ChannelWorld by Sreekanth Sastry

A Changing Landscape: What many IT administrators may have once thought impossible has happened Page 43

ChannelWorld Strategic insights for solution providers | Cover Price Rs.50

Praveen Dwarkanath of MN World expects to repeat the GoogleApps success with the upcoming InstaCRM

Inside February 2011 Vol. 4, issue 11

What’s Your Move? Five Cloud strategies that partners are adopting to cash in >>Page 24

News Analysis

Google is injecting younger blood into its top leadership but it’s unclear if Page is ready. Page 12 Collaboration between channels is the way forward, say software partners. But, its easier said than done. Page 14 The Grill: Keith Goodwin, SVP, Global Channels, Cisco, explains the firm’s approach Page 15

Opinion

Google is worried that it’s suffering from Microsoft syndrome Page 18

Case Study

Covincing a customer about replacing one vendor with another is no small matter Page 34

Don’t Miss...

The Face Off between EMC and NetApp on virtual storage Page 48

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n Editor’s Note

TM Arun Kumar

Stretching Thin?

ow many battles can one person, or in this

case a company, fight at the same time? The answer would vary depending on the size of the company and the amount of management bandwidth that it has to spare for all these battles. The theory would go like this – bigger the company more the management bandwidth that it will have and hence would be in a better position to fight more simultaneous battles. However, any company, howsoever large it may be, will reach a tipping point wherein it will be unable to take on more battles without losing the plot in some of the existing ones in which it is already engaged in. So, the logical question is how does a company find out if its plate (in terms of number of market battles that it is fighting) is full? Now, this is a subjective call that the companies will have to take depending on the ground realities. And any wrong call in this case can have unfortunate and unforeseen consequences. And history is witness to many such wrong calls that various managements have taken with disastrous consequences. So, what is the relevance of fighting multiple simultaneous battles here? Well, the example that immediately springs to mind is that of Hewlett-Packard. The Silicon Valley giant is currently in that

position, i.e. fighting multiple battles on different fronts. The company, which has been facing declining market share in the PC business, is engaged in a fierce fight with competitors likes Dell and Acer. And that battle, which has been on for some time, looks set to continue well into 2011 and beyond. On the enterprise front, HP is engaged in a number of battles for control or leadership in networking, storage, and the datacenter space. Its decision

nThe question is does HP have the management bandwidth to fight so many different battles on so many different fronts simultaneously?

to get into the networking business a few years ago with the launch of ProCurve set it on a collision course with market leader and one time partner Cisco. And its acquisition of 3Com has only intensified that battle. On the storage front, it is fighting a bitter battle with EMC and NetApp. This was very much visible a few months ago when HP decided to knuckle down and won a hard fought bidding war with Dell for the control of storage vendor 3PAR. As if that is not enough, it is in the midst of a fight to redefine the future of datacenters. And the opponents in this case are the who’s who of the technology landscape – namely IBM, Dell, Cisco, to name a few. While Cisco is pushing its unified computing system in alliance with partners EMC

and VMware and IBM is fortifying its position with OEM and reselling agreements with NetApp, Juniper and Brocade, HP is virtually going head-tohead with them all alone. And more recently, HP has opened another front with the launch of TouchPad, its foray into the tablet space that pits it directly against the likes of Apple, Google and Blackberry. This move is courtesy its last year’s acquisition of Palm and intensifies its rivalries in the personal computing space. And while fighting all these battles in the market with so many different rivals, it has to keep an eye on another Silicon Valley heavyweight -Oracle. HP’s relationship with Oracle has soured considerably in the last year or so after the latter acquired Sun Microsystems, hired HP’s former CEO Mark Hurd, and was trying to get HP’s current CEO Leo Apotheker to testify in the Oracle-SAP patent infringement case. So, the question is does HP have the management bandwidth to fight so many different battles on so many fronts simultaneously? While the jury is still out on this, HP and its partners would certainly hope that it has what it takes to fight these disparate battles.  TM Arun Kumar is the Executive Editor of ChannelWorld. Contact him at arun_k@idgindia.com

february 2011

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INDIAN Channelworld

2/15/2011 11:24:26 AM

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Inside Indian Channelworld n february 2011

