Channelworld Magazine July 2013

FOCAL POINT: The consumerization of IT is about far more than just allowing staffers to use their smartphones at work. PAGE 31

ChannelWorld STRATEGIC INSIGHTS FOR SOLUTION PROVIDERS | COVER PRICE Rs.50

BHASKAR GANJIWALE of Sunfire Technologies is realigning his business to more customers using opex models.

Inside JULY 2013 VOL. 7, ISSUE 4

News Analysis

SYNC & SWIM WITH YOUR CUSTOMER

Five trends that are changing your customers’ business—and redefining yours. >>> Page 22

Intel’s processor blitzkrieg has the potential to take it to the top or crash and burn. How will this strategy pan out? PAGE 12 On Record: Subir Pal, Country Marketing Head India, ABB, explains why the company is well positioned to win in the datacenter space. PAGE 20 The Grill: Scott Robertson, VP, APAC, WatchGuard, talks about how the company has kept pace with the changing times in the security industry. PAGE 17

Opinion

When CEOs expect cost management from their CIOs, it is often confused with cost reduction and an aversion to IT. PAGE 36

Feature

With BYOC quickly gaining ground, organizations will soon have to define what is forbidden for employees and what isn’t. PAGE 29

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n EDITOR’S NOTE

Vijay Ramachandran The Tough Time Tune

I

NNOVATION LIKE strategy is a much abused word.

And, when the going gets tough out comes the mantra— innovate! Why is it that adversity not prosperity breeds the best forms of innovation and creativity? Most organizations know instinctively that when dealing with tough times, one needs to change strategy and look to do different things in order to survive and prosper. I buy that that navigating the hows of innovation may still mystify companies but the whys can hardly be in question. As far as I can tell, adversity and not prosperity breeds the best form of innovation.

Take World War II, for instance. The effects of the war had far-reaching implications for most of the world. Over 60 million lives were lost, millions of refugees were left homeless, the European and British economies collapsed, and most of Europe’s industrial infrastructure was destroyed.

Even while the war lasted, food, fuel and all manner of resources were rationed.

Still, in a situation that can only be described as dire, the Allies and Axis powers pulled off many technological miracles.

Both sides were short on everything—money for sure, but low timelines were typical (after all the option was defeat). Yet, in six years of conflict, the crucible of war spewed out radar, sonar, microwaves, antibiotics, jet engines, computers, alternative fuels, and I’m not even bringing up weapons.

2

How was all of this accomplished?

Let me tell you the story of synthetic rubber. By mid-1942 Japan controlled all of the Far East and China, and with them nearly all of the world’s supply of natural rubber.

The Allies were desperate for rubber. Without it tires, boots, planes, and well almost any thing that their armies required wasn’t possible (outside of hand to hand combat).

So, the United States launched a major effort to figure out new ways to make synthetic rubber.

n In a situation that can only be described as dire, the Allies and Axis powers pulled off many technological miracles during World War II.

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

A large team of chemists from many institutions worked almost non-stop till they succeeded in synthesizing a co-polymer of butadiene and styrene, that was dubbed GRS (Government Rubber Styrene). By 1944, over 50 factories in the US were churning out GRS by the ton—more than twice that of the world’s natural rubber production before the beginning of the war.

What I find more fascinating than even the specific innovations that a world at war create, are the lessons that the process holds for us.

Each breakthrough product or process required a certain combination of things to achieve.

To begin with, an environment favoring experimentation that not only expected but also rewarded failure. Secondly, tight timelines from R&D to deployment, thus requir-

ing quick innovation, rapid prototyping and continuous improvement. Third, efficiently co-ordinating information, ideas and people with apt levels of security and sharing to improve collaboration.

So how can we apply these lessons to our businesses? I believe at its essence lies an attitude and belief that all hurdles can and will be overcome.

Next, setting extremely tight deadlines, since lost time cannot be replaced.

Being first to market is more important than perfection— anything can always be improved.

And, finally, getting crossfunctional groups working for a shared purpose (there’s nothing like a bit of friendly competition to push rapid innovation).

So why should these mantras not always work for organizations? Simply put, innovation within businesses is fraught with difficulty. It’s equally hard for organizations and the individuals that constitute them to think out of the clichéd box. And, true, gamechanging innovation brings with it the risk of catastrophic failure. How many companies are willing to take the plunge, then?

How are you fostering innovation internally. Do write in and let me know.  Vijay Ramachandran is the Editor-in-Chief of ChannelWorld. Contact him at vijay_ramachandran@idgindia.com

For more information Call : 1800 425 8970 email : marketing_in@trendmicro.com http://affinitypartner.trendmicro.com

Delhi : 91-11-42699000 Mumbai : 91-22-28395776 Bangalore : 91-80-40965068 www.trendmicro.co.in

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FOR BREAKING NEWS, GO TO CHANNELWORLD.IN

Inside INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n JULY 2013

■ NEWS DIGEST 7 Cisco Beats IBM; Rules Cloud Infra | Cisco has overtaken IBM as

the potential to crash and burn. How will this strategy pan out?

15 Salesforce Aims Big with ExactTarget Buy | ExactTarget’s

capabilities are expected to give Salesforce.com more weapons to battle against competitors such as Oracle and IBM, both of which have made major investments in marketing software.

■ OPINION 02 Editorial: Vijay Ramachandran

points out the importance of innovation during hard times, and how, companies can learn lessons from World War II.

19 Paul Glen: As a leader it’s

the leading provider of infrastructure for cloud computing, analysts at Synergy Research reported.

10 BI Software Growth Rate Slowed in 2012 | The BI software market cooled off a bit in 2012 due to difficult economic conditions and even confusion over industry buzzwords such as “big data,” according to Gartner.

11 VMware’s Plunging Headlong into SDN | VMware plans to build one of the largest SDN deployments in the industry.

■ NEWS ANALYSIS 12 Is Intel on a Collision Course? | Intel’s processor blitzkrieg

important to create processes that achieve a vision, not ones that just solve a problem—because the joys of achieving a vision are more long lasting.

36 Thornton A. May: When CEOs expect cost management from their CIOs, the motive is often misundertood. CEOs just want their CIOs to spend smarter and innovate better.

■ THE GRILL

17 Scott Robertson, VP, APAC,

WatchGuard, talks about how the company has kept pace with the changing times in the security industry.

22 ■ COVER STORY

22 Sync & Swim

With Your Customer

Let’s admit it: In a down economy, your customers are dearer and they have the last word. And if you aren’t listening to your customers’ needs, your competition is definitely lending its ears. To help you stay ahead of competition and align your business with the needs of your customer, we look at five trends that are changing your customers’ business­­­­­—and redefining yours. Read on to find out what these trends are.

■ ON RECORD

20 Subir Pal

is expected to strengthen its business. But this move also has Cover Design by UNNIKRISHNAN A.V

Country Marketing Head India, ABB, explains why the company is well positioned to win in the datacenter space­— despite being a late entrant.

FOR BREAKING NEWS, GO TO CHANNELWORLD.IN

Inside

CHANNELWORLD Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India

CHANNELWORLD.IN

Publisher, President & CEO Louis D’Mello

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n JULY 2013

n EDITORIAL

■ FAST TRACK

16 H. Srinivasan, Founder and Director-Sales, Athena, says that the company doesn’t believe in tying

poured into the enterprise, many IT organizations have already responded with a list of do’s and don’ts.

■ FOCAL POINT

31 The New Face of Old IT COIT: Consumerization of IT includes

up with too many principals.

28 Sandeep Goel, Chief Executive Officer, Acu-

vate, says that his company’s multi-vertical approach

consumer data services and cloud storage; publicly available repositories of big data, which anyone can use; open source and commercial software for every conceivable application; and publicly used identity management systems such as using

Editor-in-Chief Vijay Ramachandran Managing Editor T.M. Arun Kumar Executive Editor Gunjan Trivedi Associate Editors Sunil Shah,Yogesh Gupta Features Editor Shardha Subramanian Special Correspondents Gopal Kishore, Radhika Nallayam, Shantheri Mallaya Principal Correspondents Anup Varier, Debarati Roy, Sneha Jha, Varsha Chidambaram Senior Correspondents Aritra Sarkhel, Eric Ernest, Ershad Kaleebullah, Shubhra Rishi, Shweta Rao Senior Copy Editors Shreehari Paliath, Vinay Kumaar Lead Designers Jinan K.V., Pradeep Gulur, Suresh Nair, Vikas Kapoor Senior Designers Sabrina Naresh, Unnikrishnan A.V. n SALES

& MARKETING

President Sales & Marketing Sudhir Kamath Vice President Sales Sudhir Argula Vice President Special Projects Parul Singh General Manager Marketing Siddharth Singh General Manager Sales Jaideep M. Manager-KeyAccounts Runjhun Kulshrestha, Sakshee Bagri Manager Marketing Ajay Chakravarthy Manager-Sales Support Nadira Hyder Senior Marketing Associates Anuradha H. Iyer, Archana Ganapathy, Benjamin Jeevanraj, Dilip Menon, Rima Biswas, Saurabh Patil, Marketing Associate Arjun Punchappady, Cleanne Serrao, Lavneetha Kunjappa, Margarate D’costa, Nikita Oliver, Shwetha M. Lead Designer Jithesh C.C. Senior Designer Laaljith C.K. n OPERATIONS

has helped ward off financial risks. This has been the secret to their consistent growth over the years.

■ FEATURE 29 What’s Your Cloud LOC?

BYOD is so 2012. The next big push in the consumerization of IT is bring- your-owncloud. And just as when consumer devices

Facebook or other social networks as a single sign-on provider. Take a look at the various ways CoIT exists beyond BYOD policies, and how IT managers can get the most out of these groundswells of change in consumer technology.

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News

WHAT’S WITHIN

PAGE 10: BI Software Growth Rate Slowed in 2012 PAGE 10: Internet Explorer Consumes Less Power than Others PAGE 11: VMware’s Plunging Headlong into SDN PAGE 12: Is Intel on a Collision Course?

F I N D M O R E A R T I C L E S AT CHANNELWORLD.IN

CLOUD COMPUTING

Cisco Beats IBM; Rules Cloud Infra

C

ISCO HAS overtaken

IBM as the leading provider of infrastructure for cloud computing, analysts at Synergy Research reported.

Synergy says there was a $9.7 billion (about Rs 56,400) market in the first quarter of 2013 for hardware to support either service providers building public clouds, or businesses building private clouds. But, the market faces headwinds as providers are increasingly looking to buy cheap, commodity hardware and enterprises are opening up to the idea of outsourcing their operations to vendors, which combined reduce the

need for hardware from traditional vendors.

There’s also been a shift in spending habits to focus on the networking functions in the cloud, which propelled Cisco to overtake IBM as the top supplier in this market, despite Big Blue hitting a two-year high for supplying cloud equipment in the fourth quarter of last year. Compute server sales dropped somewhat on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter to represent 46 percent of cloud equipment sales, while networking and storage equipment each made up about a quarter of the market. The slip in

compute servers being sold negatively impacted IBM and HP’s standing as the top providers for cloud equipment.

“Cisco has been steadily and consistently building its share in this market and now finds itself in the leadership position,” said Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s founder and chief analyst in a press release announcing the results of the organization’s quarterly review of cloud infrastructure marketing selling. Overall, the market for cloud computing equipment was off by about 12 percent compared to the previous quarter, but it was up slightly compared to the same quarter last year. Synergy says the broader market for cloud equipment is growing at a 3 percent annual rate.

Legacy equipment vendors face challenges ahead though. The onset of the Open Compute Project, led

by Facebook and supported by other hyper-scale datacenter users like Rackspace, are increasingly buying and assembling hardware themselves from original design manufacturers, and not from proprietary vendors like Cisco, IBM and Dell.

Additionally, enterprises are outsourcing more of their compute workloads to cloud providers, slowing the need for them to buy hardware equipment themselves.

JULY 2013

—Brandon Butler INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

7

PARTNERSHIP

Dell, Oracle Join Hands Dell and Oracle will integrate hardware and software for customers through a strategic partnership, the companies announced. The deal expands the existing partnership between the two companies and will in part be exclusive, said Marius Haas, president of Dell’s Enterprise Solutions business. The companies will work together to deliver Oracle software on Dell x86 server platforms, optimized

for those systems, and jointly provide support. The joint offerings will include Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, Oracle Enterprise Manager, as well as Oracle’s database, middleware and applications, Oracle Co-President Mark Hurd said.

