investing in sales and marketing resources to capture more opportunities. This, of course, requires budget and smart people inside of the vendor channel management team. Solution providers have traditionally neither been good nor focused on marketing as a way to drive sales. But the world is changing. If the solution of the future is largely made up of managed services and cloud applications, then marketing and sales expertise in the partner base is a critical attribute. Vendors tend to have lots of talent in-house from a marketing perspective, but too often they spend the bulk of the money on direct marketing efforts. That’s understandable, but partners that are successful with vendor-driven marketing programs sell more of those suppliers’ products unaided. Principle three surrounds the relentless pursuit of ease of doing business. In some ways, the Internet has helped by allowing easy access to a repository of information. But it has also made it more difficult by making it far too easy to throw lots of information into a partner portal and dumping the responsibility of sorting through it to the partner base. Principle four is consider the impact of any program change on partner profitability. It’s easy to see value in something when you look at it from only your perspective. Taking a look from the other side can bring clarity. The fifth principle is simply having a competitive product set. In the end, it’s still about driving value in the market. Without competitive products, you can’t expect even the best channel to drive growth. n E-mail Kelley Damore at kelley.damore@ec.ubm.com 8

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Market focus: To retail or not According to me, subdistributors (SDs) should refrain from selling directly. By not doing so, they are competing with their own channels. Often SDs sell at a price lower than what they have billed resellers for. They even throw in free value adds like installation and configuration. This displays utter disregard for business ethics. How can solution providers and resellers do business in such a scenario!

I have a slightly different take on the matter. As a Samsung regional distributor for Goa, I sell to partners and to end-users as well. But I ensure that the MOP is maintained, and partners’ margins are not affected. I did counter a case where a tier-3 partner was retailing the product at less than the transfer price. But that, I believe, was an exception. Prashant Kuncolienkar Computronics Infotech, Goa

Chetan Shah Xpress Computers, Mumbai

SDs play a major role in the IT industry, be it in terms of funds, stocking or supply. But often market corners them in a pressure situation by delaying payments and aiding unauthorized competition. Hence, they have full right to set up a retail business to maintain their cash flow and movement of stock.

SDs are stockists. It’s a stockist’s prerogative who he wants to sell to. I do not think that it is illegal. If a stockist is selling at a price lower than what they bill to their retailers, then that’s unethical. But vendors and even distributors are apathetic to the issue. So, to stop the malpractice, the channel should react strongly.

Gurmeet Juneja Dehradun

Anish Modi Mnemonic Systems, Mumbai

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

Luminous

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upsservice@luminousindia.com

Compuage

5 www.compuageindia.com

info@compuageindia.com

Digilink

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Emerson

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Emerson

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Emerson

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Mach Data

QuickHeal

33 www.quickheal.co/dhamaka2011

Biz Secure

NEC

35 www.nec.com/express

www.machsdata.com www.indiaantivirus.com

NetApp 36 www.netapp.com/us/products/storage-systems/fas200/

drj@machsdata.com sales@indiaantivirus.com enquiries@necindia.in saurabhkumar.b@redington.co.in / mushtaq.khot@avnet.com

starting line Samriddhi wants IT partners for surveillance n Sonal Desai

“We provide Indian goods with bestof-breed technology at rates that beat the Chinese brands, along with warranty and support”

amriddhi Automations is aggressively scouting for IT partners. The company plans to enroll more than 100 IT partners over the next six months. With technology collaboration with Sony, Sharp, Texas Instruments and OmniVision, Samriddhi manufactures security surveillance products under its own brand Sparsh. “We provide Indian goods with best-of-breed technology at rates that can beat the Chinese brands, along with warranty and support. We have a manufacturing unit in Uttarakhand,” said Sanjeev Sehgal, Managing Director, Samriddhi Automations. “Our market strategy is to expand our channel base to take on the influx of cheap Chinese products.” So far the company has been working with the analog surveillance channel but with physical security going IP it wants to tap the IT channel. “Increasingly the decision about

Sanjeev Sehgal

Managing Director, Samriddhi Automations

physical security is being taken by the IT manager as IP technology is gaining ground. We also see a huge upgrade opportunity to IP,” added Sehgal. The company plans to train IT resellers in analog technology as well. “While IP technology is the future, analog will continue to do well. Globally, IP is only 15 percent of the surveillance camera market. In

India bandwidth and infrastructure constraints are hindering the growth of IP, which will take a couple of years to reach tipping point,” averred Sehgal. The company expects 15 percent of its revenues to come from IT resellers in 2011. Samriddhi expects the government and banking sector to drive growth. “RBI has asked all banks to install IP-cameras at their branches and ATMs. With security threats increasing, the government is also investing in surveillance. The Indian Railways has announced deploying of cameras at all railway station over the next five years,” opined Sehgal. Despite no well-defined partner program, Samriddhi offers pre-sales support, provides demo gears and regular training to partners. The company claims to have a customer base of over 10,000, which includes names like SBI, PNB, Allahabad Bank, Indian Oil, Airport Authority of India, Hero Honda and DCM Shriram. n

BenQ aims to double India business n Abhijeet Mukherjee

“In projectors, we are ranked number 3 with a market share of 7.5 percent, and are selling 20,000 units of LCDs per month”

fter a lull of almost two years, BenQ India is planning an aggressive comeback in the Indian market with IT product launches, strengthening of channels and foray into consumer electronics. The company aims to double its India turnover from $30 million to $60 million over the next 12 months. To achieve this, the company has announced several new initiatives “We have lined up several product launches over the coming months which include LED monitors, tablets, projectors and consumer electronics such as LCD TVs and digital cameras,” said Rajeev Singh, Country Head, BenQ India. “In addition we plan to expand our channel coverage, and will roll out a series of programs and marketing initiatives.” BenQ plans to expand its coverage from 100 cities to 150 by 2011-end

Rajeev Singh

Country Manager, BenQ India

through its distributors—Redington, Neoteric and HCL. On the IT products front, the focus is on increasing market share in the monitor and projector segments. Of its total revenue, nearly 60 percent is contributed by monitors while 40 percent comes

from projectors. “In projectors, we were ranked number 3 with a market share of 7.5 percent in H1 2010,” informed Singh. “On the monitor front, we are currently doing 20,000 units of LCDs per month, and want to increase the run rate. The focus, however, would be on high-end LCD monitors.” BenQ plans to venture in the tablet category. “Tablets are fast gaining popularity. We will launch our tablet range in Q1 2011, and expect it to contribute significantly to our goal of doubling the turnover,” Singh said. While BenQ will predominantly drive LCD TVs and digital cameras through the consumer electronics channel and LFRs, it will also equip some of its leading IT retail partners to sell the range. With sales expansion, BenQ is in the process of expanding its post-sales infrastructure through national ASP Neoteric Infomatique. n

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VOLume 3

DIGILINK plans to expand to more countries to create a global brand c) Ensure high brand visibility

You launched DIGISOL in April last year. Can you tell us how this line is different from the rest of your products? We have in-house networking products manufacturing capabilities in Passive as well as in Active range of products. We also have our own R&D set-up. We are one of the only companies in the country with such a strong brand presence and infrastructure. To make use of our set up and to leverage these strengths, we have now entered into the Active networking market with a distinct brand DIGISOL. We are using our own infrastructure in the process of developing a widerange of Active networking products under the DIGISOL brand. The active networking products under the DIGISOL brand are Switching, Wireless, Broadband Routing, IP Surveillance, Printer Server, Media converters and Converged Communications Solutions.

Who are some of your major customers and which new segments are you looking to tap?

What is your Strength compared to all other Passive (SCS) Products in India and world wide. We are in passive range more than two decades, earlier J/V for short time with m/s. Sapphire U.K. those days OEM supplier to IBM & Thomas & Betts, DIGITAL etc. the only people in cabling. Now our own R&D has patented some of the Technologies in Copper, we are also closely associated with Corning USA. In Fiber as we use only Corning Core inside our fiber Cables. We have our own factory in Goa manufacturing copper & fiber products, and customize the products for customers like no other vendor in India. We have obtained all possible types of certifications and we exceed the required levels with a large margin and the products are well accepted, naturally this is our key strength area.

DIGILINK currently has about 20% share in the structured cabling market in India as per IDC. What is your target for the year 2011 and what will be the top three initiatives to achieve that? DIGILINK ranks no. 2 in SCS category and enjoys a market share of 20%. This year we will be primarily focusing on the following vertical - Government (PSU) and Education, BFSI and Healthcare. The top three priorities for DIGILINK is to a) Strengthen DIGILINKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market share in enterprise segment in India b) Promote DIGILINK brand in SAARC and Middle East

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We have a strong cliental base with more than 200,000 corporate customers. We work extensively in the government sector covering segments like e-governance, education, defence, PSUs and telecom. Other big customers include major private and public sector banks and ITeS companies in the private sector. We would be targeting Data Centers, as Data Center installations have been the largest verticals in SCS Industry last year. Another segment which we are targeting is residential cabling.

Say something about the green initiatives you have taken to help your customers? We are probably the first SCS Company today to have entire product range RoHS complied, we did not stop there. Even our work environment boasts to be best in the vicinity. We had quire ISO 14000 way back in 2002 and have improved year by year on the initiatives. We plan to introduce halogen free cabling components very soon. Our product packaging gets recognized in the industry for the use of recycled paper and organic inks.

What are your expansion plans? We plan to expand our presence to more countries globally, for this we will approach companies directly and with the aid of our overseas distributors. We are looking for acquisitions. After the demerger, we have been busy completing our portfolio of products. Once the smooth transition is made, we will look at more investments in the near future. Over the long term we aspire to be an MNC selling Indian products abroad at several locations as currently there are very few local hardware MNCsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Ultimately, our vision is to create a global brand.