■ news digest 06 Microsoft Must Get ISVs to ARM | When Microsoft announced

plans to release a version of Windows for ARM processors, it created a lot of work not only for itself, but for all the independent software vendors who sell Windows software as well 08 EMC’s Strategy Goes Deep in the Cloud | At EMC’s first

strategic forum in two years, company execs offered financial analysts and investors a view into the company’s plans. 08 IBM Teams

With Juniper in Mobile Security Drive | IBM unwrapped a variety of mobile security initiatives. IBM Security Services said it would team with Juniper to offer managed services for Apple iOS, Android, & Symbian. 10 Has HP Done Enough to Rival the iPad? | HP launched a slick-

looking tablet computer based on a new release of its webOS

■ news analysis 12 Google CEO Switch Risky Move? | Google’s decision to

change CEOs begs the question of whether the company is trying to fix something that isn’t broken

15 ■ The Grill 15 Keith Goodwin, Senior. Vice

President, Worldwide Partner Organization, Cisco, emphasizes the underlying principle behind Cisco’s ‘architecture’ approach

■ Feature 31 Counter Attack

Should revenge assaults be just another security tool large IT shops use to counter cyber attacks and data security subversion? It’s a controversial idea, and the law generally frowns on cyber attacks in general.

■ On Record

20 Bryan Jones, Director, Global

Data Center Marketing & Strategy, Dell, talks about the company’s datacenter vision for the Indian market and the company’s plans to ward off competition to keep it at top of the table.

14 Partnership: Easier Said Than Done | Collaboration between

partners has been a much discussed topic to harness technical strength

■ opinion 01 Editorial: TM Arun Kumar on

the disposition of huge mutli-national companies to fight numerous battles to prove a point to their competitors 18 Preston Gralla: Is Google

Suffering from the Microsoft Syndrome?There are symptoms.

24 ■ cover story

24 Game Plans

As Cloud Computing fast becomes a reality, have partners come up with strategies to cash in on the expected boom? While many of them are still working out their individual game plans, we take a look at five partners who are successfully encashing on the Cloud wave.

■ case study

34 Tilting the Balance

An ISV has the ability to tilt the balance in any deal. However, Covincing a customer about replacing one vendor with another is no small matter. Mumbai-based Verchaska Infotech did just that.

Cover Photograph: Srivatsa Shandilya & Cover Imaging by Unnikrishnan A.V TOC_new_2.indd 2

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ChannelWorld

■ Fast Track

Editor-in-Chief Vijay Ramachandran Executive Editor TM Arun Kumar Assistant Editor Yogesh Gupta Principal Correspondents Radhika Nallayam, Shantheri Mallaya Trainee Journalists Kartik Sharma, Shreehari Paliath

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

Channelworld.in Publisher, President &CEO Louis D’Mello

indian Channelworld n february 2011

n EDITORIAL

36 Hemant Chabria,

CEO, Chabria Infotech, says the mission is to exceed the expectation of clients and deliver on the commitment professionally within the prescribed budget and time. 38 Sandeep Vig, MD,

43 ■ Focal Point

43 Changing Landscape

Spectra Computech, says that right attitude is the key to success. Commitment and trust building are also two important factors for the company’s growth and success.

Mobility: What many IT administrators

may have once thought impossible, has happened.

45 Which Platform Will Prevail?

■ macro view

40 Serve to Lead Q&A: G. Srinivasa Raghavan,

Vice President of Strategic Initiatives & Country Head India Business, TCS, explains that with the Indian enterprises spending heavily on end-to-end IT solutions, top systems integrators in the country have a vital responsibility in bringing the desired value to the table.