The goal is to free enterprises from integration and maintenance tasks and let IT departments spend more time on internal innovation, Hurd said. Dell will be a preferred x86 partner for Oracle, Hurd said. ­­ —Stephen Lawson

Insight The Storage Star SUDARSAN RANGANATHAN, CEO and MD, Veeras Infotek, talks about why his company’s long association with NetApp has been the most profitable for the SI.

You are a Gold Level NetApp partner.

How has this partnership helped you grow in different markets?

We have been a partner of NetApp’s for six years now. Over the years, we have built a successful business model with NetApp. We have seen significant market traction through our cluster mode solutions, VDI, private cloud, and backup and business recovery solutions. We also continue to offer solutions for virtualization, Micro-

soft technologies, and file serving with NetApp storage.

The NetApp partnership has helped us win many important deals in virtualization, which is a key focus market for Veeras.

We have a strong story in the enterprise segment, especially in IT/ITES and manufacturing sectors. In terms of customer segments, we were able to get lot of enterprise and mid-market customers as well.

In terms of geography, we were also able

Authorized Distributor

to make inroads in Bangalore and Hyderabad, apart from Chennai.

It’s interesting to know that you have had key wins in the enterprise sector for NetApp, especially when NetApp is perceived to be more mid-market focused.

That may be the perception, but our experience is different. We have seen enterprise customers migrate to NetApp from competing vendors. One of our recent wins is a case-in-point. The customer had its entire storage infrastructure running on EMC which made it very tricky. Moreover, it was a server virtualization implementation on VMware, which means EMC stood a strong chance to win. But the customer went with NetApp storage and was willing to pay a premium for the solution we proposed, owing to the unprecedented benefits provided

by ONTAP. The improved utilization and tight integration features offered by NetApp with VMware was a big plus.

Have you repeated this success with other customers?

We have about 85 installations of NetApp storage of which atleast 40 are large enterprise accounts. Another case is our recent implementation at an ITES firm. The customer wanted to implement server virtualization and invited proposals from all the leading players including NetApp, Dell, EMC, HP, and IBM. The deal eventually came to us and NetApp with close to 15 percent premium, purely because no one else could offer the kind of value and ROI that we offered.

Almost every large corporate has atleast one NetApp storage box or is planning to implement one. Enterprises are migrating from non-Intel to Intel platforms, and NetApp is a perfect fit to handle such migration projects. We are working with NetApp in a number of projects which is helping customers achieve better efficiency and returns.

So both of you seem to have an uncompromising focus on profitability.

Absolutely. NetApp is easily the most profit-

“ We are a 100 percent channelpartner led organization. We have strategic partner relationships in computing, networking, and storage.

We believe in strong integration with our partners and are constantly making considerable efforts in solution development. NetApp is committed to building innovative storage solutions that aim at offering high ROI.” — Krithiwas Neelakantan, Director Channel & Alliances, India & SAARC, NetApp India able vendor we work with. In fact, its strategy is not based on pricing and it is not desperate to win deals by hook or crook. We do look at pricing flexibility to accommodate customer budgets, but the focus is always on communicating the right value to the customer. So it works with us very closely on each transaction. NetApp’s partner engagement model protects the interest and effort of a partner.

NetApp is a pure play storage vendor vis-à-vis many of its competitors.

Does this pose any challenge for you while pitching NetApp to your customers?

It has never been a challenge. In fact, it gives us a huge competitive advantage since almost all the vendors in server, virtualization, and security see NetApp as their preferred technology partner. For a partner like us, it gives the flexibility and comfort of proposing NetApp solutions with different combinations, based on customer requirements.

NetApp has a deep level of engagement with the best-of-breed technology companies in the industry, be it Cisco, Citrix, VMware, or Microsoft. These partnerships are not mere marketing alliances. They have a focus on making product enhancements, API, and even customer support.

This indeed is a compelling value proposition for our customers. They are able to innovatively use their alliances to bring out best-of-breed joint solutions like FlexPod and ExpressPod. Is it not challenging for you to work with multiple vendors for a single solution?

Since we have a tight business partnership with all the technology partners of NetApp, it has never been an issue. Besides, we understand their collaborative GTM messaging better than any other partner or competitive vendor. Our expertise in virtualization and Microsoft technologies, for which the basic building block is storage, gives us a competitive advantage in the market.

What, according to you, is the biggest value proposition that NetApp offers to your customers?

Customer who sees value in software defined storage solutions will surely prefer NetApp over other vendors. No one can deliver better storage efficiency than NetApp. They offer perfect solutions for every business need, be it virtualization, file server consolidation, backup recovery, or SAP migration. The concept of unified storage was introduced by NetApp and later followed by other storage vendors. So it is a trendsetter and it understands where the market is headed.

NetApp has storage footprint reduction technologies like block level deduplication and compression, along with virtual storage- tiering. The biggest differentiator here is the use of Flash technologies along with SATA drives to improve performance with large capacity. Comparatively, other vendors do not have such “do more with less” offerings.

IDG CUSTOM SOLUTIONS GROUP

-

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

BI Software Growth Rate Slowed in 2012

T

HE BUSINESS intel-

report. However, “global ligence software macroeconomic condimarket cooled off a tions cannot be ignored,” bit in 2012 after “a the report adds. “They led few historic banner years” to increased budget scrutiof spending growth, due to ny of both net-new as well difficult economic condias maintenance spending tions and even confusion across the entire IT space, over industry buzzwords and BI was no exception.” such as “big data,” accordBusiness for BI was ing to a report especially more from analyst difficult in Eufirm Gartner. rope and Latin is the reduced growth Global spendAmerica last rate experienced in the ing on BI softyear, but not BI software market in ware was $13.1 in the Middle 2012 compared to the 17 percent growth billion (about East, Africa in 2011 Rs 76,100 crore) and emerging last year, a 7 per- Source: Gartner markets in Asiacent rise over 2011’s $12.3 Pacific, “which are still billion (about Rs 71,500 in ramp-up mode,” the crore) total, but the pace report states. of growth slowed considMeanwhile, “increased erably from the approxiconfusion around new mately 17 percent rate exhype terms and where the perienced in 2011, Gartner tangible benefits lie most said in a report. likely contributed to a “While this seems like slowing of sales cycles in a dramatic drop, it was the BI space while budget in line with our forecasts holders are trying to idenpublished during 2012,” tify the tooling and busianalysts Dan Sommer and ness value,” according Bhavish Sood wrote in the to Gartner.

7%

Moreover, spending on core BI infrastructure platforms “showed flat to single-digit growth” last year, with more spending happening outside of IT at the departmental level as business units seek analytic applications and datadiscovery tools geared to their particular needs, according to the report.

In terms of market share, SAP held onto the top spot in Gartner’s survey with about $2.9 billion (about Rs 16,900 crore) in BI revenue, although growth year-overyear was only 0.6 percent.

This is partly because its BusinessObjects software is “losing momentum” but also due to the fact that SAP’s portfolio is very broad and “falls outside of the remit of what is tracked here,” Gartner’s report states. Still, SAP has a “trump card” for BI in the form of a highly loyal user base and a strong sales organization and partner ecosystem, Gartner said.

Oracle came in second with $1.95 billion (about Rs 11,100 crore), followed by IBM with $1.62 billion, SAS Institute at $1.6 billion and Microsoft with about $1.19 billion.

—Chris Kanaracus

BROWSERS

IE Consumes Less Power than Others With summer peaking in the US, the energy bills have shot through the roof. And if people want to cut their PC’s power bill, they should use—Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. That’s the result of a Microsoft-sponsored study by Fraunhofer, which found that Internet Explorer consumed less power than both Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox when accessing

10

the Web’s top ten sites. Watt’s the difference?

Unfortunately for Microsoft’s case, the differences are minuscule—on the order of about a watt when laptops were measured surfing web-sites, or just 2 percent or so between the other two.

When using Flash, however, the differences are more pronounced: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

ENERGY SAVER: IE utilizes 19 percent less power than Chrome.

uses 19 percent less power than Chrome, Microsoft said. That’s not to say that Microsoft let that small fact stop it from extrapolating the massive energy savings if

Short Takes  CtrlS has announced a

strategic partnership with Redington India. With this partnership, CtrlS aims to increase its reach and also address challenges faced by companies.

 Citrix

announced the appointment of Yatin Kavishwar as the head of government and defence business for India region.

Under his leadership, Citrix will work towards collaborating closely with government agencies and help them successfully implement the various e-Governance initiatives including the State, Central, and integrated mission mode projects.

 Microsoft

India has announced the appointment of Karan Bajwa as its Managing Director of sales and marketing group (SMSG) in the country. Bajwa, who is currently the head of the enterprise business in India, will continue to be based out of Gurgaon, and will report to Bhaskar Pramanik, ChairmanMicrosoft India.

only the nation’s computing population could be converted over to its browser. Redmond said the energy saved could power 10,000 households in the United States for a year, Microsoft said, or provide the carbon reduction equivalent of growing 2.2 million trees for 10 years.

Fraunhofer didn’t explain exactly why the browsers consume more power, although it’s presumably tied to the number of processor CPU cycles consumed over time.

—Mark Hachman

SDN

VMware’s Plunging Headlong into SDN

V

MWARE HOPES to make the networking components of its soon-to-bereleased vCloud Hybrid Service one of its biggest selling points. In doing so the company plans to build one of the largest software-defined networking (SDN) deployments in the industry.

It should come as no surprise that VMware is hoping to focus the conversation on networking; after all, the company dropped $1.2 billion (about Rs 7,000 crore) last year to buy Nicira, a darling of the budding software-defined networking movement.

“We’re an aggressive user of SDN technology,” says Mathew Lodge, VMware’s VP of cloud services.

VMware’s vCloud Hybrid Service will include a highvolume, low-latency networking architecture, and pretty much everything other than x86-based networking switches will be managed by software, he says. VMware’s networking capabilities will be based on the technology it bought from Nicira, combined with elements of its security and networking features from before the acquisition. Customers will be able to create their own virtual networks and configure them as they choose, install firewalls, and set access policies within the network, and replicate and delete networks within the system. Pretty much anything that could have been done in a physical network with boxes and hardware, VMware can do using soft-

ware controlled through application programming interfaces (APIs), Lodge adds.

Rolling out virtual networking features is central to the entire premise of the vCloud Hybrid Service, he says. One of the biggest draws for VMware’s public cloud, he says, is that it’s the easiest way to migrate legacy applications that run in onpremises environments managed by VMware onto the public cloud. Customers can use the same VMware management platform running in their own datacenters as in VMware’s public cloud, creating this hybrid cloud service. To enable that connection between the public cloud

and on-premises resources, VMware had to not only provide a network topology to allow this hybrid connectivity, but provide security and networking features, such as load balancing, firewalling and segmentation. It isn’t the only one to provide this type of capability. But Paul Burns,

Around

TheWorld IBM and the Java Virtual Machine

IBM is conducting research that involves making use of the open Java Virtual Machine (JVM) in a cloud-based setting as a way to provide dynamic services, especially to mobile devices. If the research project works out, it might be considered “the operating system of the future for both embedded systems and the cloud,” said Jan Rellermeyer, IBM research staff member at IBM Research. JVM is the well-known open software created at Sun that facilitates write-once, runanywhere applications. The idea behind trying to establish JULY 2013

JVM as a software stack in the cloud is to facilitate a “continuous platform experience” between JVM-based applications running in the cloud and mobile devices, Rellermeyer noted.

—Ellen Messmer

Cisco to Focus More on Mid-Market Cisco laid out its strategy and vision to strengthen its position in the mid-market segment, which the company defines as entities with 100-1000 employees.

Cisco’s approach to midmarket will start with a deep understanding of midsize customers—what keeps them up at night and what drives their purchasing decisions.

Cisco has set forth a strategy built on the strong three pillar foundation of partners, product portfolio, and deINDIAN CHANNELWORLD

11

an analyst at Neovise, is happy to see this functionality come to the cloud. “It’s one of the things that have kept traditional enterprise apps out of the cloud. Even if customers felt the cloud was reliable, they didn’t feel like they could configure the network appropriately.”

—Brandon Butler

mand generation.

—Channelworld Bureau

Lenovo’s New Cloud Storage Service

Lenovo offered a peek under the covers on a new consumer cloud storage service called Lenovo Reach, which it said will allow users to securely access their cloudbased files and applications from any device via a single login ID. The new service can encrypt and remember all user IDs and passwords, offering users a method of accessing favorite websites with a single click.  —Lucas Mearian

n NEWS ANALYSIS

Is Intel on a

Collision Course?

will drag down profit margins at a company used to selling Core chips for hundreds of dollars.