DIGISOL Launches USB Print Server Introduces DG-PS1010U Mumbai, 21st December 2010: DIGISOL has introduced its compact USB print server DG-PS1010U that gets integrated with your LAN using Ethernet or Fast Ethernet. The DG-PS1010U allows wired and wireless stations in your LAN to access and share a USB printer, no matter where they reside on the LAN. The DG-PS1010U has one USB 2.0 interface and supports major network protocols like TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, NetBEUI, AppleTalk, LPR, RAW TCP/IP and SMB over TCP/IP. With its compact design, DGPS1010U can easily be accommodated anywhere! You can easily manage the DG-PS1010U using a windows-based configuration utility that can automatically discover print servers on the LAN and run a wizard for configuring it. The DG-PS1010U also supports web-based administration. Using a Web Browser on a PC simplifies configuration of the print server. Configuration is also possible using Telnet. With its USB 2.0 interface and a simple setup process, the DIGISOL DG-PS1010U offers seamless connection to most printers available on the market. It is the best solution for

About DIGISOL

DIGISOL is our active networking brand. We at DIGILSOL are geared to serve and set new benchmarks within the IP Technology services arena. Our legacy of developing conscientious products further bestows the coveted competitive edge. Having discerned the precise requirements of our customers, we have developed and in the process of developing a wide-ranging product portfolio under the DIGISOL brand. DIGISOL was recently presented the award for the Fastest Growing Brand in IT by VARIndia in “StarNite Awards 2010”.

About DIGILINK

DIGILINK has been an industry leader in providing the entire end to end range of structured cabling solutions for enterprises, small and medium business. Our ‘Future proof’ products deliver unparallel

DIGILINK, DIGISOL and DIGICARE awarded at VARIndia StarNite Award 2010

VARIndia, India’s Frontline IT Magazine, in its eighth award Ceremony “StarNite Award 2010”, awarded DIGILINK the “Best Structure Cabling Company”, while DIGISOL received the award for “Fastest growing Brand” in IT. DIGICARE was also awarded for “Best Post sales Services”. These awards are given every year in recognition for the InfoTech vendors, solution providers and partners for their relentless and sincere efforts towards the growth of Indian IT Industry. These awards are based on the customers’ and channel partners’ feedback, and the study made by the VARIndia team in various markets including Metros as well as B and C class cities in terms of vendors’ penetration and their level of engagements and commitments with the channel partners. The evaluation is also based on the vendors’ handling of logistics, service support, and product performance.

network based printing for Small and Home Offices, Educational Institutions and Businesses that need sharing of printers across a LAN. Key Features: • USB2.0 Compliant • Easy to use Setup Wizard • Supports Email Alerts • Supports DHCP (client) • Supports Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) • Supports SNMP & Windows Print Monitor Technology • Supports 10/100Mbps Auto-sensing UTP port Price: DG-PS1010U is available in the market at an approximate street price of Rs. 3000/- .

value and enable our customers to excel through lower total network ownership costs, enhanced productivity, total reliability and easy scalability of their networks. As per the latest report from IDC, DIGILINK is the No. 2 brand in India in SCS segment. DIGILINK has been regularly awarded with many prestigious accolades. PC Quest Users Choice Awards 2010 ranked DIGILINK as No.1 in India’s Most Wanted IT Brands for Structured Cabling. DIGILINK has been recognized as the Channel Champion in Network Cabling 2009, in a channel survey done by CRN and A. C. Neilson. DIGILINK received the award for Best Structured Cabling Brand 2010 by DQ Channel. DIGILINK is recognized as the Best Structured Cabling Company and Fasted growing Brand in IT industry by VARIndia StarNite Award 2009. DIGILINK & DIGISOL have a 24X7 toll free support helpdesk & 52 highly advanced service centers dotted across India to address the customer needs locally.

DIGILINK Organizes its Sales and Distributors meet at Sri Lanka

DIGILINK held its Annual Sales and Distributors’ Meet 2010 from the 11th to the 14th of November at Sri Lanka. All distributors along with their family were present for this event. The trip was immensely enjoyed by all the families as they travelled from Colombo to Kandy exploring the beautiful Sri-Lankan country. There was some business discussions off course but a lot of pleasure and bonding took place between the Company and Distributors’ families.

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15/10/2010

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channel chief “We lead the security market with 50 percent share globally” Eric Hoh, Vice President, Asia South Region, Symantec, spoke to Sonal Desai about the company’s strategies around unified technology architecture, and the new enhanced partner program Symantec has been talking about integrating all its technologies and developing a unified architecture. Where exactly did the idea come from?

across all aspects of information technology is Data Insight. This enables organizations to improve data governance through insights into the ownership and usage of unstructured data, including files such as documents, spreadsheets and e-mail.

Ever since we ideated about our new Partner Specialization Program, we have been thinking about integrating all the technologies into it. This would provide our partners with new opportunities around managed security services. Just consider the technologies they can leverage from our acquisitions! There’d be information protection from Veritas, desktop and server management (an integrated approach to information management) from Altiris, services from MessageLabs, and encryption security (complementing the endpoint) from PGP. Today, we lead the market with 50 percent share globally. We will continue to evolve, and push the envelope to compete with Avamar and Data Domain in areas such as data de-duplication, backup and archiving, and data protection. Next year we will release an encryption product, which is a direct result of our PGP acquisition.

Symantec has taken the first step to a unified architecture for its multiple product offerings with the Symantec Protection Center. Though the products come from different groups and have a different look and feel, the Protection Center enables tight integration of the roadmap. We have leveraged our acquisitions to provide a unified architecture for our products through efficient bundling. We will have a completely partner-led services strategy. We’re no longer going to be leaning on our own consulting organizations—we’ll be leaning on our partners to do that. In fact the new Enhanced Symantec Partner Program (ESPP) is designed to achieve the desired outcome.

How has Symantec unified its storage and security solutions over the last couple of years?

How will you transition your existing partners to ESPP?

From intellectual property to customer records, data has become critical to the bottom-line, so it’s not surprising that enterprises are asking hard questions about security, availability, disaster recovery and compliance. Enterprises are struggling with multiple-point solutions to manage and secure their unstructured data, and they need technology to solve their problems. An example of a Symantec technology that integrates

We will dissolve our Symantec Partner Program (SPP) in April 2011, and our SPP partners will be transitioned as ESPP partners. ESPP is an evolution of the existing SPP. Symantec is adding specializations to its requirements for Silver, Gold and Platinum partner levels. We are also introducing new master specializations for qualified partners who establish consulting practices in their solution specialization. Advanced benefits to help partners build competitive advantage, improve recognition and increase profitability will be available only through these specializations. As we roll out new technologies or acquire more companies, we will develop more specializations. It’s a question of quality vs quantity. With ESPP we are looking at partners to commit to us. But partners will still have to meet revenue targets, and

“The new program will enable partners to differentiate their business from competitors, maximize returns by using new tools, and accelerate profit with more predictable results” 12

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How are you enabling up-selling and cross-selling among partners?

channel chief there will be a refresh in the Platinum, Gold and Silver certifications. For example, partners with three specializations will be Platinum-certified, two specializations Gold-certified, and a single specialization Silver-certified.

“Data has become critical to the bottomline, so it’s not surprising that enterprises are asking hard questions about security, availability, DR and compliance”

What can partners expect from the new program? The new program lays greater emphasis on rewarding partner capabilities and competence, and provides exclusive benefits to specialized partners. We will provide partners with more opportunities for predictable and profitable business growth, relevant solutions to protect and manage their customers’ information, and skills and tools to deliver superior value to their customers.

What are the challenges expected during the transition? Awareness and education is of utmost importance. Our partners have to make the transition to the ESPP by March 2011. Since the launch, we have made available new resources and programs to maximize our partners’ investments and increase revenue. These include making available new specializations, rolling out partner-led consulting services, and providing marketing resources. During the recently-held Vision Mumbai 2010 customer event, we reached out to our partners and conveyed to them the benefits of the enhanced program. The program will enable partners to further differentiate their business from competitors, maximize returns by using new sales, technical and business enablement tools and resources, and accelerate profits

with more predictable results.

Symantec President and CEO Enrique Salem recently mentioned that the company wants its hosted business to grow by 15 percent from the present 5 percent. What are the plans for it? Symantec offers hosted services across verticals. For the vast majority of organizations, the transition to the cloud will not be a clean break, but rather a gradual movement of applications, services and supporting infrastructure to the cloud. Symantec plans to enable customers at all stages of this transition. We do see hosted services playing an important role in terms of offering increased options to partners to grow their pipeline with Symantec. Our partner strategy is designed to evolve depending on our customer needs and the market scenario.

What will be Symantec’s strategy in the next couple of years? Symantec’s vision is built around two concepts—people and information—and IT needs to work to bring these two together. We are assembling a set of solutions which bring together identity and device security, information protection, context and relevance, and the benefits of leveraging the cloud. n

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channel chief “I am now in control of PSG” Sunil Dutt, Vice President, Personal Systems Group, HP India, spoke to Dhaval Valia about his rather eventful first year at the company, and the restructuring of the commercial PC business It’s been just over a year since you took charge of HP’s Personal Systems Group (PSG). What do you reckon were the highlights? The journey has been about changing mindsets within HP and the partner community, and this is never an easy thing in any job or industry. But we have managed to achieve mindset change. Over the year, I have seen the entire cycle from disbelief to cynicism to acceptance to complete belief in PSG’s new go-to-market (GTM) model. In the process, I have learnt a lot about the IT industry and the PC segment. I have learnt what motivates and triggers the IT channel. However, the big learning for me has been the virtue of patience. When I joined I was probably riding a high horse and wanted to do and change things fast. But after a year I am more attuned to the IT industry, the HP culture and its vast partner ecosystem. I have found my footing and am now in control of the job at hand.

IDC’s Q3 FY2010-11 figures show that you still trail Dell, and by a bigger margin than in Q2. When will your new GTM translate into number gains? I think we have gained significant traction in the consumer business after the initial hiccups encountered during the implementation of the new distribution model. If you look at the research reports, you will see an improvement in HP’s consumer business. I would like to point out that while IDC and Gartner put HP at number two in the consumer PC market, Gfk Mode, a leading consumer research company, puts us ahead of Dell. While IDC and Gartner do their surveys from the supply side, Gfk does it from the demand side and plots the numbers sold to customers. Also, if you see IDC numbers closely, you’ll realize that it’s not the consumer but the commercial business that was down in Q3. What I consider important is whether we have the right GTM, and whether HP partners are growing and making money doing business. If these two things are in place, number gains will follow.