Mobility: Developers have two Google OS’

to choose from, but one platform may have an advantage in the long run

■ face off

48 Battle for Virtual Storage: Both EMC’s

Vblock and NetApp’s FlexPod have Cisco and Vmware support. Which offering scores over the other? Corrigendum In the ChannelWorld Calendar – 2011 for the month of May the photograph contributed by Chintamani Lele had inadvertently referred to him as being Director of DigitalTrack Solutions. He is Director of Vintech Electronic Systems. The error is regretted.

n CUSTOM

PUBLISHING

Assistant Editor Kailas Shastry Senior Correspondent Gopal Kishore Correspondent Deepti Balani n DESIGN

& PRODUCTION

Lead Designers Jithesh C.C, Suresh Nair, Jinan K.V Senior Designer Unnikrishnan A.V Designer Amrita C Roy Trainee Designer Sabrina Naresh Chief Photographer Srivatsa Shandilya Production Manager TK Karunakaran n Events

& AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

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AND SALES

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& Admin

Dell India Pvt. Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

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Financial Controller Sivaramakrishnan T.P Deputy Manager Accounts Sasi Kumar V Asst Manager Credit Control Prachi Gupta

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n Offices

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HP Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

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Intel Semiconductor(US) Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IFC

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News

What’s within

PAGE 08: EMC’s Strategy Goes Deep in the Cloud PAGE 08: IBM Teams up with Juniper for Mobile Security PAGE 10: Has HP Done Enough to Rival iPad? PAGE 12: Google CEO A Switch Risky Move? PAGE 14: Partnership: Easier Said than Done

I l l u s t r a t i o n s by U N N I K R I S H N A N AV

f i n d m o r e a r t i c l e s at Channelworld.in

Software

Microsoft Must Get ISVs to ARM

hen Microsoft

announced plans to release a version of Windows for ARM processors, it created a lot of work not only for itself, but for all the independent software vendors who sell Windows software as well. Microsoft will need the support of these ISVs to make the ARM version of Windows a success, warned Dan Olds, principal analyst of the Gabriel Consulting Group. “It’s not just Microsoft moving to ARM, but Microsoft also must get all 6

the other ISVs [to follow suit] in order to have the ecosystem it wants,” Olds said. “It has to have apps from everyone else.” Recently, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the next, as-yet unnamed, version of Windows will be available for the ARM chip architecture. Thanks to its low power consumption, the ARM architecture is widely used for battery-driven portable devices. The market for such tablet devices has been exploding, driven by sales of Apple’s iPad. Other

manufacturers are finalizing or have just released tablets running on Google’s Android OS. Research firm Gartner has estimated that 54.8 million tablets will be purchased in 2011. Yet Microsoft has been noticeably absent from this market. The next version of Windows, due in 2012, will attempt to rectify this. Microsoft engineers have a lot of work ahead of them, Olds predicts. The ARM instruction set is very different from the x86 instruction set that Windows now runs on. And because ARM processors are not as powerful as x86 ones, the engineers will have to be more careful as to how the operating system consumes resources. But crafting a version of Windows for ARM is only the first challenge facing Microsoft. Another one is getting ISVs to rewrite their Windows applications to run on ARM. “For ISVs, it will not be trivial to port applications to a new platform,” Olds said. Yet ISV support will be essential for Microsoft’s success. The success of any operating system depends on the number of applications that have been written for it. The applications were what made Windows a success in the first place, Olds said. — Joab Jackson IDG News Service

Software

Bing More Accurate Microsoft’s search engine Bing, and even Yahoo, are providing users with more accurate searches than their rival Google, according to a report out this week. Bing and Yahoo, which is now using Microsoft’s Bing search technology, had the highest search success rates last month, reported Experian Hitwise , an Internet monitoring firm. More than 81 percent of searches

on their sites led users to visit a website. However, Google, the dominant player in the search market, wasn’t as successful with its January searches., recording a 65 percent success rate. Even if Google’s results haven’t been as accurate, it’s still the highly dominant search engine in the market. — Sharon Gaudin Computerworld

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n news digest Cloud Computing

EMC’s Strategy Goes Deep in the Cloud

t EMC’s first stra-

tegic forum in two years, company execs offered financial analysts and investors a view into the company’s plans, with VMWare figuring prominently in the message EMC CEO Joe Tucci hammered home: The future is the cloud. And the cloud, whether private, public or a hybrid, is there to support IT as a service for businesses, Tucci said, noting that in 2009, for the first time, more applications were deployed on virtual servers than physical. “We believe the platform for change is here,” he said. “We’re going to be the undisputed leader in enabling hybrid cloud computing through infrastructure and application transformation.” Scattered throughout keynote speeches by EMC executives in Boston were bits of news about upcoming functionality. Among the main themes was that