While the first-generation of “Clover Trail” chips powering Windows 8 convertible tablets were underwhelming, the “Bay Trail” generation, featuring quad-core processors, will power touch-enabled thin notebooks with “really good performance” that will hit $300 (about Rs 17,400) price points, former Chief Executive Paul Otellini said in April. So who’s going to buy a $600 (about Rs 34,800) Core notebook if a machine half the price will do the job?

“Basically, in Atom, they have a part that’s going to be a problem,” summed up Dean McCarron, principal analyst with Mercury Research.

BRANDING WORSENS IT

Intel’s processor blitzkrieg is expected to strengthen its business.

But this move also has the potential to crash and burn. How will this strategy pan out?

By Mark Hachman 12

I

NTEL HAS made it

clear that its fourthgeneration Core or “Haswell” processors will power future PCs. But at the low end of the notebook market, the company’s branding strategy will be far muddier—and that’s bad for Intel, considering it needs to tell consumers exactly what to buy.

On one hand, Intel needs to present a clear alternative to ARM, whose tablet partners dominate the mobile space and threaten traditional PCs. From a technical standpoint, Intel seems well on its way to solving that problem. Intel’s Haswell chip will eventually migrate to as little as 6 watts, Intel said, meaning that its Core chips could eventually power tablets too. But in the meantime, Intel’s upcoming “Bay

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

Trail” Atom chips are waiting in the wings—and could offer the performance that buyers want, at a fraction of the price.

Buyers looking to pick up an inexpensive Windows convertible or notebook may have to sort through several processor brands, including Atom, Core, Pentium, and Celeron. And that’s without even factoring in the code names: Bay Trail, Silvermont, and Haswell, among others. Intel may have the right chip at the right price, but because its processor line-up is so crowded, it’s in real danger of screwing the whole thing up.

If there’s one thing Intel did “wrong,” it’s that it made the Bay Trail Atom chip so good—too good for some Wall Street analysts, who worry that a $60 (about Rs 3,480) Atom chip

Intel tried to solve the problem by bringing the Bay Trail chip under the Pentium and Celeron brands. Technically, this makes sense, because Bay Trail is PC-ready, with support for PC components like PCI Express.

Intel sources also said that it has begun phasing out the Atom brand in discussions with OEMs, replacing it with the “Silvermont” name. That’s the name of the architectural refresh for the upcoming Bay Trail chip. Whether “Silvermont” appears on the outside of a box is unclear, but for clarity’s sake, let’s hope not.

But in trying to associate the Bay Trail chips with Intel’s PC brands, Intel’s marketing gurus have created a hot mess.

On one hand, we have the Pentium, the name for Intel’s flagship part—it

n NEWS ANALYSIS was launched 20 years ago, in 1993. The Celeron isn’t much better. That’s the name Intel gave to its cut-rate, low-performance parts. If you wanted a cheap PC that could barely get the job done, you bought a Celeron. Granted, Intel’s Atom doesn’t have that much brand equity, either—it powered the first generation of Google TVs, for example, and the “Clover Trail” version of the chip produced middle-ofthe-range performance in convertibles like the Samsung ATIV Smart PC. But what consumers will be asking is a simple question: OK, so if I buy an ARM tablet, I get this: Whatever Qualcomm or Nvidia or Samsung offer. So what can you do for me, Intel?

Instead of offering a simple answer—“This is our ARM killer, Atom”—it appears that Intel’s response will be something like, “Oh, you’ll want a Pentium then. No, not the old one. The new one. See, there’s the model number right there. Oh, and

you can go with a Celeron too. No, they’re better. See, they’re part of the Silvermont family. What’s a Silvermont? Here, take some brochures...”

Put another way: Intel lists 58 different Pentium models—alone. How is a consumer going to know if he or she is buying the good “Bay Trail” Pentium, or one of the older, crappier ones?

WHO WILL USE WHAT? Sources within Intel say that Intel also plans to provide a “Bay Trail” derivative for tablets, dubbed “Bay TrailT,” that will be out by the holidays. The good news for Intel? It delivers “kick-ass quad-core performance,” the source said. The bad news? It delivers “kick-ass quad-core performance”.

The leader in the tablet market is ARM, which powers, well, almost everything in the tablet and mobile space.

Intel has tried to make inroads via a partnership with Lenovo, and its Atom-powered K800 phone that’s so far been sold exclusively in

Asia. But that’s a drop in the ocean compared to ARM. ARM has already claimed that it will offer better performance per watt than the the Silvermont architecture driving Bay Trail, and Microsoft said last year that it will work with ARM to port its Windows 8 OS over to the first generation of ARM’s 64-bit chips, due for sampling later this year. But Windows RT on ARM has largely failed, and Samsung has chosen an Atom chip to power its Galaxy Tab 3 tablet (albeit the older Clover Trail+ variant). Intel appears to have a window of opportunity to exploit, if it can.

Pessimists would say that any success in tablets means that Intel will sell fewer, higher-margin Core chips. Optimists will respond by noting that there’s no real proof that buyers favor tablets over notebooks, and that some consumers will buy both—or even favor an Intel-powered Windows tab-

Intel Shifting Celeron, Pentium Chips to Atom Architecture

I

NTEL’S Atom tablet chip code-named Bay Trail will be repurposed for use in the company’s Celeron and Pentium chips for entry-level laptops, desktops and all-in-ones, announced Intel.

Intel’s Bay Trail chip is based on the Atom architecture, which is in low-power smartphones, tablets, and netbooks.

Beyond the tablet chip, Intel will release Bay Trail-M (mobile) and Bay Trail-D (desktop) parts, which will be available under the Celeron and Pentium brands, Intel spokeswoman Kathy Gill said. Pentium and Celeron chips are used in low14

cost PCs, and the move represents an architectural shift for those brands. It also represents Intel’s wider reliance on Atom architecture for entry-level computing. Bay Trail is based on the Silvermont architecture, which Intel claims will be up to three times faster and five times more power-efficient than older Atom cores.

Silvermont will now power Intel Inside devices including entry-level PCs, tablets, smartphones, and low-power servers.

Intel is using Silvermont in its upcoming smartphone chips code-named Merrifield, which are due to ship early next year.

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

Intel previously announced it would use Bay Trail in PCs, but did not announce branding for the new chips.

“Because of the advancements and flexibility of the ...

Silvermont microarchitecture, we can customize the Bay Trail feature sets and develop variants of Bay Trail that will power a new crop of computing products at a variety of price points,” Gill said.

“The goal is to offer our customers the broadest selection of form factors, features, and experiences at a range of price points,” he added.

—Agam Shah

let if the performance is high enough. And analysts like Nathan Brookwood of Insight 64 note that the “Haswell” Core parts should eventually be offered in power envelopes as low as 6 watts, muddying the water further.

And there’s one more possibility too: If Windows RT has failed and Microsoft tosses in the towel, it will still want a low-power chip to power the cheaper version of the Surface. And what could be a better option than Bay Trail? (While sources close to Intel say that’s a likely possibility, this writer’s source has remained mum on the matter.)

A CRIPPLED ATOM? The real question on the lips of Intel watchers was simple: Would Intel “cripple” the Bay Trail chip? Doing so would be relatively easy. Intel could artificially limit the clock speed or graphics performance of the chip, creating an artificial separation between the Core and Atom families.

It’s not clear if Intel plans to go this route, although it appears that it might be leaning that way. Company executives seem to be hoping that rebranding Bay Trail solves the problem.

A new family of cheap, low-power, highperformance convertible tablets could be just the thing the “Wintel” partnership of Intel and Microsoft needs for the holidays. Let’s just hope that Intel cares more about giving customers the shiny new toys we’ve been asking for, even if it might mean coal in the stockings of its investors. 

Salesforce Aims Big with ExactTarget Buy It will “double down and focus” on building out its marketing software arm. By Chris Kanaracus

S

ALESFORCE.COM’S PENDING $2.5 billion

(about Rs 15,000 crore) purchase of marketing software vendor ExactTarget will help it develop a new $1 billion (about Rs 6,000 crore) annual revenue stream and set the company on a clear strategic course for the foreseeable future, according to its CEO Marc Benioff.

The ExactTarget deal, the largest in Salesforce.com’s history, is scheduled to close by the end of July.

Salesforce.com already had some marketing capabilities, especially for social media ad campaigns and associated analytics, gained through its acquisitions of Buddy Media and Radian6.

But it wasn’t enough to play in today’s market, Benioff said. “We recognized we have to get stronger in critical areas like e-mail as well as marketing automation and lead nurturing,” he said.

“We wanted to make one large purchase that brought all of these things together.

We can’t keep making these small acquisitions. We needed to do something of consequence. We needed to do something now.”

Benioff also suggested that Salesforce.com was involved in a bidding war with other, unnamed parties for ExactTarget. “This was a very competitive process and we’re thrilled to be the victors here,” he said.

But now Salesforce.com is going to close its wallet for a while. “I think what you’re going to see is us taking a vacation from [mergers and acquisitions] for anywhere between 12 and 18 months,” Benioff said. “We are going to really double down and focus on the success of ExactTarget. ” In buying ExactTarget, Salesforce.com is simply following the money. Gartner has predicted that chief marketing officers will spend more money on IT than CIOs by 2017. ExactTar-

also partnered. Marketo recently launched a successful IPO. Marketo could have been too expensive for Salesforce.com to buy, said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research.

Meanwhile, it’s not clear how Salesforce.com’s existing relationships with Marketo and other marketing software partners will change moving forward.

Salesforce.com’s AppExchange, where partners can showcase their products, is “a dynamic marketplace,” Benioff said.

“We certainly plan to

now.” While it may be surprising that Salesforce.com waited until now to buy a company like ExactTarget, it had its reasons, according to Hu. “We have been learning a lot about CMOs in the last few years,” he said.

Salesforce.com’s previous acquisitions of Buddy Media and Radian6 provided “a huge catalyst” for the ExactTarget deal, he added. “We had many deeper conversations with the CMO that gave us the education and understanding of the market that allowed us to move forward with such confidence.”

As a whole, Salesforce. com’s Marketing Cloud product family “plays a central role as an aggregator for the CMO,” he added. “So if you are very specialized in marketing analytics, it’s not an issue. If you are doing core marketing automation and campaign manage-

ExactTarget’s capabilities will also give Salesforce.com more weapons to battle against competitors such as Oracle and IBM, both of which have made major investments in marketing software. get’s capabilities will also give Salesforce.com more weapons to battle against competitors such as Oracle and IBM, both of which have made major investments in marketing software.

It shares many of ExactTarget’s more than 6,000 customers, and expects to have plenty of cross-selling opportunities, said some executives. ExactTarget has also been a partner, and there’s already a degree of integration between their products. Still, some market observers had expected Salesforce.com to purchase an ExactTarget competitor, Marketo, with which it has

continue to support all of our partners in the AppExchange,” Salesforce. com chief operating officer George Hu said in an interview. “We’ve always had an open philosophy.”

However, Salesforce.com’s ability to offer a unified marketing platform will result in many customers making the switch from other marketing products, Hu added. “We think customers are going to be very excited about it.”

Hu declined to say whether Salesforce.com had considered buying other companies besides ExactTarget.

“This is the company we’ve been focusing on for a while

ment, you are in direct competition.” There’s a bit of product overlap between ExactTarget’s and Salesforce.com’s product line, but one observer questioned whether Salesforce.com is overpaying for ExactTarget.

“The question that keeps popping into my mind is why they didn’t finish building out the suite themselves,” said analyst Denis Pombriant, managing principal of Beagle Research. “For $2.5 billion you can hire a lot of people. Obviously they thought this was the best approach for them.” 

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n FAST TRACK

Snapshot

Athena IT & Telecom Solutions

Founded: 2009 Headquarters: Bangalore Employees: 18 Revenue 2010-11: Rs 3.5 crore Revenue 2011-12: Rs 8 crore Revenue 2012-13: Rs 19 crore Key Executives: Prithi H. Co-founder; Director–Finance and Operations Key Principals: Dell, Lenovo, IBM, Cisco, Juniper, Riverbed, Fortinet Key Technologies: Computing, servers, storage, virtualization, security, WAN acceleration and optimization

We don’t believe in tying up with too many principals, says Founder and Director-Sales, H. Srinivasan.