“Over the year I have seen the entire cycle from disbelief to cynicism to acceptance to complete belief in PSG’s new go-to-market model” 14

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In your earlier interview, you had said that the commercial business is like a well-oiled machine and hence you have put it in an autopilot mode. But today, as per your own admission, it’s where HP is losing share. I have to admit that the commercial business wasn’t as hunky-dory as I thought it was. As a result, as soon as our consumer business model began stabilizing, I turned my attention to the commercial business. I spoke to business partners across the country, heard their pain-points, and asked for their suggestions. Since September my focus has largely been on getting things right in the commercial channel.

What are the actions you have taken to fix the commercial channel? When I spoke to partners, there was plenty of confusion and dissatisfaction. This was primarily due to the lack of partner relationship management. There was no clear ownership within HP to drive partner engagement and customer accounts. This had more to do with our internal organization than anything else. We had to restructure the way we operated to re-establish our strengths among partners and customers. While it’s still work-in-progress, we have made headway in putting a new structure and a stronger team in place.

Can you elaborate on the new structure? Starting November, which is the beginning of HP’s fiscal year, we have restructured the commercial channel business into two separate units—Corporate, Enterprise and Public Sector (CEP), and Mid-market and SMB (MSMB). CEP will manage large accounts which require a different level of engagement. While most of this business will continue to be fulfilled by partners, HP will have a stronger customer engagement. MSMB is a more broad-based business and hence partner play is key. This unit will have high-touch partner engagement and low-touch HP engagement. We have hired Gurpreet Brar to head the MSMB business. Brar had a long stint with HP before he moved to Samsung a couple of years ago. The CEP business will have a new head by January 15. We will disclose his name soon. We have also got our five zonal managers in place to drive the commercial business, and have strengthened the zonal sales and partner relations teams.

channel chief Many HP business partners are upset with the removal of PFR incentives on special price clearance (SPC) deals. They say that it will hurt partner profitability, and, due to this, also affect their motivation to go after SPC deals and rate contracts. The changes in the PFR program have happened at the APJ level. Many partners have raised their concerns with us, and based on this we have gone to APJ and asked them to review the new policy. We have presented the argument that executing business in a market as vast as India has different cost structures compared to doing the same kind of business in other emerging countries. I firmly believe that there needs to be certain incentives for partners for any type of activity involved with fulfilling HP’s business, and we have built a strong case with the APJ team. I am hopeful that we will address this issue soon. My sense is that the PFR program will not change as it’s a global program, but we have the option to introduce some form of incentive for the SPC business, maybe outside the PFR umbrella.

Another issue business partners have been raising for some time is the lack of motivation among the HP sales team. Various organizational changes and people movements have dampened their morale. If you had brought up this issue a month ago you would have been very right. But since the introduction of the new structure and the strengthening of our team the energy levels of our team have gone up. There is a lot more ownership and excitement. Sitting at the HQ, I am seeing a lot of pressure coming from the regional sales teams. They have started making demands for various support they require to drive business in their respective territories. That’s a good thing, as that means they are up to something. Give the PSG team two more months and they will bounce back to their original spirit.

In the past six months action has been taken against a few PSG partners for violating HP’s code for business practice. Is this an exception or is it a routine process? It’s a routine process which HP undertakes to ensure honest and transparent business practices within the organization and among the partner community. There is a separate team which looks after the compliance of HP business practices.

“Many partners have raised their concerns regarding the recent changes in the PFR program. Based on this, we have asked APJ to review the policy” However, it is a clear message to our partners that we would like to do clean and transparent business. Everyone will have to work hard to earn their meals, and no shortcuts will be accepted. We don’t mind losing business if it is at the expense of honesty and transparency.

What are the priorities for 2011? For the consumer business there are two key priorities: to expand our coverage even further, and to revamp and rebuild our retail stores to improve the customer experience. Since we adopted the new distribution model, our market coverage has almost doubled from 890 cities to 1,600 cities. We have active resellers in each of these 1,600 cities who bill at least one PC unit every month. We have recently appointed Ranjivjit Singh as PSG CMO. With him on board, we are putting in place a plan to revamp our retail stores. For the commercial business, the priority is to increase coverage and get a larger pie of the MSMB business. Over the past few quarters our focus on MSMB hasn’t been as much as it should have been. We plan to go after the white spaces and develop new business in this segment.

How would you rate your progress, and how have your bosses rated you for the past one year? Like everyone else, I had my annual appraisal recently, and I have got positive feedback from my bosses, Joshua Brenkel, HP PSG head for APJ and Todd Bradley who heads HP PSG globally. They have approved the business model and appreciated what we have been doing over the past year. Over the last 12 months they have supported me on most aspects and have never pushed me back on anything, which is also a strong indicator that they approve the new PSG GTM. If I were to do my personal assessment, I think we have done most things right. A few things could have been done better and faster, but on hindsight it always seems that way. One thing I regret not doing earlier and faster is the restructuring of the commercial business. n

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01/01/2011

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market focus

Teraflopportunity The market for high performance computing products and services in India is estimated at $200 million, and growing at 15-20 percent annually n Ramdas S

he high performance computing (HPC) market is booming, and mid-market channel partners have begun to find opportunities in this niche space in the country. While earlier vendors used to handle these accounts directly, more vendors are now trusting partners to handle large HPC cases. In addition, there has been the emergence of a number of specialized systems integrators (SIs) who are focused on the HPC market. While in the past HPC had been limited largely to R&D and education, over the past five years a number of niche segments have opened up. The new segments include oil & natural gas, archaeology, manufacturing, design, media, biotechnology and pharma. With additional avenues opening up, vendors have also realized that customers are no more centred around large cities, hence they are showing interest in other cities too. “We have a number of partners who specialize in the HPC market, and they can set up solutions which can scale across multiple teraflops,” says Rajesh Dhar, Director, Industry Standard Servers, HP Enterprise Business, HP India. Though accurate market figures are not available, it would be fair to say that the market opportunity available in India was in the region of $200 million in 2010. Besides, the segment in India is witnessing annual growth of around 15-20 percent, while global growth rates are just about 4 percent. Tabor Research, which studies the HPC market, says

“Most HPC customers generate a lot of data, and this means the need for large network storage. It has benefited storage vendors like us” Sandeep Dutta

VP, Storage, STG, IBM India and South Asia

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that the global market will be around $23 billion for HPC hardware, software, services and consulting. In the Intersect360 Research Report 2009, the agency says that while the customer base and number of HPC installations are likely to double over the next three years, the total revenue will not grow because of sliding hardware prices. “It’s difficult to estimate the market size, but there are an estimated 5,000-7,000 deals in the country every year which can be classified as high computing, or at least a teraflop plus, in terms of computing performance. In a year we sell close to 2,000 servers that are around one or more teraflops in performance,” informs Sandeep Lodha, Director, Netweb Technologies, which is a partner for Supermicro and ScaleMP, among others.

What is HPC? The term is most commonly associated with computing used for scientific research or computational science. However, recently, HPC has also come to be applied to the business use of cluster-based supercomputers by data warehouses, and for line-of-business applications and transaction processing. Generally, the term ‘HPC’ is often used to denote any computer capable of computing performance of half a teraflop and more. HPC as a term arose after the term ‘supercomputing.’ It is sometimes used as a synonym for supercomputing, but in other contexts, ‘supercomputer’ is used to refer to a more powerful subset of high-performance computers, and the term supercomputing becomes a subset of high-performance computing. With the advent of GPU-based computing promoted by graphics chipset vendors such as Nvidia and ATI, desktops powered by higher-end graphics cards have gained the performance of a teraflop, making HPC more cost effective.

New growth drivers Traditionally, the opportunities were largely limited to academia and research. Today, the growth of industries

market focus such as media, telecom, finance, defense, oil and natural gas, nanotechnology and biosciences are said to the biggest reasons for the growth of the HPC segment. “Over the past three years we have had several wins from media and entertainment companies for HPC clusters and storage clusters. With the boom in the electronic media, there’s a move from analog to digital. Also, some media houses are investing in capacity building for animation and other creative work, and these need clustered computing,” says Sandeep Vahi, CEO, Compton Computers, New Delhi. Defense and R&D institutions have been taking a lot of interest in HPC, especially for modeling and simulation-processing. “Till a few years ago, for more compute cycles you had to set up clusters of computers. But with multi-core graphics chipsets such as solutions from Nvidia, we are able to offer a teraflop of computing power in a single workstation,” says Harish Kumar RP, Director of the Bengaluru-based Connoisseur Electronics. The finance market has also opened up in the recent past for HPC solutions. “Banks and stock exchanges are opting for HPC clusters to handle transaction volumes. From traditional Unix machines they are opting for x86 server-based clusters,” says Addison Snell, Research Associate with Tabor Research. The IT services market is also considering HPC clusters, and represents yet another opportunity. “We are urging our partners to look at helping Indian software providers to adopt multi-core computing platforms,” says Phil De La Zerda, Director, Worldwide Sales and Business Development, Intel Developer Product Division. Open source and free software-based applications are also driving the market. “Previously, HPC-related software was prohibitively expensive. However, with the availability of a number of tools on Linux and FreeBSD, it’s now cheaper to build cost-effective HPC clusters,” explains Lodha of Netweb. Sandeep Menon, Country Head, Novell India, points out, “If you take the top 500 HPC installations globally, more than 95 percent are on Linux or some other Unix flavor. Apart from the fact that a lot of software comes free, this proves that the operating system is very stable and secure.”