EMC wants to continue to more tightly integrate its various hardware and software so the products can work better in a virtualized, cloud environment. Pat Gelsinger, President of EMC’s Information Infrastructure Products, said the company already has “the most integrated portfolio” of products from among its competitors, including HP and NetApp. Market research firm Enterprise Strategy Group is expected to come out with a report this quarter confirming that, he said. Gelsinger pointed to the recent release of the VNX line of midrange storage arrays, which combine EMC’s Clariion SANs with its Celerra NAS file head. Gelsinger also announced EMC it will be plugging a technology gap that has left it behind its chief competitor, NetApp, in the ability to deduplicate block-level data. To that end, EMC plans to release an upgraded version

of its Data Domain deduplication product in the second half of this year. EMC’s VMware subsidiary has and will continue to play a large role in the underlying infrastructure of private, public and hybrid clouds, Tucci said. EMC’s customers today are well into deploying tiertwo and -three applications on the cloud. EMC plans to focus on supporting a growing trend: customers are placing tier-one applications, or mission critical databases, onto virtualized infrastructures. VMware CEO Paul Maritz said his company’s products will focus on not only hardware but application virtualization where software resides across commodity servers. Three VMware products in particular will be key to advancing VMware’s use in a hybrid clouds -- vSphere as the platform to aggregate compute resources; vShield, an application that is used to deploy security to virtual networks; and vCloud Director, which delivers virtualized infrastructure as a catalog-based service. — Lucas Mearian Computerworld

security

IBM Teams With Juniper in Mobile Security Drive IBM unwrapped a variety of mobile security initiatives. IBM Security Services said it would team with Juniper Networks to offer managed services for Apple iOS, Android, Symbian, Blackberry OS and Windows through the Juniper Networks Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite. The service, IBM says integrates policy-based 8

enforcement that prevents smartphones from accessing key corporate resources unless required security policies and applications are in place. The service is designed to use IBM’s managed security services coupled with Juniper’s mobile security management technology to help enterprise users maintain compliance and

Team Work: Securing mobile devices in the workplace

secure information assets from Internet attacks. IBM also announced Tivoli Endpoint Manager, which brings the features of BigFix, which was aimed at data center operations,

Short Takes  Red Hat announced

the appointment of Anuj Kumar as Country General Manager and Jagjit Singh Arora as Director, Enterprise Sales. Red Hat claims to reaffirm its commitment to deliver innovation to enable businesses by these appointments.  Brocade announced

that it has introduced several significant enhancements to the Brocade Alliance Partner Network program and Global Education offerings to help channel partners capitalize on Ethernet fabric-based technology opportunities.  Juniper Networks an-

nounced a new training and education program built to enhance the expertise of Juniper partners in cloud networking, security, switching, routing and mobility. As a new offering in the Juniper Learning Academy curriculum, the continuing education program empowers sales and system engineers with valuable knowledge and skills.

includes a range of modules for handling patch management, security configurations and power management. At the time of the purchase IBM said BigFix would keep it a step ahead of other big players in data center automation -- HP, BMC and CA Technologies. Meanwhile IBM said it is researching technologies to manage security and compliance challenges involving mobile smart phones. — Michael Cooney, Network World

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Custom Solutions Group HP STORAGEWORKS

Partner Speak J.B. Hooda, Director (Technology Solutions), Progression Infonet

Customer Education is Channel Responsibility The best of storage strategies are a combination of underlying hardware optimization along with right data management software. The channel community has to communicate this value to their customers.

You offer a wide variety of computing solutions - where does storage fit in the over IT infrastructure solutions you offer? Storage is a critical component of our solution offerings. No compute solution is complete without its data strategy in place. In most scenarios, the solutions are architected keeping in mind the scalability, performance, protection and recoverability of data at all levels viz., On-line, Near-line and Archives. It goes without saying, a well optimized compute infrastructure running business and infrastructure applications can deliver the desired business benefits only if it is supported by a highly optimized and automated storage infrastructure. We often see continuous storage enhancements despite other IT infrastructure being relatively static over the lifecycle. These offerings are in terms of design, build, management and optimization. This can be seen as a continuous cycle for most organizations.