I

N A world that believes in the more the merrier, Athena IT & Telecom Solutions, a Bangalorebased IT and telecom services provider is an aberration. For one, the company’s Founder and Director-Sales, Harikrishnan Srinivasan, doesn’t believe in scooping out an endless list of principals to show off his product mix.

In fact, for any new account, the entry strategy for the company is through one of its six principals: Dell, Lenovo, Cisco, Riverbed, Juniper, and Fortinet. That’s a bold stand to take for a company that’s barely three years old.

Piggybacking on this strategy, the company today has chosen the road less traveled and has recorded a whopping 100 percent revenue growth. “Every year, we select one

product which the team focuses on, gets acquainted with, and then sets out to reach targeted sales numbers. This requires considerable bandwidth and mindshare from the Athena team and that’s only pos-

REVENUE GROWTH Rs 19Rscr11 cr Rs 9 Cr Rs 8 cr

Rs 3.5 cr

2010-11

2011-12

SOURCE: ATHENA IT & TELECOM SOLUTIONS

16

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2012-13

P h o t o b y S R I V AT S A S H A N D I LYA

Website: www. athenaitsol.com

sible if we work with fewer principals,” says Harikrishnan.

But getting there wasn’t easy. When the company started its operations in 2009, the market was on a downward spiral. But luckily for Athena, the same year, Dell was trying to rebuild its channel model in India and was aggressively looking for partners. “We aligned ourselves with Dell and within six months, we could close considerable deals.

Our Dell business increased to Rs 4-5 crore in the subsequent years,” says Harikrishnan.

Another reason for its impressive growth is the company’s domain expertise in telecom. This prompted Athena to get into networking and it signed up with Cisco and Juniper. Recently, Athena joined hands with Fortinet for security solutions and Riverbed for WAN acceleration and optimization.

This broad spectrum of limited but niche technology provider mix offers the company an end-to-end portfolio of services.

Athena has also launched its ISP division in order to cater to its customers’ telecom needs. Athena, says Harikrishnan, has also invested a 49 percent stake in a company which specializes in engineering software which will expand Athena’s customer base.  —Shubhra Rishi

Dossier Name: Scott Robertson Designation: Vice President, Asia Pacific Company: WatchGuard Present Role: Robertson took over as WatchGuard’s vice president for sales for the Asia Pacific region in 2012 after leading the turnaround in the ANZ region, which recorded over 40 percent year-on-year growth.

Ph o t o g r a p h by FOTO C O R P

Career Graph: Prior to joining WatchGuard in 2007, he was the APAC general manager for CRYPTOcard, a leader in network authentication. He has also worked at Microsoft, where he managed the enterprise sales and services business. As regional sales manager at Visio, he was responsible for direct and indirect sales.

n THE GRILL

Scott Robertson

Vice President, APAC, WatchGuard, talks about how the company has kept pace with the changing times in the security industry.

Your company’s core focus, UTM, is a fairly commoditized technology. Considering this, how bright is WatchGuard’s future? There are couple of things that are changing at WatchGuard which are also changing in the UTM market. Ever since its introduction in 2007, this market has been maturing at a rapid pace. In 2010, WatchGuard decided to re-architect solutions through next-generation network security appliances [XTM] in anticipation of its growing importance to the mid-market. The XTM with one firmware spans across all hardware platforms—from lower-end models to the top-end ones. For a firewall/UTM appliance to deliver more throughput and other capabilities, we built the Intel platform with a Linux kernel.

With Linux and UTM being modular in design, a new security service can be plugged in at anytime from best-in-class vendor technologies and they will be integrated into our UTM. This is unlike some vendors who build AV and Websecurity in-house and integrate them to their appliances. This is a big differentiator as we are increasing our footprint in the mid-market which prefers the best security brands. The trend is shifting towards the mid-market and we are in talks with a few large enterprise vendors.

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n THE GRILL | SCOTT ROBERTSON spam and Web security solutions, but also provides powerful DLP capabilities.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone if we decide to integrate some technologies to differentiate ourselves more. We are not just a pure firewall/UTM vendor anymore.

We are now a business security vendor with a range of technologies for organizations of all sizes.

We have changed from what we were earlier. We are, now, a business security vendor with a wide range of technologies for organizations of all sizes.

Aren’t you worried that companies you’re seeking an alliance with could explore the UTM market independently? The industry has always been talking about the unpredictable nature of the security roadmap. Often, we see that technologies like wireless and security are blended together. We know that we do our job very well. Similarly, other vendors we intend to collaborate with know theirs well. So, I don’t see our OEM partners jump into the firewall/UTM space and intensify competition.

WatchGuard lacks ful-blown DLP and authentication solutions. Why is that? Our technologies in XTM and XCS do offer content security. This, not only delivers 18

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

Don’t the acquisitions of McAfee, SonicWALL, Astaro, and others by big IT companies weaken your standing in the industry?

Most acquisitions, particularly ones by large vendors, are difficult to integrate.

The acquiring company doesn’t necessarily focus on the acquisition and the smaller company doesn’t have any clout in the big one. It often becomes an SKU on the pricelist. We see many vendors consolidate to become a part of a large group where the dominant products are not UTM. R&D tends to become skewed towards products that generate more revenue. These acquisitions are usually successful after three to five years. Thus, the consolidated landscape is a massive opportunity for us as we continue to be a pure security player focused on UTM/ XTM solutions.

How do you think your enterprise channel partners should pitch WatchGuard to execute profitable business deals? We try to address the concerns of large enterprise system integrators by presenting two questions: What can we do for you and how can we position ourselves better to help you. We tell them clearly that XTM is not just a security solution, but is a TCO story. With large integrators, security solutions are usually a part of a larger project with technologies like virtualization and storage which tend to get more priority. The value proposition of one platform console and other features of XTM free a CIO’s budget and help them invest in other technologies. WatchGuard’s RapidDeploy is a cloud-based configuration utility that eliminates the need for IT professionals to pre-configure devices or travel to the project locations. Customers and partners can order the appliance from a single distributor and it will be shipped directly to the customer. It’s a huge benefit for partners working with organizations with distributed networks. We have

also identified a few MSS partners to explore the UTM-as-a-service model in India.

Compared to Cisco and Juniper, you seem to be less aggressive about the enterprise segment and fighting off competitors. A certain amount of business might sound attractive in the enterprise market. We have a sizeable customer base here. That space has two elements—core network and data sold. Most large enterprise vendors manage their network, but often WatchGuard products are bundled in it. SMBs continue to be our big strength but the next big opportunity is the mid-market and not the enterprise. Let Check Point, Cisco, Juniper, and the rest battle it out as their framework is largely geared for the enterprise space.

Considering the competition, isn’t the mid-market a tough space to do business in? Our primary distributors in India are RAH Infotech and iValue who work with their set of channel partners.

We also engage with a focused set of solution providers in the tier-2 space.

There has been tremendous growth in the past six to 12 months in terms of geographical reach. A substantial part of that growth has come through large, complex deals. Apart form metros, we are targeting B- and C-class cities where many mid-sized companies are located.

We plan to align with more tier-1 partners in the latter half of this year.

According to Gartner, 20 percent of the VPN/firewalls will be deployed on a virtual switch on a hypervisor and not on a physical security appliance. Are partners ready for this major shift? It’s still early days in terms of adoption. We have released products on a virtual platform like XTM for both VMware and Hyper-V. We also have the XCS product on VMware. Most customers will invest in the physical appliance with a virtual strategy in place in the next couple of years. Our SMB dominance will certainly drive more Hyper-V for virtual UTM. Since the last year, a majority of the partners we’ve worked with are VMware partners too. This is a natural fit and, therefore, our partners are being empowered according to changing trends.  —Yogesh Gupta

n OPINION

PAUL GLEN

Purposeful Processes As a leader it’s important to create processes that achieve a vision, not ones that just solve a problem— because the joys of achieving a vision are more long lasting.

Paul Glen, CEO of Leading Geeks, is devoted to clarifying the murky world of human emotion for people who gravitate toward concrete thinking.

His newest book is 8 Steps to Restoring Client Trust: A Professional’s Guide to Managing Client Conflict.

You can contact him at info@leadinggeeks.com.

P

ROCESSES SEEM to come and go. Too often, though,

they wither away from disuse when they still have value. How can we ensure that our staffs remain engaged with worthwhile processes? Consider the life cycle of the typical process. It usually is created as a response to some organizational trauma, like a major project failure. For a while, everyone embraces it, testing, tweaking, celebrating successes, and mitigating inconveniences. But eventually, enthusiasm wanes. Urgent needs come up, and people following a process because the joy of its

decide that, just this once, a shortcut is justified. The decay begins. Before you know it, the process is forgotten, a new trauma occurs, and the cycle starts again. Each time it happens, we feel terrible. But when we better understand why we let this happen—how much human nature has to do with it—we can interrupt the cycle.

Human motivation isn’t all that mysterious. We tend to focus our attention on what feels good. And for us as geeks, solving problems feels really good. We love to roll up our sleeves and analyze problems, and we glory in the thrill of solving them. So a new process feels good because we’re solving a problem: “Why did the project fail, and what can we do about it?” As long as the problem seems present, gnarly, and intractable, we enjoy following the process.

But once a problem has been solved, it’s not so interesting to us anymore.

Eventually, we follow the process because we are obliged to. We start to think of it as rules to follow rather than a solution to our problems. Our inner schoolchild starts to rebel. Some of us might start to unconsciously solve a new problem: “What is the minimum process that I can follow and still deliver an acceptable outcome?” Others get caught up in the more immediate rewards of short-term problem-solving. Solving an urgent problem is more rewarding than

solution comes immediately.

If you want to keep off the process merrygo-round, you’ll need to fundamentally change how you as a leader think and feel about the rewards of following processes.

You’ve got to give the team something lasting to care about. The key to that is at the very beginning of developing a process. In short, create processes that achieve a vision, not ones that just solve a problem. A process has to speak to something bigger than the last problem you encountered, so that adherence to it lasts longer than the removal of symptoms. The joys of achieving a vision are somewhat different from those of solving a problem. Problems give way to forgetfulness when their noxious symptoms have been removed. A vision is more long lasting.

You might liken it to marriage. Most people get married not to solve a problem but in pursuit of a vision of sharing a life together, perhaps starting a family. If you get married to solve a problem rather than to pursue a vision—because it’s the easiest way to obtain wealth, say, or because your visa is about to expire and you don’t want to leave the country—the chances are the marriage won’t last. The same is true of processes.

Whenever you talk to your group about a process, focus on the first principles of your vision. As people come to recognize the role of the process in achieving that vision, it will become self-sustaining.  JULY 2013

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So, the datacenter strategy is a well thoughtout extension of ABB’s existing capabilities.

PAL: Absolutely. Traditionally, ABB has entered domains that it considers could serve as funnels for its existing and planned products. If you look at the datacenter space, we already have the entire electric chain—utility links, circuit breakers, transformers, power distribution panels, UPS, and power distribution units—right up to the server. We have the entire range in our manufacturing portfolio.

ON RECORD n

Subir Pal,

Country Marketing Head India, ABB, explains why the company is well positioned to win in the datacenter space—despite being a late entrant.

By Shantheri Mallaya 20

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

Why is ABB talking about its datacenter strategy now, given that it has formidable rivals like Schneider Electric and Emerson Network Power to contend with?

PAL: ABB is structured around five divisions which drive five different kinds of businesses.

We have competencies in both products and systems that drive various domains; the datacenter being one of them. The datacenter space is a sunrise sector in India whereas in other markets it is fairly established and mature. Till now, we saw servers leased out of hubs such as the US and Singapore, whereas now, telecom and IT players are increasingly setting up datacenters in major cities like Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

What challenges are you facing in driving your datacenter message?

PAL: The datacenter is a new area into which we are expending our efforts.

Creating a responsible organization internally, for a new market of an old traditional business, is the initial challenge.

But there is no reason for us not to remain active in this sector. We have a team called ‘industry initiative’ that drives the packaging of products and solutions for a particular domain. That is how we have positioned ourselves internally. We are a focused company even from a global datacenter initiative point of view, given that the ABB center of excellence in Singapore is actively driving the APAC market.

What investments has ABB made for this initiative?