Vendor initiatives All major server and storage vendors have set up separate business practices for HPC over the past few years. For example, IBM prefers to call this space deep computing,

“Apart from the skill sets which are needed to set up clusters, it’s important that partners build domain expertise in the specific segments they are targeting” Pallab Talukdar

Country Head, Fujitsu India

and has a range of products on both the Power PC and x86 architecture. Fujitsu India is another vendor focused on the HPC market. “We have concentrated on markets such as scientific research with proven solutions for segments like astronomy, meteorology and geology. In India we are working with our SI partners for going after these verticals,” says Pallab Talukdar, Country Head, Fujitsu India. Apart from server clusters, the storage market has also benefited from the HPC boom. “Most HPC customers generate a lot of data, and this means the need for large network storage. It has benefited storage vendors like us,” says Sandeep K Dutta, Vice President, Storage, Systems and Technology Group, IBM India and South Asia. Both Intel and AMD have been shipping processors which have more cores and are available at cheaper prices; this should help providers to build more cost-effective HPC clusters. While Intel has announced 10-core processors, AMD, which is shipping 12-core processors, has announced 16-core Opteron processors. Remarks John Fruehe, Director, Server and Embedded Product Marketing, AMD, “The HPC community demands the very best in current products, and is always looking at the leading edge of innovation. The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform with 16 cores will further help customers with more cores for less power, money and memory.” While the opportunities look quite bright, partners need to show a lot of patience and commitment if they want to make it big in the HPC market. “Apart from the skill sets which are needed to set up clusters, it’s important that partners build a lot of domain expertise in the specific segments they are targeting,” advises Talukdar. “For some customers we end up providing even system administration services,” says Lodha. “The commitment levels which any vendor or partner needs to show in this space are very high.” Talukdar’s conclusion: “The space will be very rewarding since it has less competition with better margins.” n

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cover story

BM is going after the mid-market and in a big way. Since early 2010, the vendor has put in place a separate business unit to focus dedicatedly on mid-market customers—which it classifies as organizations with an employee base ranging from 100 to 1,000. Says Jyothi Satyanathan, Vice President, Mid-size Businesses and Inside Sales, IBM India and South Asia, “We have been working on an effective go-to-market (GTM) strategy to target the mid-market for the past many years. But beginning 2010, we finally cut a separate business unit to focus completely on this segment.” Currently, IBM has a strong 80-member team in place including inside and field sales, and a team of business partner representatives. It has aligned its three groups—Systems Technology Group (STG), Software Group and Global Technology Services (GTS)—and the Business Partner Organization (BPO), to work with the

“We have mapped 40,000 mid-market customers across 40 cities. This universe alone represents an opportunity of $2.5 billion” Jyothi Satyanathan, VP, Mid-size Businesses and Inside Sales, IBM

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mid-market organization and drive the overall GTM. Explaining the reason behind setting up a separate business unit, Satyanathan says, “IBM views the mid-market as the largest monolithic opportunity over the next five years. Globally, it represents a staggering $250 billion opportunity. In India, it is a $5 billion opportunity growing at twice the rate of the overall IT industry. However, it is largely fragmented and hence a different strategy is required. Therefore, a dedicated team to manage the business is essential.” Since the formation of the new business unit, IBM has diligently plotted the demographics of the vast mid-market segment in India. “In Q1 2010, we undertook a massive exercise to identify the addressable opportunity for the entire IBM portfolio of systems, software and services. We have captured an exclusive database of 40,000 companies across 40 cities, each of whom could potentially spend a minimum of `12-15 lakh in IT infrastructure solutions and services over the next two to three years,” says Satyanathan. “This customer universe alone represents an addressable opportunity of $2.5 billion over the next three years.”

Mid-market go-to-market IBM’s mid-market strategy revolves around three key elements—triple play, geo expansion and leveraging the partner ecosystem. “Mid-market customers are companies that rarely have a proper IT budget, aren’t as attuned to vendor brands,

cover story and have very little internal technology expertise. Hence, it is important to offer them services-led solutions. That’s where IBM strengths of triple play—software, systems and services—can be leveraged. The challenge, however, is to get the right-sized offerings that provide customers real business value. Over the past 12 months, we have been doing exactly that, putting together right-sized products, solutions and services,” informs Satyanathan. According to IBM, tier-2 and tier-3 cities are largely underserved, as most vendors have been so far focused on servicing mid-market customers in large cities. “The mid-market segment in smaller cities is fragmented and disparate. Hence, a closer customer interface is required. We have lined up significant investments to expand our reach from existing 22 cities to 45 cities by 2015, which will increase our market coverage from 135 cities to 300 plus cities. The cities for setting up branch locations have been chosen based on our customer mapping,” says Satyanathan. Simultaneously, the vendor has launched a unique initiative called Virtual Branch Office (VBO) to drive deeper engagement with partners and customers in branch as well as non-branch locations. “VBOs are a step toward creating deep local presence in key geographic locations. They leverage city-specific Websites that are equipped with features like live chats, product selection guides, and local sales and support contacts to help customers and resellers interact at will with IBM. We have activated 34 VBOs in 2010,” informs Satyanathan. The third and the most crucial element is the channel. Following its exercise of mapping customers in white spaces, the vendor undertook an in-depth gap analysis of its existing channel capacity and that required to target the 40,000 customers mapped in geo locations. And has put in place a comprehensive plan to build channel capacity over the next three years to target this $2.5 billion opportunity. “The plan includes developing both the channel breadth and depth. While we want to enroll more partners in the intended geo locations, we want our existing partners to build skills to cross-sell the entire portfolio of systems, software and services,” says Satyanathan.

Driving mid-market channels Over the past one year, IBM has made major changes to its channel engagement and programs in keeping with the new mid-market GTM. Satyanathan says IBM has evolved three mantras for partner engagement in the mid-market —simplification, growth and profitability. “Simplication is key to achieving breadth. We have simplified our programs to make it easier for partners of every size to do business with us. For instance, IBM earlier had 30 to 40 different promotions and incentive programs for every product category. That created confusion among partners. In 2010, we trimmed down these programs to 50 spanning all business units,” says Anoop Nambiar, Country Manager, Business Partner Organization, IBM India and South Asia. Over the past 12 months, the vendor’s focus has also been to make the small-deal business

Server power play

BM says that server sales in the mid-market grew at a brisk pace of 50 percent in 2010, thus helping the vendor gain market share in both x86 and entry-level non-x86 categories. In Q3 2010, IBM gained 4.5 percent share in the overall server market. And although it continued to trail HP in x86 category, it gained 2.5 percent share. In non-x 86 category, the vendor gained a share of 8.8 percent, following the launch of Power 7 servers. Jyothi Satyanathan, VP, Mid-Size Businesses and Inside Sales, IBM, attributes the growth in the overall server market to the two-pronged—depth and breadth—mid-market strategy. “To achieve depth, we worked with our top 150 STG partners, also known as capacity partners, to scale up their business so they can execute large deals and focus on solutions-centric projects. This was enabled by strengthening the lead management engine and by providing them with extended support and services. We also allied them with our top 50 ISVs with solutions specifically designed for Co-op banks, education and discrete manufacturing verticals like textiles.” To achieve breadth, IBM leveraged its geo expansion and white space program. “We went for breadth billing across a pool of additional 500 partners in 130 locations. The focus here was on making the stock-and-sell model efficient and revving up the small deals engine to help partners close deals faster.” On the product front even HP partners agree that IBM had a better story to tell with the launch of Power 7 and eX5 range. IBM also took a very aggressive stance against HP and OracleSun to win in competitive deals and also rolled out several new initiatives to encourage migration from other platforms. IBM claims to have sold 70 Power 7 servers in India including to several mid-market customers like Titan, Sterling Commerce, and Mind Corporation. “A significant number of these customers have migrated from other Unix platform and competing x86 platforms,” Satyanathan claims. IBM plans to certify more mid-market partners on its Dynamic Infrastructure specialties—Virtualization and Consolidation, Energy Efficiency, Business Resiliency, and Information Infrastructure. “A part our Smarter Planet initiative, Dynamic Infrastructure (DI) addresses customers’ need to create infrastructures that drive down costs, improve service and manage risk. Currently, we have three partners, Pentagon, Wysetek and New Wave Computing, who are DI certified. In 2011, we want to get more tier-2 partners certified in order to sell the solutions in mid-market space,” says Satyanathan. n

We have sold 70 Power 7 servers in India including to several mid-market customers like Titan, Sterling Commerce, and Mind Corporation. Many of these customers have migrated from other Unix and competing x86 platforms

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cover story “We have improved overall incentive structure. Partners get rewards from dollar one. We have introduced a program that offers incentives to invest in skills and demand generation” Anoop Nambiar, Country Manager, Business Partner Organization, IBM

(deals less than $50,000) autonomous, and completely driven by partners and distributors. To achieve this, IBM has been expanding its distribution portfolio to include several new products for stock and sell. Additionally, it has also been empowering distributors for channel development and partner support. “One example of this is IBM software. The three distributors—Ingram, Redington and Avnet—have put in place a dedicated team of 40 members to drive partner-led software business,” points Satyanathan. In order to increase the frequency and the volume of the run-rate business through partners, IBM has enhanced its small-deal management system, and fast tracked the process of special price clearance (SPC) and incentive payouts. The vendor claims to have brought down the time for SPC on small deals to less than four hours. “We launched a new program called Expand Your Turf to get partners to focus on small value deals and drive it autonomously. Available to any registered partner, the program provides an opportunity to earn anywhere between 1 to 5 percent incentive on achieving agreed targets for System x, and Power systems and storage. Resellers in smaller cities get additional rebates. More than 200 partners are earning the benefits of this program,” informs Nambiar. The other mantra for mid-market engagement is to drive partners’ growth and profitability. IBM has rolled out several programs aimed at helping partners cross-sell its entire portfolio. “We have improved the overall incentive structure across the board. Partners are eligible for financial rewards from dollar one and they receive their incentives immediately upon closing deals. This gives them more visibility into their finances, and reduces forecasting risk and budget uncertainty,’ says Nambiar. IBM has also launched a new incentive program called Benefit Pack aimed at incentivizing partners to invest in developing skill-sets for cross-sales. “This annual program has been devised to drive growth in the mid-market and geo expansion accounts. An eligible partner gets up to one percent of his annual IBM target, to be invested in skills building and demand generation. This is offered as a single incentive at the start of the year to help the partner build the required resources to achieve his value and volume sales targets. Currently, more than 50 partners are benefiting from this program,” informs Nambiar. Further, IBM has revamped its Software Value Program. Partners investing in training and certification and those creating cross-selling opportunities are encouraged with higher