Over the last six months, have you seen a shift in how your customers are looking at storage? Customers are increasingly becoming weary of regular purchase decisions, managing scattered data and storage assets, delivering ever shrinking Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) within tighter budgets. Storage consolidation, virtualization and thin provisioning is now a priority along with a move towards cloud based variable cost models for DR and backup. Our cloud storage solution has seen a large growth, both in terms of capacity and

number of customers hosting their production as well as DR databases and backups. Over a period of time, users would not be able to distinguish between services running off the cloud or from their own datacenter. Hybrid cloud is a reality one would increasingly see in the coming quarters.

How different are the storage needs of large enterprises vs SMBs? Large enterprises are more focused on consolidation, de-duplication, better utilization and simplifying management of storage. For SMBs, the challenges are to build a reasonably reliable, scalable and cost effective storage infrastructure. We have helped medium to large enterprises consolidate, optimize and manage their enormously heterogeneous storages running in equally heterogeneous operating environments using cutting edge thin provisioning and de-duplication technologies. On the other hand, we find SMBs to be more inclined towards public cloud based storage as they can get a highly reliable and well managed storage infrastructure with zero Capex and predicable variable cost. Our cloud storage has grown by more than 800 percent during the last year.

What kind of training and support has HP provided to help you communicate value to your customers? HP has been conducting regular sales and technology trainings for our sales, pre-sales and technical support work force. They also conduct customer workshops on a regular basis. HPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s storage experts are quick to respond to customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s data concerns and we

work closely together to address storage requirements in a holistic manner. HPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest storage solutions offer extremely good value for data storage. Customers are able to see this value, making our job a tad easier.

If you had one piece for advice for SIs and VARs on how they can convince their clients on the need for a next generation storage solution, what would it be? Good partners do a great job in educating customers. However, there are not many partners who speak to customers on issues like data management life cycles. The best of storage strategies are a combination of underlying hardware optimization along with the right data management software. Moving and storing large volumes need a combination of technical competencies which not many partners have, and they should work on building that expertise. The channel community needs to emphasize and impress upon their customers to consolidate and adopt a tiered storage approach for cost optimization; and implement de-duplication and thin provisioning for optimal storage utilization. Storage on the cloud is now considered nearly future proof. This Interview is brought to you by IDG Custom Solutions Group in association with

n news digest Personal Computing

Has HP Done Enough to Rival the iPad?

ewlett-Packard launched a slick-

looking tablet computer based on a new release of its webOS, but the question many are now asking is, has HP done enough to steal some business from Apple’s trailblazing iPad? HP also unveiled two smartphones based on the same software — the Veer, a mini-smartphone about the height of a credit card, and the Pre3, a full-fledged smartphone aimed at business users. Physically, the 10-inch TouchPad certainly looks like the iPad, though it’s hard to imagine a completely original design for a touchscreen tablet. But what HP hopes will set it apart is the software, in particular the tight integration it says it can offer among devices running webOS. “Synergy is our central idea,” said Jon Rubinstein, the former Palm CEO who joined HP when it bought Palm last year. “Because when we bring different things together — whether it’s different applications, software, devices, even different companies — and get them to work in sync, we achieve a powerful result that’s much greater than the sum of its parts.” HP claims to have a good integration story of its own. For a start, it says it will build a wider universe of webOS devices. In addition to the tablet and smartphones, webOS will provide the technology for its webconnected printers, and as 10

Todd Bradley, head of HP’s Personal Systems Group, revealed it will find its way eventually into HP PCs, though details won’t come until later in the year. “WebOS shows you your activities in the form of cards, not a sea of application icons on numerous home screens,” HP said in a statement, an apparent swipe at both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS. But good technology is only part of the battle. Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, noted that HP is taking on a lot for a company that is relatively new to the consumer electronics business. He said, “This is an entirely new