PAL: In terms of resources, there are datacenter competencies built around this initiative. In process automation, we have a datacenter team built around

SUBIR PAL | ON RECORD n energy management. In power systems, we have a team dedicated to datacenter connection equipment and packaged solutions. In power products, we have a team that is developing datacenter products.

It is not that we only want to execute turnkey projects; we want to be the preferred vendor to engineering, procurement, and construction contractors (EPCs) who are not manufacturers themselves. We have invested in manpower resources and positioned ourselves well.

ABB is a late entrant to the datacenter story. What is your mandate for the next six months?

PAL: We are a strong player in the energy efficiency space, and have audits and solutions across industries across the globe. When it comes to the energy management portfolio for datacenters, our product, branded Decathlon, is a strong tool for DCM, covering all aspects of the datacenter. This is a substantial differentiator for ABB and through this we hope to raise the

needs in mind. Our R&D spends go towards developing and localizing our global resources for domestic markets in order to leverage and optimize these resources. Fortunately, we have a strong global connection with 1,000-plus people (at the Global Engineering Center in Bangalore). Any India specific solution can be leveraged through the Global Engineering Center. We have the skill sets in place.

Increasingly, datacenters are seen as profit centers, and investments in datacenters

channels. Large datacenters are splitting datacenters into multiple packages—civil, electrical and server, and IT. We will be a provider of products and be a part of the solutions market as well.

Various combos will play out and we will use all channels at our disposal. Channel partners will also play a role at the product level. We have a wide network of partners—between 400 and 450—all of whom are centered around the datacenter. Some are fairly active, and more

Being a late entrant into the datacenter space does not hinder us.

We got into the solar energy market around 2010, and today we are among the top-3 players. Replicating that success is not unrealistic.

Analysts are keenly watching the rise of the datacenter infrastructure management (DCIM) software space. ABB has also plunged actively into boosting its DCIM capabilities…

PAL: Yes, it is part of our ‘datacenters of the future’ drive. ABB has strategically acquired companies like Power Assure, and Newave, among others that function in the advanced technologies space. ABB is investing into the future of the datacenter—tier-4 datacenters— where energy efficiency, reliability, and 99 percent uptime are the critical components.

We have also taken the software opportunity in asset management, and load management systems, amongst others.

These will add muscle to the drive.

bar for energy efficient datacenters.

ABB has a legacy of change. We want to be ahead of time globally as well as locally, and this covers not only traditional businesses but also sustainability businesses.

We will be exploring new markets and innovations constantly. Being a late entrant of sorts does not hinder us in any way in India. Take a look at a space like renewable energy. We got into the solar energy market around 2010, and today, we are among the top-three players. Replicating that success in other domains is not an unrealistic calculation.

Is localization one of your focus areas?

PAL: Yes, it is one of our major initiatives across all countries. As a policy, ABB tries to optimize its resources keeping local

are being tied to business outcomes. This makes areas like capacity planning more important. How is this trend changing the way you talk to your customers?

PAL: Datacenters are a competitive business so our products have to be competitive in quality and pricing. Yet, being cheap is not the solution. So, TCO becomes the crux.

ABB is an established player with a wide support base, and service and sales offices for upgrades.

We emphasize that ROI is fundamental to all investments and that it is important not to sideline the importance of TCO. Will the datacenter business play out as solutions alone or have you evolved a service delivery model as well?

PAL: That is a key consideration. In most sectors, we play across multiple

would come into the dragnet.

Your earlier roles in channel management must help you plenty with this new portfolio.

PAL: I have a deep exposure to channels, which comes very handy for product positioning and branding. But today, it is more of a composite of product and systems. I might say, the horizons have broadened—with a mix of traditional engineering and the rigors of software engineering, bringing best practices of each to my current role.

As organizational equations between revenue generation and revenue management streams become complex, it becomes critical that we understand how to think global and act local; sound principles will always stand in good stead. 

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n COVER STORY | CUSTOMER ALIGNMENT

BHASKAR GANJIWALE Director-Technology Services, Sunfire Technologies

SYNC & SWIM WITH YOUR CUSTOMER If you aren’t listening to your customers’ needs, your competition is. Here are five trends that are changing your customers’ business­—and redefining yours.

By Shantheri Mallaya

T

HE WRITING’S on the wall: Listen to your customers or perish. There is no dearth of options out there and it doesn’t take much for your customers to shift loyalties. Customers are now discerning. They demand that their requirements are met, and met in the manner they desire. If the findings of the CIO Mid Year Review 2013 survey are anything to go by, then the Indian CIO—your customer—cannot be taken for granted. He is straddling tight budgets, delayed decisions from business, and walking the tightrope between IT capabilities and business needs. While there are some customer trends that are fast becoming the norm, a handful of

your peers have sensed the opportunity and have cracked the customer code in a highly competitive market.

You can too. Here are five trends that are changing your customer’s business—and yours.

1

The Opex Model Becomes More Popular

Organizations are moving beyond thinking about drawing out huge amounts and budgets towards setting up capital assets or even merely renting out a few pieces of hardware.

From circumventing the heart break of obsolescence to acquiring tax benefits and improving cash flow, the

idea of moving to alternate models of utilizing infrastucture is the new mantra of buying, as the CEO of Bangalore-based Central Data Systems, K. Subrahmanya would like to illustrate.

His company has astutely replicated what it does with short-term projects on a larger scale.

The solution provider, who rents out equipment to about 5 percent of its customer base for a period of 6 months, has moved to the next level. Central Data Systems (CDS) works actively with its core vendors’ financial arms—such as Cisco’s Cisco Capital, for example. CDS approaches its IT/ITES customers with leasing options for a period of three to five years at interest rates JULY 2013

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n COVER STORY | CUSTOMER ALIGNMENT

K. SUBRAHMANYA CEO, Central Data Systems

between 10-12 percent which Cisco Capital doles out. Customers pay EMIs for both the product and service components for the said duration. “Most of the financial arms of vendors are cashrich and need emerging markets such as India to promote their technologies.

This is why the opex idea is really catching on.” Further, the finance companies, while insisting that there should be some percentage of their own products, are also open to the idea of the deal having non-competitive third-party products.

So, why are customers happy? The leasing story allows customers—at the end of the tenure of the agreement—to either refresh the assets or buy them out, as the case may be.

This means no upfront investments, competitive interest rates coupled with the fact that they know that their services for the duration are covered in the agreement.

It’s a win-win situation as the solution provider also gains. About 25 percent of CDS’ long-term business is coming from leasing deals—and ensuring services—and the company envisages that this percentage is only bound to rise, 24

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

particularly in the IT/ITES sector.

But is this a better option than moving to the cloud? Subrahmanya thinks so. With fewer issues such as security to deal with; the dividing line is a bit thin. It definitely is a combination of the cloud and these models that would work in the long run, making customers look at this option more favourably, he avers.

Bhaskar Ganjiwale, directorTechnology Services, Sunfire Technologies, couldn’t agree more that the opex wave is catching on and customers are biting the bait at an accelerated rate. The Pune-based solution provider goes with the opex mantra of “return on individual”, which he

More Budgets Dedicated to Opex Compared to last year, more Indian CIOs are devoting a larger chunk of their budgets to opex.

54

2012

47 57

2013

43 n Opex

n Capex

says is the new ROI. He has reasons to strongly advocate this. This is based on the fact that today return on investment is passé, when customers are increasingly looking less at capital investments and more at maximizing what they realize out of quarterly or monthly pay-outs on usage.

Sunfire has now tied up with vendors such as Citrix to push VDI, which it believes is the best way to help customers get their Return on Productivity of Employee (ROPE) as well as the new ROI. And that’s being justified thus: If a customer opts for VDI, he will realize his ROPE in less than a year, which the company amply demonstrated with an IT/ ITES customer in Pune. The customer who has a 1,000 user base, opted for VDI, and Sunfire is confident that whatever their scalability patterns may be, this customer is now sold on the idea of “pay as you grow”, which is fundamentally a building block for the cloud.

A BFSI veteran-turned entrepreneur, Ganjiwale is in talks with customers in the BFSI sector too.

“While the capex-opex debate continues, customers are seeing the value of minimizing hardware costs, and opting for simpler expensingoff of these components through options such as thin clients. We are assisting them by providing consulting services, talking to our vendors, and helping them get financing options through finance companies, in the event of the vendor not having financial services to offer to the customer,” he says.

2

Cloud Computing Gains More Ground—Faster

If opex opens the discussion to phase out huge expenditures, the cloud is one of the routes that enterprises ultimately take. As the CIO Mid-Year Review 2013 survey indicates, about 84 percent of CIOs expect to see some sort of cloud—public, private or hybrid—implemented over the next 12 months. And as the hype cycle and curiosity even out—and demand trickles down the line—the good news is, tier-2 players are assessing

and gearing up at various stages to meet growing customer demand.

Pune-based Aashna Cloudtech is clear about what the customer is asking for. An early cloud entrant, this solution provider has witnessed the trend changing for the better over the last decade, with clients asking extensively about assurance of data confidentiality in a multi-tenant environment, details in terms of SLAs, exit clauses from existing subscriptions, an integrated cloud solution to manage the business, and an experienced vendor who has managed cloud application deployment.

The company also sees demand around access of data in real-time as well as on mobile devices. “We position ourselves as a cloud aggregator focused on enterprise applications and one service provider for all cloud applications. We clearly see the trend changing now, and are glad

Cloud Projects Gather Momentum A majority of CIOs say they have completed or expect to complete cloud projects this year.

83%

81%

tion provider. “CIOs of large firms or CEOs of SME clients would very soon prefer dealing with few cloud vendors and hence we are branding ourselves as the cloud aggregator partner who will be able to offer an integrated enterprise applications solution. We also have a consulting edge of having managed over 250 cloud projects over the last 10 years.”

If Aashna is about the more active, robust western India market, the eastern part of the country isn’t too far behind. Contrary to the myth about the slow uptake of newer concepts in this market, Kolkata’s Future Netwings has latched on to the opportunity that this trend offers and put together its business plan, with MD, Jaideep Chakrabarti quite focused about what’s going to sell. “The cloudbased opex model is definitely an area to watch out for,” says Chakrabarti.

Future Netwings has built its strategy on offering infrastructure-as-a-service. The company has back-to-back strategic tie ups with cloud service providers. “We have substantially enhanced our skillsets on virtualization in order to support the cloud initiative,” he says. More recently, Future Netwings tasted success when

BISWAS NAIR MD, Aashna Cloudtech

Completed

Expected to Complete

the investment we made in selling and implementing cloud a decade ago is really paying off,” says Biswas Nair, MD, Aashna Cloudtech. In the position of a cloud aggregator, Aashna has deployed the technology for an impressive clientele which has names such as Hindustan Unilever, Novartis, Olympus, and Nimbus, among others. Besides, Aashna has fortified its vendor partnerships with NetSuite, Success Factors, WorkForce Software, and Google.

The coming year is going to be quite opportunity laden for this solu-

a large customer, after trying to design its network for about six months internally, chose to give it all up and signed up for a cloud-based opex model with the help of the solution provider. This, Chakrabarti feels, is a clear indication of the pulse of the market. The coming year, Future Netwings will be targeting the SME segment and will be rolling out its own cloud-based solutions. Currently, the company is in the process of finalizing the technology and software solutions that it will be offering to customers.

Customers, for some years now, have been favoring a vendor neutral approach, best of breed, as the term goes. Bangalore’s Yashasvi Infosolutions tailors a mix of VMware, Microsoft, and Oracle, and layers open source to provide a private cloud set up for IT/ITES companies. About six months ago, this solution provider worked closely with a small customer, having about 300 users to deliver a medium-sized private cloud—wherein the customer saved itself the trouble of buying multiple hardware, software was bundled into the single hardware, and the cloud solu-

n COVER STORY | CUSTOMER ALIGNMENT tion was ready to go live. “We were Statement-of-Work (SOW) bound and delivered the project effectively on time and the client is happy realizing its objectives,” says Sanjeev Patil, director, Yashasvi Information Solutions. The success of such projects has given Yashasvi the confidence to venture into slightly bigger projects in order to ride the cloud wave.

3

Increasing Focus on Operational Efficiency

IT should always be deployed in a manner that increases the operational efficiency within an organization. More and more CIOs are of the view that IT should enable them to achieve this objective. Manoj Gupta, CEO, Grid Infocom, has seen the term coming up very often during discussions with customers. “With the sheen of labor arbitrage waning, there is also an unqualified assumption that Indian workers of global conglomerates are not as efficient as their global counterparts. So, organizations are keen to track the component in order to meet global mandates. If we haven’t factored operational efficiency as one of the

net outcomes of an IT implementation, then it is high time to do so,” says Gupta.