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Priming storage

torage business turned out to be the biggest beneficiary of IBM’s new mid-market and geo expansion strategy. IBM improved its market share in the overall external disk storage market upping its market share from 20 percent in Q1 2010 to 27 percent in Q3 2010, maintaining the top spot. Sandeep Dutta, Vice President, Storage, STG, IBM India, attributes the strong storage performance to the new mid-market focus. “The focus on geo expansion and small deals resulted in a 75 percent growth for our entry-level storage business, while the focus on driving high-value solutions-centric business gave us more than 80 percent growth in the mid-range.” During the year IBM introduced several new products in the mid-range and entry-level segments including the ProtecTier Deduplication Appliance; entry-level DS3500 with built-in consolidation and virtualization features; and Storwize V7000, which the vendor claims is a gamechanging product that has opened new growth avenues for mid-market partners. Also it introduced its enterprise XIV range to business partners to drive high-value projects in the mid-market. Dutta says that the entire focus for the storage team during 2010 was to drive partner enablement and to achieve both depth and breadth. “We enrolled more partners under our flagship Storage Champs program. As a result our channel penetration increased from 240 to 300 active partners, and average storage billing for partner has increased substantially,” claims Dutta. The goal for 2011 is to drive solutions-centric sales. “Data explosion is making storage a strategic investment priority for companies of all sizes. Customer focus is on doing more with existing infrastructure, and this is leading to increase in consolidation, virtualization and de-dupe technologies. We will leverage our triple play of hardware, software and services to provide differentiated offerings that deliver business outcomes to our clients,” he opines. On the channel front IBM plans to double the mid-range Storage Champs from 35 to 60 and also introduce more partners to the XIV range. “Our plan is to further strengthen our partner community by constantly training them through certification courses about our latest offerings. We want them to move up the ladder from selling boxes to solutions, and be perceived as consultants rather than sales representatives,” adds Dutta. n

“The focus on geo expansion and small deals resulted in a 75 percent growth for our entry-level storage, while the focus on driving solutions-centric business gave us more than 80 percent growth in the mid-range” Sandeep Dutta, Vice President, Storage, STG, IBM India

cover story “2010 has seen a 75 percent increase in mid-market disbursals. While we offer finance for a minimum deal size of $25,000, due to our geo focus we financed many deals as small as $5,000” Sapan Jain, Country Executive, IBM Global Financing, India and South Asia

incentive structure than before. The other big initiative, Satyanathan claims, is the enhancement of the lead generation engine. “Earlier we generated too many leads, which were passed to all partners. Now, only qualified leads are passed based on partners’ skill-sets and capabilities. This has resulted in better lead conversion. For every 10 leads, we are now able to close 7-8. Previously, the conversion ratio was 2 per 10 leads.” In order to build channel capacity, IBM has also upped its investment in partner training. “In 2010, we have trained and retrained 1,100 partner representatives across 600 partner organizations in 41 cities—including 250 partner reps trained for IBM software—through various advanced training programs and product-related training. With partners being so critical to mid-market success, it is important to ensure that they speak the language IBM to their customers,” avers Satyanathan. IBM has also pooled in its Global Financing arm in order to drive the mid-market GTM. According to Sapan Jain, Country Executive, IBM Global Financing, India and South Asia, at a time when financial institutions continue to be wary of lending to mid-market customers, the financing from IBM has greatly helped the mid-market initiative. “Last year, we announced products targeted at the mid-market to help customers invest in IT without locking their capital up-front—thus making the ROI case even more compelling. We saw a 75 percent increase in mid-market disbursals, compared to 2009. While we usually offer finance for a minimum deal size of $25,000, in keeping with the focus on geo locations we financed many deals as small as $5,000,” he adds. Jain says the uniqueness of IGF is that it finances deals that only have 20 percent of IBM component. “To get financing for a `10 lakh IT infrastructure project, the customer needs to bill only `2 lakh of IBM products. The rest could include network, PCs and other related infrastructure products from different brands. In addition we also finance services,” he explains.

Key performance indicators How does IBM’s high-stake mid-market model measure up on ground? Over the past several years, every IT vendor has been obsessed with the mid-market, but the sector has been tough to conquer. Its disparateness and fragmentation has baffled many, and figuring out the right GTM has been the biggest challenge. While IBM realizes that it’s too early to judge the performance of its new model, it claims that the initial indications have been positive and

Big on software

lobally, the software business accounts for $23 billion or 25 percent of IBM’s annual revenues of $95 billion and contributes more than 40 percent margins to its bottomline. In India, while the software business is small, it has been growing at a CAGR of 60 percent over the past two years. “In 2010, we enabled a total of 250 partners in more than 20 cities through year-long programs. We also enhanced the Software Value Plus (SVP) and the Software Value Incentive (SVI) programs to ensure more business and profitability for certified partners,” informs Anil Menon, Vice President, Channel, Software Group, IBM India and South Asia. In addition, IBM set up a dedicated Partner Sales and Support Center for software to drive small deals and support partners with leads and necessary pre and post-sales. It also set up the Partner Cloud Center in Pune to provide partners access to IBM’s cloud offerings and technical expertise. IBM along with its distributors—Ingram, Redington and Avnet—created a dedicated team of 40 to drive software sales in smaller cities and promote cross-sales among STG partners. “In the last year, IBM enabled 150 software resellers; 40 STG partners to cross-sell software solutions; and another 60 STG partners to identify reselling opportunities,” he claims. Under the enhanced SVP program, more benefits have been extended to certified partners. “The new SVP makes it mandatory for partners to have certifications to execute deals. All opportunities or deals signed by resellers are routed through certified partners,” states Menon. “Under the new SVI, partners can earn incentives ranging from 5 percent for opportunity identification to 40 percent for selling in competitive deals.” While among the STG partners Tivoli Fast Backup and Lotus have been doing well, software solutions partners have been driving middleware products. By the end of next quarter, IBM plans to have 75 STG partners certified on software. “Currently, we are running the Rapid Tivoli Certification drive to train 20 select storage partners. This is a 5-day hands-on training camp followed by technical certification for Tivoli configuration, installation and implementation,” he says. For 2011, IBM plans to consolidate the software GTM and introduce more ready-to-use cross-brand solutions in areas such as continuous data protection, analytics, and backup. “From 2007 to 2010, contribution from tier-2 cities has gone up from 20 to 40 percent. In 2011, we expect tier-2 cities to contribute 60 percent to overall software revenues,” Menon concludes. n

“In 2010, we enabled 250 partners in more than 20 cities. We also enhanced the Software Value Plus program to ensure more business and profitability for certified partners” Anil Menon, Vice President, Channel, Software Group, IBM India

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cover story Software has given us deeper engagement with customers. In new accounts, when you offer a combination of hardware and software, the customer gives you more respect than selling only hardware

in line with expectations. “One strong indication that the new GTM is working well is that in the first nine months of 2010 we acquired more than 700 new mid-market customers in geo locations. This is the highest ever number of net new customer acquisitions in small cities,” says Satyanathan. The mid-market business has been growing at 25 percent since the new model came into being and it has recorded market share gains in server and storage. In servers, IBM claims that sales to the mid-market grew 50 percent in the first three quarters of 2010. The storage business witnessed even bigger gains on back of a strong performance from the mid-market segment. While entry-level run-rate storage grew at a brisk 75 percent during the first three quarters, the midrange offerings grew at over 80 percent. The software business grew at a robust 60 percent during the period. Satyanathan says that even the channel performance indicators are looking good. During 2010, IBM increased channel penetration from 400 active partners in 100 locations to more than 570 partners across 135 cities. “Channel participation in the business has also increased—partner share in the overall STG business has increased from 84 to 95 percent and for software it has increased from 60 to 80 percent. Average billing per partner in non-metro locations has increased by 18 percent across brands. In addition, we were able to comprehensively address various state data center projects in geo locations due to our expanded coverage.”

Partner speak The mid-market strategy and geo expansion seems to have gone down well with IBM partners too. “Ever since IBM rolled out the mid-market strategy there is a unified partner engagement, and reselling software has become a lucrative option,” says Prakash Vaswani, Founder CEO, Crescent Technologies. The Mumbai-based `15-crore Crescent was previously focused on selling STG products. It began selling software in Q3 2010. Since then, it has signed up two large deals totaling `40 lakh—Lotus deployment for DB Realty and Websphere for an ICICI group company—and claims to have another three deals worth `35 lakh in the pipeline. Crescent is already in the process of setting up a separate team for IBM software and is planning to certify four personnel on Tivoli and Lotus. “IBM software offers a minimum 10 percent in front-end and back-end margins. Once certified, the margin and benefits increase. A partner also becomes eligible for leads,” says Vaswani. Vaswani believes that adding IBM software has been a differentiating feature. “It has given

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Services to lead the way

BM believes that providing services-led solutions is critical in the mid-market. “Services account for almost 65 percent of the total mid-market opportunity,” says Jyothi Satyanathan, VP, Mid-Size Businesses and Inside Sales, IBM. “We need to help our partners achieve greater sales potential by leveraging services and services-led solutions.” So far, IBM has launched: Data Mobility, Storage Optimization and Integration services; Managed Resiliency services; Maintenance and Technical support services; and Site and Facilities management services. “All these services have been developed and packaged keeping in mind the Indian mid-market scenario. For instance, the managed resiliency services have been packaged specifically for small co-operative banks that are mandated to have a data recovery (DR) setup as per RBI regulation,” he explains. So far, IBM has activated 30 of its partners to sell services. “Many STG partners, enabled to sell services, have seen an increase in their hardware sales. Offering complementary services is helping them differentiate from the competition and creating deep-selling opportunities,” says Satyanathan. “Two mid-market partners, Team Computers and Pentagon have done good services business in the past two quarters.” IBM has also evolved special incentive and training programs to enable partners sell and deliver services effectively. “We have rolled out co-marketing programs to drive sales, and have integrated the services portfolio with our small deals management system,” he informs. IBM has evolved three different models to ensure that partners of all sizes get to participate in the services play. Under the first, a reseller can be an opportunity identifier, wherein they need to generate qualified leads, help IBM in closing them, and earn commission. Second, he resells the services but it’s delivered by GTS. The partner gets to set his price to customers and do the billing, and thus determine his profits. In the third option, the BP can sell the services and co-deliver it with GTS. Currently, IBM is in the process of rolling out an interesting service called Flexible CIO. Organizations who can’t afford an experienced CIO can hire the services of one, and opt to pay either per hour or per project. Over the next six months, IBM plans to add two more services which include Tivoli Live and Connect M. In 2011, IBM’s goals are to have more partners’ codeliver services. “In Q1 2011, we have planned for 120 hours of tech enablement for 10 key partners. The target in 2011 is to route 80 percent of mid-market services through partners,” says Satyanathan. n