Around

TheWorld Cisco Buys Inlet

Cisco announced its intent to acquire privately held Inlet Technologies, a provider of adaptive bit rate (ABR) digital media processing platforms, for $95 million in cash and retention-based incentives. Inlet will augment Cisco’s new Videoscape TV platform by adapting the quality of the video stream based on real-time network conditions, Cisco says. Cisco expects to close the acquisition in the first half of this year. Inlet employees will be added to Cisco’s Service Provider Video Technology Group. - Network World

business,” he said. “There are a lot of challenges.” Besides, HP must still attract an army of software developers to build applications, Roger Kay, industry analyst with EndPoint Technologies said. But HP insisted webOS will be an attractive target for developers. The com-

Astaro Acquires CoSoSys & InspektOnline Astaro announced two technology acquisitions — Romania-based CoSoSys, which offers mobile data protection solutions for both PC and Mac, and Denmark-based InspektOnline, which simplifies log management with its hosted service. The technologies from both companies will play an important role in Astaro’s product strategy in 2011, as Astaro will integrate these two solutions in its security suite, increasing its customers’ level of security with quality and ease of use. — ChannelWorld Bureau

pany claims to sell, on average, 120 printers and 120 PCs every minute. “You do the math on two PCs a second and two printers a second,” Bradley said. “You easily exceed 100 million Web-connected devices annually.” — James Niccolai IDG News Service

NetApp To Acquire Akorri Networks NetApp has entered into an agreement to acquire privately held Akorri Networks, which specializes in optimizing server, storage and application performance, the company said. Akorri’s products will extend the functionality in NetApp’s OnCommand management software portfolio. It’s BalancePoint platform allows IT administrators to optimize service levels across physical and virtual environments. — IDG News Service

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n News Analysis

Google CEO Switch A Risky Move?

Google is injecting younger blood into its top leadership but it’s unclear if Page is ready By Juan Carlo s Perez

oogle’s decision

to change CEOs, announced on the same day it reported yet another blockbuster quarter, begs the question of whether the company is trying to fix something that isn’t broken. Google announced that Eric Schmidt, who was recruited as CEO in 2001, will hand over that role to co-founder Larry Page in early April. In addition to running day-to-day operations, Page will continue to lead Google’s product development. Schmidt, as executive chairman, will focus on external initiatives such as visiting customers, meeting with government regulators and negotiating with

partners. Google’s other co-founder, Sergey Brin, will focus on “strategic projects,” and especially new products. The goal is to streamline decision-making, the trio said during a conference call. They stressed that Page is ready to be CEO and that they are happy with their roles in the reorganization, which they said will improve Google’s already solid financial performance, technical innovation and business growth. They had better be right, or the move could go down as a management blunder of historic proportions. When Schmidt took over as CEO almost a decade ago, Google was a promising but small, privately held

company focused exclusively on web search and without much of a business model to speak of. It was led by Page and Brin, two brilliant Stanford computer-science graduate students with little executive management experience. Over the years Schmidt has helped turn Google, which was founded in 1998, into one of the largest, most successful and influential publicly traded companies in the world. His role has often been described as providing “adult supervision” at a company whose young co-founders like to do things in unconventional ways. “Schmidt has a great track record and has really steered Google to great success,” said Gartner analyst Ray Valdes. Schmidt, who previously had been Novell CEO and Sun CTO, has been the public face of Google with his calm, relaxed demeanor, while running the company as a “triumvirate” with Page and Brin. “Having Eric as the front of Google has been tremendous for Google, and there is no doubt that bringing his perspective has been critical for good decisionmaking at the company,” IDC analyst Al Hilwa said. Some wondered if Page is up to the mammoth task of running such a large, powerful and increasingly diverse company. “I guess the question is whether being Google CEO is the place to start your executive training. I can say with some assurance that if [Page] went to apply for the CEO job somewhere he wouldn’t get it,” said Allen Weiner, another Gartner analyst. Gartner’s Valdes won-

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dered if the behind-thescenes scenario involves Schmidt stepping down voluntarily as a result of fatigue after an intense decade at the helm, and Page taking over on an interim basis until a new, more permanent leader is found. Analyst and publisher Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand.com had a similar thought. “The two cofounders are notoriously difficult to pin down for any event, such as doing major press interviews or conference appearances. Part of Schmidt’s role has been to be the ‘dependable face’ of Google for such things. But being that face can take a toll,” he wrote. But Google was also overdue for a management change, Sullivan wrote, noting that a decade “may as well be 100 years of Internet time.” Steve Arnold, an analyst who heads the firm ArnoldIT, faulted Schmidt for leaving Google too dependent on search advertising. “It has not diversified its revenue streams in a meaningful way,” Arnold said. The financial success that Google has enjoyed has been largely due to ad sales, and was probably little influenced by Schmidt, he said. Arnold also finds fault with Schmidt’s public comments, which have sometimes fuelled existing controversies. And he notes that Google has had problems retaining talented employees, who sometimes leave to go to Facebook and more promising startups. Consumer Watchdog, an organization that has been critical of Google’s privacy policies and missteps, said it welcomes the CEO change.