Grid has tied up with a niche USbased company called Openspan, provider of user experience software solutions, catering to customers mainly in the IT/ITES, BPO space, where back-office productivity is the core concern for managements.

Customers who have implemented this solution have been able to track problematic areas such as handling time and transaction processing time. The customers are also able to break down—component wise—as to how much time was actually productive. A customer has been able to leverage the Openspan solution by reducing handling time by about 15 percent. Grid had also used SAP’s User Based Communication Process to help a couple of customers in the utilities sector to streamline their complex tariff calculation mechanisms besides also helping effectively integrate their multiple communication channels.

Grid sensed these opportunities about two to three years ago, and is an early bird in these areas, with about 50 percent of the focus centered on Business Communication Management (BCM). “We are

JAIDEEP CHAKRABARTI MD, Future Netwings Solutions

Greater Focus on Operational Compared to last year, more CIOs say they have increased focus on operational efficiency.

61% 58%

2012

2013

very focused on our optimization strategy and now, we are a notch above the rest when it comes to experience in this domain,” says Gupta. Grid, which experienced long, painful sales cycles earlier, now, sees its efforts paying off as customer demand trickles in, making this a certain deal-breaker.

Ganjiwale of Sunfire is of a similar opinion. He believes that IT as an enabler of operational efficiency is now a strong deal clincher, with SMEs calculating the savings on overheads such as power and electricity, transaction time, and also return on the individual in a significant manner. He believes that small pieces such as VDI-in-abox could help companies achieve huge operational efficiencies, since projects turnaround faster, are easy to implement—as less as 30 days some for larger customers—and the benefits are quick to see. This is the next big opportunity that Sunfire has already trained its guns on, and hopes to see a lot of action.

4

The Mobile Movem­­­­ent Really Comes Home

The burgeoning mobile workforce is going to raise the levels of curiosity and adoption of mobile technologies.

The workplace is now a challenge of sorts and most CIOs are grappling with the question: At what level are we going to allow or implement mobile technologies and how?

Players such as Aashna Cloudtech have already jumped onto the mobile bandwagon. “As more and more companies—SMEs and large enterprises—move towards seeking more real-time data and as cloud applications get available on mobile devices, this could open up a huge opportunity for us.”

Aashna has launched and offers NetSuite ERP and CRM on an Android platform. Going forward, the solution provider hopes to get its existing and new customers hooked onto understanding the benefits of mobile CRM. Akhil Ranjan Jha, director of Kolkata’s Comprehensive Consultancy, is of the firm belief that the mobility wave is here to stay and has moved out of the hype cycle.

This company, an established player in the government, education and research sector, is actively setting up labs for mobile computing and for mobile app development. These are two segments that, he says, are the bulwark of the future. “This sec-

The Impact of Mobile Technologies Mobility topped a list of 10 technologies that CIOs say will have a huge impact this year.

24%

Of Indian CIOs say mobility will have the most profound effect on their roles this year. tor is our forte, But, we are also not averse to trying out the commercial markets as well, since the action is kicking off in a big way with organizations likely to opt for upgradation of networks that will support largescale mobile computing,” he says.

Comprehensive Consultancy, which operates primarily in the eastern and north-eastern markets, is hoping to see a growth of 16 percent in 2013-14, a significant chunk of which is likely to come from its new growth areas of mobility and high

MANOJ GUPTA CEO, Grid Infocom

performance computing. Awareness levels about the need to upgrade networks in order to increase bandwidth and also deal with the vulnerability quotient of mobile networks are areas of interest and concern that solution providers must look at.

“This is where our long-term energies ought to be channelized,” says Jha. These observations and clarity in the eastern market that account for a mere 8 percent of total IT business in the country, is commendable.

resource costs better. The ERP/CRM players have templates that, with about 10-15 percent customization, are ready to go-live.

In the four key markets that this

BI and Analytics Gain Ground A majority of CIOs say they expect to complete BI and analytics projects this fiscal.

8%

5

Adoption of BI and Analytics Touch New Heights

The SME segment, like the large enterprises segment, wants to grow and consume as much of the combination of analytics tools, however it can be supported either on the cloud or through mobile platforms.

Ahmedabad-based Silver Touch Technologies believes that its SME clientele—which is in the Rs 300500 crore bracket and mainly in the markets of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Delhi—is ripe for the use of BI solutions.

This solution provider has used SAP and Microsoft tools—which the company believes are ideal for this market—to help a couple of its manufacturing customers set up their supply chain management (SCM) and production management (PM) processes, thereby helping management map out its procurement and

30% 63%

n Completed within the last 12 months n Expected to complete in this fiscal n Not on our roadmap

company operates in, over the next two years, Silver Touch hopes to keep BI and analytics as its key focus areas, cloud and mobility being the ‘cause and effect’ of the demand for the former. “Customers are asking us to break down alert systems, workflow approvals, price lists, and the state of inventory. So the trend has kicked in. We will be definitely gearing up to meet these needs,” says Vipul Thakkar, director, Silver Touch Technologies.  JULY 2013

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n FAST TRACK

Snapshot

Acuvate

Founded: 2006 Headquarters: Hyderabad Employees: 200 Revenue 2010-11: Rs 5 crore Revenue 2011-12: Rs 11 crore Revenue 2012-13: Rs 16 crore Branches: Pune, Gurgaon, Bangalore, New York, Kansas, Slough (UK), The Hague (Netherlands) Key Executives: Rakesh Reddy, Chairman; Shubendu Banerjee, Chief Operating Officer Key Business Activities: Cloud, collaboration, document management, business process management, business intelligence, and mobility Key Principals: Microsoft, SAP, Nintex Website: www.acuvate.com

A multi-vertical approach has helped ward off financial risks, says Sandeep Goel, CEO, Acuvate.

H

YDERABAD-BASED ACUVATE has been in

business since 2006. In these seven years the solution provider has earned a reputation as a SharePoint, BI, and enterprise-based social media solutions company. “A balanced approach to these solution segments has helped us make a mark in the industry,” says Sandeep Goel, CEO, Acuvate. The SI’s focus on BI, social media, and ERP integration has reaped rich dividends. It expects to clock Rs 16 crore in FY 2012-13— a 45 percent increase from its 2011-12 revenues.

But working with a multi-technology focussed strategy has not been easy. As a fledgling solution provider, the company lacked technicallyskilled staff. Acuvate solved this by re-

cruiting experienced people from tier1 firms. “Now, we have a strong team that has good working knowledge of different industry verticals,” says Goel. As Acuvate marched ahead with its solutions offerings in a up-

REVENUE GROWTH Rs 16Rscr11 cr RsRs119crCr

Rs 5 cr

2010-11 SOURCE: ACUVATE

28

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2011-12

2012-13

country markets, it was constantly faced with a customer-demand for local presence. Goel knew such a demand could not be met and setting up offices in smaller regions would be impractical. Instead, the team at Acuvate expanded its presence in bigger cities like Pune, Gurgaon, and Bangalore. It, now, also has offices in the UK, the US, and Netherlands.

The SI has targeted verticals like manufacturing and BFSI. According to Goel, this multi-vertical approach has helped Acuvate ward off financial risks to a significant extent. “Many of our solutions have helped enterprise customers improve their ROI,” says Goel. The company has implemented industry specific solutions in collaboration with principals like Microsoft, SAP, and Nintex for customers in India and overseas.

Its customers include Indigo, Genpact, Ceat, and AON among others.

Goel intends to keep up Acuvate’s momentum. The company plans to launch new solutions every quarter. “Our incubation team is working on launching an HTML 5-based mobility solution in the near future,” says Goel.  —Aritra Sarkhel

n FEATURE | BRING YOUR OWN CLOUD

What’s Your Cloud LOC? With bring-your-own-cloud quickly gaining ground, organizations will soon have to define what is forbidden for employees to utilize and what isn’t.

By Robert L. Mitchell

B

RING-YOUR-OWN-DEVICE IS so

2012. The next big push in the consumerization of IT is bringyour-own-cloud. And just as when consumer devices poured into the enterprise, many IT organizations have already responded with a list of do’s and don’ts.

The standard approach has been to forbid the use of personal cloud applications for business use, by offering official alternatives—the “use this, not that” approach—and to carve out separate cloud storage workspaces for business documents that can be walled off, managed and audited. But personal cloud services are difficult to control, and users are adept at going around IT if the productivity tools in their personal cloud can do the job easier, faster, and better. IT wants a bifurcated approach

to consumer and professional cloud apps and storage. But users don’t work that way anymore.

GETTING AROUND IT Scott Davis, CTO of end-user computing at VMware, originally began using a personal cloud app for business after the IT organization failed to offer a viable solution that met his needs. Davis, who has speaking engagements all over the world and needs to share large multimedia presentation files, asked for an exception to VMware’s e-mail attachment size quota. IT responded first by suggesting that he pare down the content and then followed up by suggesting that he buy “a bag full of USB drives” to send presentations by mail.

“That’s when I started using Dropbox,” he says. “IT has competition.

People know what’s out there and how to get the job done if IT doesn’t help them.” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg agrees. “IT has to deal not only with bring-your-own devices but bringyour-own services,” he says. People will bypass even viable alternatives if they feel that the officially sanctioned professional cloud offering isn’t equal to the task—or if they have a personal cloud app they like better. “If it’s digital and it’s consumer, it’s going to find its way into the office. People will come up with reasons for using it,” he says.

At construction management firm Skanska USA Building, employees are mashing up business and personal work on a wide range of personal cloud services, including Dropbox and Evernote.

Today, says senior enterprise engineer Jeff Roman, “We don’t control that.”

But IT is actively reviewing its options.

“What are we going to limit? What can they access at work and at home?” he asks. Right now that’s controlled by use policies that employees must follow as to what types of documents need to stay out of the cloud and what’s permissible. For example, financial data “should never touch a cloud service,” he says, nor should some documents relating to government projects.

But Skanska is also looking for an officially sanctioned cloud storage option. It is considering Microsoft’s SkyDrive Pro, using Citrix’s ZenMobile to provide virtual access to files stored on back-end servers, or using niche services such as Autodesk Buzzsaw, which puts construction design tools and documents in the cloud. “We don’t need people using all of these different tools,” he says, but any solution must be as easy to use as the personal cloud tools employees rely on. Otherwise, users are likely to bypass the official alternative.

“It will be tough to find a one-sizefits-all solution,” he says, “but we’re working on it. I am hopeful that within the next year we will have one in place, whether that is on-premises or cloud or a hybrid of both.”

BLURRING THE LINES Organizations need to develop a threepronged strategy for on-premises, offpremises, and cloud, says Jim Guinn, managing director at consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers. “You really JULY 2013

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n FEATURE | BRING YOUR OWN CLOUD need to pay attention to how you secure documents that are in someone else’s cloud-based service,” he says.

Roman says some documents just don’t belong in popular cloud storage services. “I’ve read the whitepapers on Dropbox and Box. I guess they’re secure,” he says. But for sensitive documents, he adds, “we don’t want to risk it.” Even the issue of who owns business applications and how those applications are licensed is blurring. Evernote for Business, for example, adds a business services layer that includes policycontrolled business notebooks and adds business document libraries to the user’s personal Evernote account. Personal and professional documents reside in different repositories but with a unified view. “We’re seeing a transition from two completely separate worlds to a world where there is no line between

model where the user must back out of one account bay and enter another to view and edit documents. Office applications can save to either folder. And if the user copies a document from his personal SkyDrive folder into the SkyDrive Pro folder, that file will be copied back to the cloud, where the policies for that document library will apply.

But only in the cloud. While IT can control which files users can sync with SkyDrive Pro, the cloud service can’t control what users do with the locally stored versions of those files. Users either must work with sensitive files in the cloud only or use Office 2013’s Information Rights Management feature to control forwarding, copying or printing of specific documents. “Clearly, there’s a lot of change coming where IT has to integrate these [personal cloud services] into the current stack and fig-

Companies can put policies and tools in place to ensure security, but ultimately they will have to learn to trust their users. what’s good for personal and what’s good for business,” says Andrew Sinkov, vice president of marketing at Evernote. And if the user leaves the organization, the account—sans business documents—goes with him.

“This model is little understood but I think will have a profound impact,” says Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research.