Many STG partners who have been enabled to sell services, have seen an increase in their hardware sales. Offering complementary services is helping them differentiate from the competition and creating deep-selling opportunities

cover story us deeper engagement with existing customers. In new accounts, when you go with hardware-software combination, the customer gives you more respect than if you were a hardware-only partner,” he avers. Subbaram Gowra, Managing Partner, Gowra Bits and Bytes, also has a similar story to tell. The Hyderabadbased `20-crore company specializes in storage and blade servers. “Earlier IBM had a ‘silo-approach’, but now the engagement has become unified and simple. Also there has been tremendous focus on training and certification. IBM has introduced several new tools like the Sales Play Card, which have proved really effective.” Software has provided Gowra strong up-sell opportunities. As a result the average deal size has increased. The company recently closed two software deals for Tivoli and expects IBM software to rake in `1 crore next fiscal. For Rajiv Mathur of `12-crore Jaipur-based Icon Integrated Services, IBM’s geo expansion strategy has meant more business particularly from the interior regions of Rajasthan. “Twelve months ago, IBM opened an office in Jaipur and put a four member team, which has been proactive in developing business in upcountry locations. Recently, we became the first IBM partner to deploy their latest Scalable and Modular Server Room solution for a customer located 200km away from Jaipur,” says Mathur. Mumbai-based `100-crore Pentagon Systems and Services too has benefited from the software and services play. “We have been among the very few partners chosen to co-deliver services with IBM GTS. So far, we have signed two large multi-year customer contracts. In addition, software has greatly helped in boosting margins,” says CEO Sairaman Mudaliar. On the back of IBM’s strong and integrated mid-market GTM, Pentagon has acquired 30 new customers in the past 10 months. Also, it has seen a significant increase in its server business following the launch of Power 7. “The new server line has seen a strong play in the market and is helping us win deals. In fact, we have done three migrations from HP and Sun to Power 7 during the last six months,” Mudaliar claims. Mudaliar says that the enhanced incentive structure has meant an increase in profitability. “IBM’s new programs and the enhancement in the overall incentive structures have led to a substantial increase in margins for us. This has encouraged us to invest more in sprucing up our solutions and services skill-sets,” he opines. While partners say that IBM seems to have got most things right with its mid-market strategy, there are a few aspects it needs to work on. “While there is no denying that engagement and support from IBM has increased significantly and there is a lot of focus on partner enablement and training, the

IBM’s new programs and enhancements in the incentive structures have led to a substantial increase in partner margins. This has encouraged us to invest more in sprucing up solutions and services

A vertical-focused strategy is still missing in the mid-market. IBM needs to build more vertical-specific solutions and also conduct more co-funded marketing activities in these verticals

negative thing is that lead passing has decreased. We don’t get as many leads as we got earlier,” says Vaswani. Gowra adds, “We are strong in pharma, healthcare and hospitality sectors. But a vertical-focused strategy is missing. IBM needs to build more vertical-specific solutions and also conduct more co-funded marketing activities in these verticals.” Mudaliar too agrees that IBM has got the key elements of its mid-market strategy right. “IBM’s customer mapping in geo locations, packaging of services, recent product launches for the mid-market and enhanced and new partner programs indicate that IBM has done its homework well. But when you are doing well, the challenge is to sustain it.”

Going forward Satyanathan says that year 2010 was just the first lap in the journey to conquer the mid-market opportunity. While the outcome of the first phase has been in line with expectations, the bigger battle lies ahead as IBM tries to scale the model in 2011. “The first year is always easy as its about getting the right organization and the strategy right. It is an investment phase and the pressure to deliver isn’t high. The big test will be in 2011 as we consolidate the initiatives and programs introduced, and begin to scale the model; and start plotting the returns on investments,” he opines. Highlighting the priorities for 2011, Satyanathan says, “First and foremost we need to create an overarching mid-market program, which is currently absent. We are working on the program and we should be able to launch it by Q2 2011. This will bring a lot more focus internally and among partners,” adds Satyanathan. Other priorities include doubling market coverage, enabling more partners to cross-sell solutions and co-deliver services, and increasing the rate of new customer acquisitions in white spaces. “The priorities for 2011 are no different from 2010. Just that we need to do things faster and better,” he says. Also on agenda is the rollout of vertical-specific solutions. “Right-sized solutions are key to mid-market success. We have been working with 50 leading ISVs to develop solutions for fast-growth verticals. They are planned for rollout soon,” he says. While 2010 was the year for software, Satyanathan says that 2011 is the year for driving services. “We have had some IP related issues in scaling up the services business and leveraging the co-delivery model. As these issues get resolved, scaling of services business will happen. We plan to introduce certification for services to have a wider set of partners capable of co-delivering.” n

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Role model focused on value addition With a projected turnover of `240 crore, Creative Peripherals and Distribution is regarded among the leading IT sub-distributors in the country. The man behind the success, founder CEO Ketan Patel shares the story n Abhijeet Mukherjee

orn in a family of medical professionals, Ketan Patel, CEO, Creative Peripherals and Distribution, could be practicing medicine today. But destiny had different designs for him and he opted for engineering instead. After completing his engineering degree in 1989, Patel’s first job was with Xpress Computers (previously Computech Services) as a service engineer. Post that, he worked with HS Technologies assembling PCs for a year. That’s when the entrepreneurial bug bit him. “Those days there were very few PC brands, and customers mostly bought assembled PCs. The components market was highly unorganized, and there were no proper warranties available. Hence, providing post-sales services was lucrative,” he recalls. Fortunately for Patel, his family was very supportive. “When I discussed my plan to start my own venture, my mother gave me a seed capital of `1,50,000. Further, for the first two years till the business took off, she supported my venture by paying the office rent,” Patel reminisces. “My elder brother Anup, a practicing doctor, helped me in managing the operations during the initial phase.” From a small rented office in Lamington Road, Patel started Creative in 1992 providing post-sales support. In 1997, he decided to expand the business and move to sub-distribution, partnering with Epson. In 2000, the company signed up with Microsoft for distributing their products in Mumbai and Gujarat, which Patel regards as a major turning point for Creative. “At that point in time, the Microsoft hardware business was unable to make any headway. The India market wasn’t interested in the business as it was small in terms of revenue. Also the pricing was higher, and large distributors were not interested in distributing the brand. That’s when we stepped in and took full charge of their business from surveying the market, enrolling and building a partner network in the western region, and driving marketing and sales at the channel and consumer

“We demand exclusive relationship with vendors, choose products that have the potential of 20-30 percent CAGR and provide a minimum margin of 7 percent”

level,” says Patel. Instead of taking the easy route of focusing on large and established dealers and resellers, Creative decided to tap small and new resellers to sell Microsoft hardware products. The company was also among the first distributors to realize the potential of small cities and built a strong network in these cities. “Today our coverage in the western region is unmatched, and we have a strong and unique logistics. This is entirely due to the hard work we put in initially to develop new markets and channels,” claims Patel. Looking at its distribution strengths in the western region, more vendors wanted to partner with Creative. However, Patel was very clear that he wanted to remain focused and exclusive. “Right from the beginning, we devised four core principles for choosing products and vendors. First is that the vendor should look for certain value additions from our side. Second, we choose only those product categories that have the growth potential of over 20-30 percent CAGR over the next several years. Third, we demand exclusive relationship with vendors. And fourth, the product we sign up should meet our minimum margin criteria of 7 percent.” Citing an example of how the company has applied these core principles to business, Patel says, “In 2003, we stopped selling desktops components as we felt it was a declining category. Also if you look at our list of vendors, we have maintained exclusivity.” Today, Creative distributes products of brands like Microsoft, Belkin, AOC, Zen, Lava, Tucano, Sennheiser, Verbatim, Touchmate, BitDefender, eScan, Compro Technology, TVS Electronics, Reliance, MTS and Tata Photon.

Business growth and performance Focused business strategy has translated into exponential growth for Creative. From a turnover of `13 crore in FY2002-03, the company closed FY2009-10 at `120 crore. It is well on track to achieve a turnover of `240 crore by the end of the current fiscal. Of this, nearly 80 percent of the revenues will come from distribution business, while 20 percent will come from its services companies, Bit-Tech service and Microgate Corporation. While Bit-Tech is the repairs and service arm of the group, and provides post-sales support for components and peripherals. Microgate provides annual maintenance

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role model

2010 2010

2009 2005 2000

1997

1992

channel is better organized and contracts (AMCs) to SOHO and MILESTONES has a wider coverage than the IT SME customers. channel. However, it does not have Creative attributes its high growth well trained manpower with sound to its strengthening of relationships Creative started as a service product knowledge currently. with its two key vendors—AOC provider from Lamington Road And hence, it’s unable to provide and Belkin—which are growing at satisfactory solution to customers. 100 percent for the company. “Our Became sub-distributor for But it’s just a matter of time.” partnership with AOC is going great Epson and TVS-E He believes that the biggest guns for the LCD monitors. During change the IT channel will see in the last year we also began Signed Microsoft for hardware the coming year is the reduction in distributing AOC TVs, and this distribution credit period. “The channel has had has contributed significantly to the it easy with 21-28 days credit. I think topline. Belkin has been a top Appointed distributor for AOC that’s going to shrink, and the credit performing brand for us over the monitors in Maharashtra period will go down to less than past couple of years, thanks to their 10 days over the year on most aggressive plans and strong sales Achieved `120 crore consumer products. The IT channel efforts,” Patel opines. turnover will have to become more efficient, The other major growth contribuand resellers will have to become tion has come from the mobile Diversified into telecom and more effective in managing their business. Last year the company CE segment sales cycles.” signed up with mobile handset Despite several of its principals brand Zen and Lava, and also began Began distributing AOC TVs requesting Creative to expand distributing mobile broadband beyond the western region, Patel modems from Reliance, MTS and says he is not interested in geoTata Photon. This business has been expansion. “Focusing on one region has emerged as our growing at a very brisk pace. biggest strength. We don’t want to spread ourselves thin One of the factors that has helped Creative’s growth by expanding. Rather we would focus on building deeper is the fervent relationship it shares with large format coverage, take more products to our partners, and offer retailers (LFRs) including regional player like Vijay more value addition to principals.” Sales and national player like Croma. “We are preferred He says that the strength of Creative is visible from the partners for all major LFRs, as we have clear and deeper annual channel satisfaction survey. “Our endeavor is to be understanding of their business pattern,” claims Patel. recognized as a company that is fair to vendors and to our partners. We recently surveyed our reseller partners, Future plans and 96 percent of them voted us as the most trusted Patel says his goal to make Creative the most preferred distributor and preferred us over the other distributors distributor in the western region not only for the IT offering similar products and brands.” products but all types of digital technology devices. “Though we’ve been talking about convergence for a long time, the market has actually become mature now. We are On a personal note seeing new categories like tablets, 3D display and 3G Patel believes that it is his duty to ensure that the gaining traction in a significant way.” IT channel becomes a better place to attract new Over the past few years, Creative has developed a talent. Hence, he is actively involved with TAIT for separate team to focus on high-growth convergence several years. products. “We recently signed up with Motorola to disDuring his tenure as President of the Mumbai chantribute their smartphones in Ahmedabad territory. We nel association from 2009-10, he made three things his are in talks with tablet and ebook reader vendors, and priority: inculcating best business practices among are hopeful of launching products soon,” he informs. channels, ensuring growth and profitability for Patel is of the firm belief that the IT vendors will resellers, and preparing the IT retail channel to increasingly move toward the telecom channels if the compete with LFRs and the telecom channel. IT channel doesn’t shape up to the new realities and He regards Mohit Anand, MD of Belkin as his business models. “Six months down the line there mentor and role model. “When he was heading the would not be any difference between a computer and a Microsoft hardware business, Anand introduced me to mobile because all devices are converging. The telecom distribution. He worked closely with me to conceptualize our core philosophy, which today has become our USP.” When he is not working, Patel likes to read. He is also “The telecom channel is better organized a fitness freak. But instead of going to the gym, he prefers walking. Ask him what his ultimate goal is and he says, and has a wider coverage than the IT chan“I wish to be respected not on how big a business I nel. However, it does not have well trained built, but as a person who believed in ethical, fair and transparent ventures.” n manpower with sound product knowledge” 26

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tech focus Collaboration software

races to keep up

hen Attachmate announced that it had agreed to buy Novell for $2.2 billion, many said it marked the end of an era. Indeed, in many ways it does: Novell was there at the beginning of the information technology reseller channel, it has been one of Microsoft’s fiercest competitors, and it has been and continues to be a leader

keep up with it all. In 2010, we’ve seen major advances in Microsoft’s approach to collaboration both with SharePoint 2010 as well as major improvements to its Office 2010 and Office Live solutions. Other players including IBM Lotus and Google, continue to—or at least try to—weave new pieces of functionality into

Cost and complexity evaporates as cloud-based collaboration makes it easier to build robust capabilities into day-to-day business n Edward F Moltzen

in client/server computing. But Attachmate’s takeover of Novell also happens at the beginning of another era in IT—an era in which independent software vendors are racing to keep up with the demands of crossplatform, enterprise collaboration. Organizations are relying less on e-mail to communicate, and more on collaboration solutions. That’s great—except that the demands of enterprise collaboration, as well as use patterns, continue to change dramatically. And so vendors are racing to ensure their collaboration solutions continue to

their line card. And Novell—almost at the very time the Attachmate announcement was made—launched a beta version of a hosted or on-premise collaboration solution called Vibe, which shows significant promise. CRN Test Center offers this snapshot of collaboration solutions. It’s only a snapshot, really, because the landscape, functionality and features continue to come from developers at breakneck pace. Here is a look, solution by solution, at what may be the industry’s top collaboration solutions and how they may fit right now into the needs of small, midsize or large enterprises.

Novell Vibe

Novell’s Vibe is snappy and fast and appears to have filtered out all of the distractions and nonsense found on other online collaboration sites

Vibe recently was launched into beta mode, but it’s easy to see that this may become a very significant collaboration solution. US-based Novell appears to have taken the best elements of both Twitter and Facebook and wrapped them into a business-focused, online solution. Vibe allows users to create business profiles—as one would in Twitter or Facebook. It allows for the following of others, on-the-fly group creation, message threads, private messages and online file sharing. The file-sharing feature is really nice, designed to allow for the drag-and-drop of a specific file into a field in a user’s main console. Once uploaded, a file can be shared with specific people. Novell calls Vibe a social collaboration platform. (Is there any other kind of collaboration?) But unlike other solutions, Vibe provides workspace areas in a

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tech focus

Microsoft’s SharePoint can be integrated with online versions of Office Communication Server, Exchange and Live Meeting user’s console that allow for document and file creation, sharing and contact management. It provides a presenceawareness tool that informs others in your network of your availability. But what makes Novell’s solution work so well is that it appears to have filtered out all of the distraction and nonsense that you’d find in other online collaboration sites. It’s also snappy and fast, perhaps owing to the fact that its primary browser of support is Google Chrome. And, interestingly, Vibe will not work in Internet Explorer. When considering collaboration solutions, the CRN Test Center highly recommends examining Vibe’s potential and whether it can solve a specific business issue. If it’s not lost in the Attachmate shuffle, Vibe could have a nice future.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010, OfficeLive Microsoft comes clean about SharePoint 2010 in the product’s on-premise installation documentation: “The logical result of SharePoint Server’s flexibility and richness can be a high degree of complexity around installing and configuring SharePoint Server correctly.” We’ve been preaching this for some time, but the two biggest enemies of small or mid-size business when it comes to information technology are cost and complexity. And SharePoint as an on-premise application has its share of complexity. But Microsoft, as part of its drive to place every single element of its product line in the cloud, now provides a hosted version of SharePoint that eliminates the complexity and allows an enterprise to get up and running with this application in just a few minutes. Not that we don’t like SharePoint 2010 as an on-premise solution. It’s a snappy, easy installation on an industry-standard server (we’d recommend a dual-CPU server with at least 16GB RAM). But it still requires a fair amount of patience to configure; in the CRN Test Center lab it was a slow process that took

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multiple attempts to get right and in working order. However, it’s still an improvement over previous iterations of SharePoint. While SharePoint 2010 should really be the province of midsize to large enterprises, Microsoft has done a stellar job of integrating elements of SharePoint’s functionality into its OfficeLive product. The interface, ability to share and collaborate on basic office documents, conduct instant messaging conversations and more do what SharePoint sets out to do: enable collaboration. The hosted application, as part of Microsoft Online Services, can be integrated with online versions of Office Communication Server, Exchange and Live Meeting. Administrators have full user control via a robust management console. A half-hour after establishing an account, it’s possible to have an enterprise sharing tasks, calendar information, files, instant messages and threaded conversations. Microsoft estimates the cost to an enterprise at $5.25 per user, per month for hosted SharePoint.

Google Apps The biggest news this year about Google Collaboration isn’t about what application it’s offering, but about what application it’s not offering: Google Wave. While the online search, tech and tools giant continues to offer Google Apps with collaboration functions in Google Docs, Google Presentation and Google Spreadsheet, among others, Google Wave was a somewhat bold beta test/experiment into realtime collaboration, file sharing and group chat. While the site still works, it will soon be shut down. The result, Google said earlier this year, of somewhat disappointing adoption. The company said it would find ways to incorporate the technology and functionality of Wave into other offerings in the future. The failure of Wave to catch on, it appears, had less to do with the impressive technology that Google provided than with the collaboration use patterns that have been the default habits for the past several years. But in the here and now, Google appears to be more focused in other areas such as its forthcoming Chrome operating system than with keeping up with the likes of Microsoft or Novell. In terms of pure collaboration for enterprises, Google Apps does not offer the robust features and functions of SharePoint (on premise or online), and its far-flung offerings like Google Buzz, Google Chat and Google Groups do not offer the cohesion that Novell is showing with Vibe.

IBM LotusLive IBM was one of the first major software companies to begin providing Web-based mash-up services five years ago and has over time ported much of what it has learned into its cloud-based, LotusLive suite of offerings. Since then, IBM has continued to add functionality and improvements to LotusLive. For example, LotusLive Meetings—which allows for interactive, online meetings with whiteboards, desktop and file sharing, audio and

tech focus chat—now provides mobile apps for both BlackBerry and iPhone. We downloaded the iPhone app, for example, to find that it’s now possible to log into a LotusLive interactive meeting from your iPhone. Setup is as simple as could be, and entering a LotusLive meeting via iPhone is as easy as downloading the app from the Apple iTunes App Store, entering login and meeting ID information, and getting in. Those on the road are no longer the forgotten children of the workgroup when it comes to live, realtime collaboration. LotusLive Mobile is in beta. IBM sets a baseline rate of $10 per month, per user, for its LotusLive Suite for online collaboration, which includes iNotes, Meetings and collaboration tools. In addition to LotusLive, IBM provides LotusLive Labs—which, among other things, will provide preview looks at the company’s forthcoming Lotus Project Concord—an online, collaborative document creation and sharing application. Look out, Google Docs. When it comes to online collaboration solutions for enterprises of all sizes, IBM LotusLive is a must-consider.