With Office 2013 and SkyDrive, Microsoft has taken a small step toward creating a unified view of the user’s personal and professional worlds. It has created synchronized, local versions of the user’s SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro (SharePoint document library) storage repositories that exist as separate folders on the user’s local desktop. In this way, Office 365 can create and modify documents in the cloud, Office 2013 can read and write to the same files in a local folder, and all changes will be synchronized. “There’s a convergence happening from the user’s point of view,” says Microsoft storyteller Steve Clayton. This strategy gets around the modal approach to personal and professional workflows—the two-car-garage 30

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ure out how it will work together,” says Amit Singh, president of the enterprise unit at Google, which in recent years has added enterprise features to consumer-based cloud applications such as Google Docs. With the latter, individual documents can be shared between the controlled, auditable professional account, and the user’s personal account.

But Docs offers no unified document view. On the other hand, Google Plus, Singh says, “was imagined as a semipermeable layer where we add controls for the enterprise from the bottom up.”

THE TASK AT HAND FOR IT But not all consumer-based cloud apps will necessarily be expanded to support enterprise security and compliance needs. As the personal and professional worlds continue to blur, IT will have to adapt. Users will want to use some of their own personal cloud-based productivity tools, so for better or worse, IT will need to support mainstream personal cloud apps—including Dropbox, says Gillett. Going forward, he says, “you need to look at integrating employees’ personal cloud apps and

data in the same way you connect with business partners today.” Ultimately, IT will have to stop worrying about how to control which applications people are using or where documents reside and focus on protecting the documents themselves, says Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney. “Companies will just have to permit these things and take a different look at security,” he says, adding that IT will eventually embrace digital rights management schemes such as Microsoft’s Information Rights Management service.

“We’re working with Microsoft on ways to support that in a mobile context,” says Nicko van Someren, CTO at enterprise mobile management vendor Good Technology. But the market for the use of rights management servers to track and control content is still embryonic, he adds. While DRM has a bad reputation among consumers, the systems could work for business, Dulaney says. He sees an evolution of products similar to WatchDox, which encrypts files that move outside of the enterprise space and requires that users have an authenticated reader app to view them.

To this, IT might also need to add public key infrastructure systems and certificates, Dulaney says.

But if the idea of DRM seems unpalatable—and expensive—the convergence of personal and professional clouds could leave IT organizations with few other options for protecting truly sensitive documents. IT departments will also be faced with the challenge of maximizing convenience while protecting those documents in a world where those assets need to exist on and move quickly between many different endpoint devices.

“These trends in consumer technology are so massive and supported by so many citizens that this is now the era of user-driven IT,” says Dulaney. “It’s not business-driven. The user gets to decide.” Skanska’s Roman says he has no illusions that he can ever completely control all of the applications and data created and shared in the cloud even though the company plans to offer official cloud alternatives and has strong policies about the use of sensitive documents. Yes, you can put policies and tools in place. But ultimately, he says, “you have to trust your users.” 

Focal Point EVERYTHING ABOUT CoIT

software for every conceivable application; and publicly used identity management systems such as using Facebook or other social networks as a single sign-on provider.

In short, CoIT is the adoption of any consumer-facing technology for business purposes. CoIT hasn’t just recently grown to encompass this broad swath of domains. The “new” areas have always been with us. It’s only just now that those other domains are getting the same attention, and forcing reassessments of how IT uses consumer technology.

Take a look at the various ways CoIT exists beyond BYOD policies, and how IT managers can get the most out of these groundswells of change in consumer technology.

CoIT MANIFESTS ITSELF

The New

Face of Old IT New trends in CoIT are changing how enterprises view consumer tech. By Jim Metzler

M

ENTION “CONSUMERIZATION of IT”

and you’re likely to imagine people bringing (or sneaking) their iPhones and iPads into work, with or without the blessing of their IT managers. There’s no disputing the BYOD movement has forced major changes in how IT is managed, and also how consum-

er-level IT devices are built and marketed. But devices aren’t the be-all and end-all of the consumerization of IT phenomenon, known as CoIT. The phenomenon also includes consumer data services and cloud storage; publicly available repositories of big data, which anyone (not just corporations) can use; open source and commercial

Employees in IT-empowered workplaces have long lived with policies that restricted their behavior. In the early days of workplace computing, many of these restrictions were a matter of practice, not policy.

They stemmed more from the technology being rare and expensive—and thus impractical to bring in— than because of any explicit restrictions on their use. One exception to that rule was software, since it was easy enough to bring in and could almost always be used without attracting undue attention (especially in the pre-network days).

As IT became a fixture in the workplace, so did rules governing its use. But the overall trend for computing has been towards democratization of access (most everyone can use it) and consumerization of form and delivery (most everyone can afford it). By the

raw numbers, CoIT-loving workers are actually in the minority. An IDC study found that on average only two out of every 10 workers surveyed preferred choosing their own devices. Forrester Research’s Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey (from 2011) showed roughly the same numbers: One-fifth to one-fourth of IT workers wanted their own devices or used their own services. That said, what’s less clear is which 20 percent or so of the total workforce makes those demands. If they are workers who draw more pay, command more influence, and provide a broader skill segment, that relatively small percentage speaks with a much louder voice. In such cases, the employees are more able to demand—and receive—the IT solutions of their choice. And ultimately, the sheer ubiquity of consumer tech as a workplace staple means it’s better to embrace it now instead of being pushed aside later.

Several ongoing trends have continued to influence the way consumer IT enters and changes the workplace: Diverse devices and platforms. This doesn’t just mean smaller or more user-friendly devices— consumer technology means business. The consumerization of IT is about far more than just using your own smartphone at work although that certainly applies—but also new ways of interacting with those devices (touchscreens and their new touch-centric interfaces). The stark, nononsense first-generation BlackBerry, which appealed mainly to executives and tech-savvy users, has given way to lively, colorful, and

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n FOCAL POINT | CoIT powerfully interactive iOS- and Android-powered devices. If users have to spend their entire workday with a device, they’re more motivated to spend it with a device that appeals to them aesthetically. Never underestimate the power of an aesthetically appealing device, even if it has issues with management or security. Users tend to put their own comfort and convenience over the security and integrity of the organization as a whole, but that doesn’t rule out compromise.

Growth of consumeroriented sites and services. Workers now routinely use unauthorized websites or Internet services, including social networks and microblogs, as part of their jobs.

Many of these tools are not simply being used for personal convenience, but for driving the core business itself—such as identifying customers or sales leads or accelerating existing business processes.

Always make an ongoing effort to determine which services are in wide use and find ways to bring the most popular and useful sites into the way work is done—not simply blacklist them. Also, pay attention to how to separate legitimate and frivolous use of these services, and make sure the two don’t interfere with each other. Services that consume heavy amounts of bandwidth may be useful, but only to the extent they don’t crowd out other usage.

Software technologies.

This comes not just in the form of new applications, but in new ways of thinking about software itself.

The rise in awareness of open source software, for 32

UNOFFICIAL USE OF SOFTWARE AND SERVICES

BY IT-ENABLED WORKERS 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%

Non-authorized websites

example, has supplied the IT world with a massive culture of free and highly malleable applications, many of which come packaged in consumeroriented editions (the Chrome Web browser, for example). Virtualization has also made it easier for IT workers to experiment safely with software that wouldn’t otherwise be allowed in work environments. IT managers should, whenever possible, encourage the use of virtualization for the sake of running software in a sandboxed environment.

This minimizes the risk of using the software directly on a production machine, or allowing it access to a production network.

That works especially well in work and home PC environments. Of course, virtualization doesn’t only mean running a Windows desktop environment on another device; in fact, that option works poorly on mobile devices. But other technologies are available—manageable software wrappers for corporate apps to restrict information flow, separate sandboxes for business and personal apps, and HTML5 front ends to enterprise

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Social networking

Rogue software

apps—that provide the desired separation.

THE UNDERLYING TREND Few people reading this need to be told about how BYOD has changed how devices are used in the workplace. But BYOD is actually better thought of as being part of a larger trend: The self-provisioning of technology. This trend, which persists through almost every technology category explored, is the accelerating pace of users picking the devices, software, and environments that empower them, rather than having such things assigned to them by fiat. Here are a few ways IT admins can keep a handle on self-provisioned devices.

Costs. One advantage of self-provisioned technology is that it gives workers the option to pay their own money for technologies that they would prefer to use. The obvious benefits— increased productivity and employee loyalty— are offset by potential problems of management and security. IT admins should always offer the option of self-purchased and self-provisioned technology, but with incentives for purchasing devices with specific

Microblogging

support provisions.

Such incentives could be financial. Also, there should be clear definitions of how costs of service for the device are to be handled, which in itself could be used as an incentive. For example, the company could pick up the entire tab for both device and service for an approved device, but only pay for the cost of the service for an unapproved device.

Jailbreaking. Technically savvy users who chafe at the restrictions imposed by locked-down devices sometimes cut their own end runs around those barriers by jailbreaking or rooting those devices. Such devices no longer have to follow policy guidelines or software restrictions.To that end, there’s at least as much attention to end point security as there is device security, but perhaps additional behavioral compromises can be reached for workers with jailbroken devices. Users could agree to have their devices segregated into a separately moderated subnetwork, which allows them access to the same resources but at the cost of a higher degree of scrutiny. The major mobile device management products can detect jailbro-

ken devices, so IT can block their access or enforce their segregation from the trusted pool of devices.

Device Life Cycles. The average lifetime for a given device—and in many cases a given software application—as accelerated, in some ways as an offset or a compensation for the slowing pace of change in desktop PCs. IT managers should note, though, that device life cycles are as much a function of the user as they are the device. A user satisfied with a given iteration is less likely to upgrade for the sake of upgrading, and can be counted on that much more to not contribute to added costs (either for provisioning new devices or support for same).

Finally, keep in mind there’s a rich culture of thirdparty device management tools and products, which can be drawn on as needed for both enterprise-approved and CoIT-enabled devices.

DEALING WITH CONSUMER SERVICES Almost every service we think of as having a “consumer” facet has a “professional” facet as well—a higher tier of service aimed specifically at businesses. In fact, most of the business models for those services come from the for-pay, professionally oriented, premium-level version of the service. The lowcost or “freemium” user version of the service is a limited-value loss leader, an on ramp to attract enough paying customers to make the service sustainable. That said, many workers find that the freemium version of a service is not only more than enough for their purposes, but comes free of restrictions

that might be imposed by their own IT managers. It’s not enough for IT managers to provision the professional version of a consumer service for their workers; they should remain conscious of the fact that users may well try to use the free version of the same product (or a competing one).

Social Networks. For any company large enough to have an IT department, a presence on and aggressive use of social networks is indispensable. Aside from being used to create intranet-like communities within companies, social networks also are used for promotional work, job recruitment, scouting for prospective business leads,

and customer-facing interactions.The most crucial thing is to set access policies on the use of corporate branded social-networking accounts.

Those entrusted with these accounts should be welltrained in the responsible use of social media to avoid PR gaffes that could damage the company’s reputation; they should be PR people first and social networking people second.

Data repositories. Services such as Dropbox and Box offer gigabytes of online storage that can be synched effortlessly between clients. Many offer professional tiers of service: Box, in particular, has enterprise security features that include logging of user

behaviors, at-rest and intransit encryption of data, global management functions, and an API platform to allow broad integration with common business solutions. These allow the service to become a functional part of the business, the way an organization might build infrastructure around Google Docs or Gmail. A department interested in setting up its own custom infrastructure through such a tool should be given a chance, but the keys to managing such infrastructure and final oversight should remain in the hands of a higher authority—for example, as a stopgap measure against allowing sensitive internal

CoIT will Make IT Departments Irrelevant

C

onsumerization of IT and self-service trends will lead to a restructuring of today’s IT shop, leaving behind a hybrid model consisting of tech consultants and integrators. “The business itself will be the IT department. [Technologists] will simply be the enablers,” said Brandon Porco, chief technologist and solutions architect at Northrop Grumman.

Porco was part of a fourperson panel of technologists who answered audience questions during a meeting at the CITE Conference and Expo.

Among concerns raised is whether IT is losing control as consumer technology becomes part and parcel of everyone’s work in the enterprise, and the datacenter is left behind.

Others said they are not sure how to address a growing generation gap between young and veteran workers, each of

whom are comfortable with different technologies.

“Interns coming in for the summer are asked if they’re familiar with Google Apps. They say, ‘Of course we are,’” said Nathan McBride, vice president of IT and chief cloud architect at AMAG Pharmaceuticals.