The bottom line Software vendors are making it impossible to not build robust, collaboration capabilities into day-to-day business. Where cost and complexity were challenges in the past, those challenges have clearly begun to evaporate. Cloud-based (online) collaboration services present the same questions as any other cloud-based application or service. Is security strong enough? How about availability and performance? What about uptime? Can these services be easily managed? For all of the above collaboration offerings, the answers are essentially the same. We found no major performance issues, all come with sound management and administrative tools, security is for the most part industry-standard for online collaboration, and ease of use is steady. Microsoft SharePoint and IBM LotusLive remain top collaboration solutions for enterprises of all sizes and give solution providers opportunities to deliver significant value, service and differentiation to an entire organization. From a functionality standpoint, Google needs to pick up its game. Not only have IBM Lotus and Microsoft expanded their enterprise collaboration gap with Google, they are now driving their differentiated technology into online productivity. For Microsoft,

IBM has continued to add functionality and improvements to LotusLive, including the ability to enter a Lotus Live interactive meeting from your iPhone the company has driven much of its sound, snappy collaboration technology into its Office franchise— creating what is a much more seamless synergy between Office 2010 and Microsoft OfficeLive—in some respects with much greater functionality than Google Docs. It’s the same way with IBM Lotus and its LotusLive; Project Concord would add a productivity layer to its online collaboration suite that would match if not surpass Google Apps. Even Novell, with its Vibe collaboration offering, looks much more inviting in many ways than Google’s offerings. In the coming six months to a year, we would like to see more of a drive to bring these core collaboration tools to handhelds and tablets, as the major use-pattern shift toward touch and mobility continues to pick up momentum. That also would provide greater opportunities to introduce functionality like geo-location and geo-tagging to collaboration, which could be incredibly powerful to enterprises of all sizes and types. And, to better address enterprises’ requirements of additional security, we’d like to see encrypted collaboration introduced into these platforms beyond the password-protection and user administration that exists today. Given the speed at which these vendors seem to improve these collaboration solutions, we don’t think that’s a stretch. n

Computer Reseller News

01/01/2011

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channel buzz

n Jayesh Kotak, VP, Product Marketing, D-Link India presenting n Samsung’s first dedicated IT brand shop in Kolkata

Samsung launches IT brand shop in Kolkata Samsung Electronics recently inaugurated its first dedicated IT brand shop in Kolkata. Located at CR Avenue, the outlet will display and retail the entire gamut of Samsung IT products. The new brand shop will display Samsung’s portfolio of 17 netbooks and notebook; a lineup of 33 printers across the mono and color, and single function laser printers and multi function printers; LCD monitor range; and select premium mobile models from its range of over 50 handsets. With the launch of Kolkata brand Shop, Samsung now has 10 exclusive brand shops across India in cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Allahabad, Bareilly, Meerut, and Lucknow. n

the winner of a lucky draw at Chennai with a gift

D-Link kicks off bits2.0 D-Link announced the second season of its endcustomer education seminar Building Innovative Technology Solution (bits) at Chennai recently. A multi-city seminar, bits2.0 will focus on government, education and corporate sector. In its first phase, the seminar is scheduled to travel over 17 cities in India. Its aim is to bring value for money and environment-friendly solutions together. It will also highlight innovative solutions for all large, medium and small size networking chores. “We are constantly looking at ways to meet consumer demands for easier communication with a fair investment,” said Jayesh Kotak, VP, Product Marketing, D-Link. “Last year bits2009 covered 35 cities in India and one in Saarc, Colombo, with over 3,000 attendees. This year we hope to interact with even more consumers, and help address their networking concerns through our panel of experts.” n

n The 110 Accredited Epson partners at Cairo

Epson concludes partner meet in Eygpt

n Masaru Tamagawa, MD, Sony India, and K Teshirogi, Business Head, Alpha Division, Sony at the launch

Epson recently organized its Accredited Partner’s Meet 2010 in Cairo, Eygpt. The theme for this year’s event was Architects of Innovation. An annual event organized for key partners from across the country, the meet was used as a forum to review Epson’s performance for the year so far and to discuss the roadmap and strategies for the year ahead. Partners also shared their suggestions for improving Epson’s business. A visit to the tourist sites in Cairo, Giza and Alexandria, including the Pyramids and the Catacombs was also organized. n

Recently, Sony introduced Alpha NEX-5 and Alpha NEX-3—touted as the world’s smallest and lightest interchangeable lens digital cameras—in Mumbai. They include features like background de-focus function, Full HD, 7fps shooting and 3D sweep panorama. Available across all Sony Centers, NEX-5 is priced at `34,990 and NEX-3 at `29,990. With the new launches, Sony aims to capture 40 percent share of total camera market. It hopes to sell about 40,000 units of NEX series. The vendor plans to invest `25 crore towards its marketing. n

Sony launches Alpha NEX series

To feature your company’s events in CRN, send write-ups with photographs to editor@ubmindia.com 30

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new products Corsair Vengeance DDR3 memory modules

orsair announced Vengeance series of DDR3 memory modules for enthusiasts and system builders. The DDR3 memory kits are available in single, dual or triple module kits, with sizes ranging from 4GB to 16GB. The initial Corsair Vengeance family will comprise seven memory kits.

All Vengeance memory modules have a low 1.5V supply voltage for compatibility and energy-efficient operation. They come equipped with aluminum heat spreaders for thermal performance. Compatible with current and future generation Intel and AMD platforms, the modules start at `4,100 for 4GB and cost up to `5,300 for 16GB model. Contact: www.corsair.com

Zyxelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2-Bay Media Server

yxel Communications launched its DLNA 1.5 certified 2-bay media server NSA 21 with capacity up to 4TB. It features a centralized media server for multimedia streaming, and all-in-one backup solution to protect user data. Touted as ideal for home and SOHO users, NSA 221 features BitTorrent client, and supports DHT mode and the TCP UDP tracker protocols. It comes with an auto-upload feature. Its user interface, integrated with the media player, facilitates creation of a music playlist. While the zPilot file auto-classification function enables users to store and manage media files through drag-and-drop operations. NSA221 is available with authorized distributors at an MRP `14,500, along with a 3-year warranty. Contact: www.zyxel.in

Stellar launches File Wipe v4.0

tellar introduced File Wipe v4.0, a software application that offers GUI to wipe unwanted data from the Windows systems by using overwriting techniques. It offers options to create a personalized list to wipe in a single step, and a scheduler to run wipe on pre-specified list of items at a preset day and time. It uses 12 wiping algorithms. The file eraser software also wipes the slack space and enhances security by removing any traces of leftover confidential data in the hard drive. It supports e-mail and news applications, peer-to-peer applications, and chat messengers and software applications. Available with authorized distributors, Wipe v4.0 is priced at a starting price of `2,250.

WatchGuard XCS 770R

atchGuard Technologies launched a new messaging and content security appliance, the XCS 770R. Built specifically for mid-market and enterprises, the appliance offers RAID hardware with fully redundant messaging security. Designed for networks with 1,000 to 5,000 or more users, WatchGuard XCS 770R leverages an anti-spam engine that examines sender information and content, including images, attachments and embedded URLs,

and provides zero-hour threat outbreak response. It also includes built-in on-box quarantine for spam and suspect e-mails, allowing end-users to manage their quarantined messages, safe lists and block lists from an easy to use Web-based interface. It includes on-demand clustering and queue replication. Available with authorized distributors, WatchGuard XCS 770R starts at `8,35,200. Contact: www.watchguard.com

Contact: www.stellarinfo.com

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

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01/01/2011

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shadow ram GET

Dumping in Mumbai

Personal

ver the past two months, the channel in Mumbai has been complaining of major fluctuations in the market operating prices (MOP) of products from vendors such as HP, Asus, LG, Microsoft and Kaspersky. The reason? In November, a non-IT company is said to have dumped stocks worth `12-16 crore, across different brands, at 20 percent to 50 percent less than the distributor transfer price. Confirming this, TAIT committee member Ketan Patel, said, “I cannot comment on the amount of dumping and wouldn’t like to name the company. But it’s true that a public listed company with no connection to the IT industry has been hoarding and selling products of select brands at a price much lesser than the MOP. As of now, we do not know where this listed company gets its supply from, or its motives in dumping IT products. Investigations are underway.” n

“I hate hypocrites”

Pratik Chube, Country General Manager, Product Management and Marketing, is responsible for all the product lines at Emerson Network Power. He has over 11 years of experience in the channel business. Prior to joining Emerson, he was with Ingram Micro (Tech Pacific) and Videocon. Pratik Chube

If not in the IT industry: I would have opted for a creative profession, like advertising.

Biggest passion: Gadgets! I’m an early-adopter and like to own the latest in personal technology as soon as it’s available. I’m also a voracious reader, so much so that my wife gets annoyed. Behind the wheels: I drive an SX4. But I’d like to own a BMW X6 M someday. Gadgets I can’t live without: My iPad and my BlackBerry. Role model: Steve Jobs. He is creative, aggressive, a go-getter, and, of course, a die-hard geek. Weekends are for: Family, and only family. Favorite holiday destination: Goa is always on my annual schedule. My son Tanish simply loves the beaches! Hate the most: I hate hypocrites and deceptive people. Ultimate ambition: To lead an organization as its CEO. Wildest thing I’ve ever done: I went bungee jumping in Cairns, Australia. Thing I most want to do in life: I want to start an old age home or a school for the poor. Favorite sport and sportsperson: Cricket, and of course Sachin Tendulkar. If I became the Prime Minister: I’d work on improving the infrastructure, and would try to make basic education mandatory for all children. In fact, I’d also make army training compulsory for all youngsters, to instill a strict sense of discipline and national pride. If I had the power, I would also get back the black money stashed in other countries. Celebrity I’d like to spend a day with: Vijay Mallya. I admire him for his ‘work hard, party harder’ mantra. Deepest and darkest fear: The thought of being alienated by society, or being lonely without my family. n

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— CRN Network

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