“Then we have other employees coming in who worked for other companies who say, ‘I need Outlook.’ We have to say we don’t use that anymore.”

McBride said 75 Fortune 100 companies now use Google Apps along with most Ivy League schools, meaning that the next generation of workers won’t be users of Microsoft Exchange or Office.

In five years, McBride said, companies will have to ensure they’re matching their enabling technology to the demographic of that time. Kathleen Schaub, vice president of research firm IDC’s CMO Advisory Practice,

said many corporate IT organizations now report to the head of the business unit it’s assigned to.

“The premise is that wherever IT sits in an organization will dictate what they care about,” she said. “If they’re in finance, they’ll care about cost cutting. If they’re in operations, they’ll care about process management. If [the company] decides it wants to focus on the customer, they’ll put it in marketing.” While the CIO position will likely remain in an enterprise, his or her role will morph into a technology forecaster and strategist, rather than a technology implementer, according to Porco. “We’re not trying to be ahead of the technology curve and we don’t’ want to be behind, but we’re trying to maintain pace in order to know what they’re going to ask for next before they ask for it,” McBride said.

—Lucas Mearian

JANUARY JULY 2013 1, 2009 INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

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n FOCAL POINT | CoIT data to be leaked through such channels. Granted, this particular problem will never have a perfect solution, but that’s no reason not to take what action you can.

CHANGES IN SOFTWARE Software was one of the easiest things to sneak into the workplace during the early days of CoIT. Now, thanks to locked-down desktop environments and administrative controls, it’s one of the hardest—but that doesn’t mean there’s no CoIT angle to software anymore.

Consumer desktop apps.

The line between what constitutes an “enterprise” app and a “personal” app continues to vanish.

Barring the presence of

support—has a license that says it can be used in a business setting.

Open source projects.

Open source software projects are not inherently consumer-oriented, but that’s part of their power: They can be bent and shaped to fit a great many needs, both personal and commercial.

Open source projects that are aimed mainly at users can be adapted to the enterprise and vice versa, such as KeePass, an open source password vault. Bear in mind that the cost of such adaptation (in both time and effort) is borne entirely by the IT. It’s not enough for IT managers to provision the professional version of a consumer service for their workers;

crunching as part of its regular operations using internal and external data. What is new is the scale and scope of that data, the affordability of the technology used to process it—both hardware and software—and the sources for that data.

Public big data. The rise of commodity cloud infrastructures (Amazon Web Services, for example) has made it that much easier to aggregate large amounts of data sets harvested from academic, governmental, and commercial but freely licensed sources. Many of these data sets are useful as business tools—such as census data—and can be leveraged to save costs for not only IT but other parts

The line that differentiates an enterprise app from a personal app is the management features of the platform that make more of a difference now. enterprise-level features in a given application, it’s the management features of the platform—user rights and permissions, for example— that make more of the difference now.

The main thing to be on guard against is licensing violations, because some consumer software products are licensed for use in non-commercial contexts only. Microsoft Office Home and Student edition, for example, is the less-expensive version of Microsoft Office that, as the name implies, is for home and student use, and cannot be used in a corporate environment per its license. On the other hand, Adobe Photoshop Elements—the less-expensive downmarket edition of Photoshop, which omits features such as CMYK and Pantone 34

they should remain conscious of the fact that users may well try to use the free version of the same product (or a competing one). department, unless you’re purchasing support for the app from a vendor or hiring a consultant. That said, open source requires no initial outlay for the software itself and has no restrictions on internal use or redistribution (its only restrictions are on how its source code is reused in other contexts).

NEW SCALE AND SCOPE “Big data”—the massive amounts of data that gain new purpose when being analyzed for unintended uses, often by being mashed up—by itself is not new. Most any company of size has needed to perform analytics and number-

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of the company.

Open source data-manipulation infrastructures.

Manipulating big data sets has become much easier thanks to storage, memory and processing all becoming cheaper. But another major advance has been the software used to store, process, and extract that data efficiently, especially when the data is stored across large numbers of machines.

Hadoop (also incarnated as MapR) is one such application, an open source project with flexible licensing terms. CIOs need to know that such products aren’t replacements for desktop tools like Microsoft Excel, and can’t be leveraged in an afternoon. Although the software itself is typically free, the time and effort required to make proper use

of it should be considered an investment and not just an expense.

Social data and feedback.

Data culled from responses provided through social networks can also be useful. Because social network double as identity-management tools for many people, that reduces the amount of work needed to be done to sanitize the data or screen out fraudulent or duplicate submissions.

IDENTITY MANAGEMENT Centralized identity services in the enterprise have typically been used to access internal resources—such as signing on to workstations or reading e-mail. Now they’re being extended to speak to external services as well via third-party identity providers that are both consumerand business-oriented.

Third-party identity providers exist in two basic incarnations: Systems and services. Systems consist of methods like OpenID, which is simply a standard that can be implemented by anyone and exists in any number of free implementations (both in terms of cost and licensing). A commercially implemented system would be something like Symplified, which provides a single internal sign-on that can be used with external apps such as Salesforce.com, Google Apps, Box, and more than a thousand others. Services include Facebook, which may be widely recognized as a way to assert an identity online, but is ultimately controlled by a single, commercial authority. Such services are best confined to environments that aren’t mission-critical—for example, an informal employees’ group could be hosted

on Facebook. A system like Symplified could be used to sign on to Facebook if needed, but Facebook itself would be a poor primary sign-on choice for even a CoIT-friendly environment. The primary sign-on should always be something that can be directly controlled in-house, not something that exists at the behest of another company that owns the platform and has no explicit SLA with your business.

IT departments should keep an eye out for movement towards standardized APIs for identity management (via the Initiative for Open Authentication). This may well preclude the use of passwords entirely: A smart card or token (even a smartphone) plus a biometric, for example, could be used in lieu of a conventional password. That said, these aren’t expected to become commonplace until another consumerized technology trend takes off: The integration of near-field technologies in smartphones.

Business with budgets too small for physical token or biometrics can still take advantage of a few consumer identity-management products to good effect. LastPass, a password- and credentialmanagement system that integrates into Web browsers, also has an enterprise-level edition with administrative controls. KeePass has been deployed in enterprise settings and has a rich culture of third-party add-ons that allow easier enterprise integration.

CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT Consumerization of IT isn’t likely to vanish, but it also isn’t likely to completely displace conventional corporate IT products. What’s

more likely is a future wave of products that sport two faces—professional and consumer—and can be used in both contexts, even at the same time. To keep from being broadsided by that future, here are some forward-looking recommendations for IT managers and CIOs. Make and maintain acceptable use policies about CoIT-able products.

Workers should have one place to go where they can find a rundown of what is and isn’t permissible as far as bringing in one’s own IT resources. These policies should cover devices as well as software brought in from the outside, consumer services accessed through work IT resources, third-party

And remember that where risk is involved, IT cannot be the sole decider or enforcer; business management needs to help determine acceptable risk and manage and enforce compliance. That’s part of the responsibility users take on when they self-provision and drive technology choices.

Create an inner core of enterprise resources, with processes for connecting to consumerized offerings. The most crucial, bedrock-layer parts of your business processes should be built on enterprise products whenever possible. The edges can be a zone for experimentation, where CoIT takes root. Between those two domains should be a buffer zone, a

element. One thing that does stand out, and should guide the future use of CoIT, is how it affects the relationship between users and the IT staff. The majority of the heavy lifting for IT management falls to the CIO and the IT team—the former to plan, the latter to execute.

The growth of CoIT changes the picture drastically, as it allows users much more leeway to execute their own IT plan. This goes double for expert users—people who in the absence of an IT department would be able to do their own IT support. In fact, sometimes they become the de facto IT support in environments where the users feel at odds with their own IT departments. This isn’t

It is difficult to narrow down one pivotal aspect of CoIT. But what stands out, and should guide the future use of CoIT, is how it affects the relationship between users and the IT staff. data, and so on. Not all of it may be relevant now, but it might be soon, which is why it’s crucial to start that conversation early.

Develop and maintain a balance between selfprovisioned and assigned use of resources. Figure out what sorts of consumerized IT products are fine as is and which need explicit management. For example, in your environment, which would be more potentially disruptive: A worker who brings in his own iPhone, or a worker who sets up a departmental Box account?

Which would need more oversight? Which would open up that many more opportunities in your business? No two IT departments are going to have the same answers to these questions, nor should they.

set of procedures and standards that allow resources to be moved safely back and forth. It should always be possible for the two to talk to each other, but never at the expense of your core security and manageability.

Compartmentalize everything that needs regulatory compliance.

Any business that exists in an industry governed by regulatory oversight needs to be doubly conscious of how CoIT can create giant loopholes. The individual is still the main consumer for CoIT offerings, not the enterprise—especially not the regulated enterprise.

CoIT BUILDS BUSINESS CoIT is such a broad phenomenon that it’s tough to narrow down its importance to any one pivotal

a new phenomenon, but the acceleration of CoIT makes it all the more prominent.

Because of these potential disparities and imbalances, IT staff members owe it to themselves to find out how to share the responsibility for managing this brave new world of consumerized IT. Securing the help of expert users who aren’t themselves IT staff is one way to do it, because they’re in the trenches and can provide exactly the kind of uncensored, real-world feedback that’s most needed. Over time, more CoIT technologies will become dual-use technologies, with facets for both enterprise management and personal use. But until that becomes commonplace, you’ll need to continue ensuring that the IT part of CoIT is done right. 

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35

n OPINION

THORNTON A. MAY

Lost in Translation When CEOs expect cost management from their CIOs, it is often confused with cost reduction and an aversion to IT. On the contrary, they just want CIOs to spend smarter and innovate better.

Thornton A. May is author of The New Know: Innovation Powered by Analytics and executive director of the IT Leadership Academy at Florida State College in Jacksonville.

You can contact him at thorntonamay@aol.com or follow him on Twitter (@deanitla).

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I

RECENTLY MISINTERPRETED some CEO cost-speak.

The enormous gap between what I thought I was hearing and what the CEOs were actually saying is tremendously illustrative and well worth looking at. I was involved, albeit tangentially, in a dozen executive searches for new CIOs. All of these searches were being led by CEOs of global, brand-name, Fortune 300 companies. In fact, nine of the companies were in the Fortune 100. In my experience, such leaders are enlightened and appreciative of the value of IT. That’s why I was surprised—shocked, actually—to find that every one of these CEOs ranked IT cost management among the top three capabilities they were looking for in their next CIO. I couldn’t understand it. How could that be when just about everything one reads in the business press and from subscription research firms claims that growth is the primary focus for top companies’ leaders? What was going on? Could it be that, against astounding odds, I had stumbled into a thicket of Luddites masquerading as modern leaders? No; the job requirements crafted by these CEOs were not outliers. I talked to three of the CIO communities I manage and learned that IT cost management is at or near the top of most CEOs’ expectations of their CIOs. But the way that I was reading “IT cost management” is far removed from how the CEOs were thinking about that concept. I was afraid that new CIOs were going to be hired on the expectation that they would be frenzied, anti-technology, chainsaw-wielding cost-cutters. All of the visions I have ever had of CIOs using technology to help their companies move in new and profitable directions were going up in smoke.

But no. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, the CEOs were looking for someone who deeply understood IT cost drivers and the relationship between optimized IT infrastructure and innovation. In

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2013

other words, the kind of cost management these CEOs had in mind involved the CIO managing an updated and future-looking IT platform as a possible source of funding for new initiatives. Quite simply, I had equated cost management with cost reduction. But CEOs don’t want to spend less on IT; they want to spend smarter on IT. CEOs see new technology as a way to lower costs and increase competitiveness.

They have come to realize that IT is the new basis of competition and that without an up-to-date technology platform, they can’t compete. They are, it would seem, channeling Andrew Carnegie.

Carnegie, the great steel magnate of the 19th century, believed in investing aggressively in the latest technology, as business historian H.W. Brands relates in The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s. Carnegie believed that every month his company used outdated equipment was a month forever lost to inefficiency. Upon hearing how British steelmakers prided themselves on wringing the last ton of steel out of dated equipment, he scoffed: “That is what is the matter with the British steel trade. Most British equipment is in use 20 years after it should have been scrapped.”

Carnegie was right. During the 1880s, costs were halved, output doubled, and profits rose. What are you waiting for? Get out there and re-platform something. 

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