Will Page Back Google’s Enterprise Unit?

fter Google’s groundshaking decision to change CEOs, the company should explain soon to customers and partners how its plans for the enterprise will evolve after Larry Page takes over in April from Eric Schmidt. Google’s enterprise unit caters to an audience of CIOs, IT directors, business managers, resellers and consultants, all of whom demand clarity, consistency and long-term product road maps from their vendors and partners. While shifts in the top management at any tech firm can be a worry for enterprise customers, the issue could be seen as a bigger one at Google, whose enterprise business contributes a tiny piece of its overall revenue. In addition, this year Google’s Google Apps suite, will face much tougher competition from various players, including Microsoft with its upcoming release of Office 365. The enterprise unit may well rank below other priorities for Page, such as boosting Google’s shaky social-networking position, pushing ahead with Android in the cutthroat mobile market, “Eric Schmidt has put his foot in his mouth so far on key issues like privacy that he’s kicked himself out of the CEO’s office,” said John M Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Inside Google Project, in a statement. But while Google continues to generate most of its revenue from ads on its search result pages and partner websites, the company has spread its wings during Schmidt’s tenure. It started by complementing its search service with other consumer online

doubling-down on the upcoming Chrome OS and growing display ad revenue, not to mention retaining Google’s dominance in search advertising. “If push comes to shove and management decides to jettison less-strategic initiatives, Google Apps could be in trouble,” Gartner analyst Tom Austin said. It doesn’t help that Schmidt, a former CEO at Novell and CTO at Sun Microsystems, has much more experience and, arguably, knowledge of enterprise software than Page. Schmidt once described the enterprise unit as Google’s backup plan if the bottom ever fell out of the online ad market. “Page has less enterprise business experience. Schmidt has deeper enterprise roots. Does that mean they will back off on their enterprise investment on Google Apps? ” Austin said. Google declined to comment about Page’s plans for the enterprise unit. However, a source said Page has always been a strong advocate for the business and expects it to remain a focus for the company and a continued area of investment. services, often rocking established markets, as it did with webmail when it launched Gmail in 2004. It has also become a key mobile player with its Android platform and with mobile versions of its various services and applications. The company has entered the enterprise software market with Google Apps, and its Chrome browser and operating system could leave it poised to become a provider of a new personal computing platform. But Schmidt was also

at the helm for some controversies Google found itself in over the past decade, including a number of privacy-related fiascos and thorny copyrightingringement lawsuits from book publishers, media conglomerates and major companies. A big challenge for Page will be tackling the influence of social media and social-networking sites, namely Facebook and Twitter, which have encroached on Google’s territory both in advertising and distributing online content. “One of the things missing from Google’s strategy has been the social component,” Gartner’s Weiner said. “I think the ability to move on a major social-networking strategy may come more easily from a younger CEO.” In fact, Google’s struggles with the social web may have played a part in the CEO switch, he said. Google also faces tests internationally, especially in high-growth areas like China, India and Russia, where the company’s track record has been mixed, Valdes said. “Google’s challenges are visible on the horizon and it’s likely that new blood, a new perspective, is needed,” he said. Whatever happens, IDC’s Hilwa said he hopes Schmidt will continue to participate in major decisions at the company. “Eric, Larry and Sergey have always effectively acted as co-CEOs,” he said. “Being able to put their heads together on important decisions has served them well in the past. One would hope that they keep this consultative management style.”  — IDG News Service

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n News Analysis

Partnership: Easier Said Than Done Collaboration between channels is the way forward, says the software partner community. By Yogesh Gupta

ollaboration between partners

to address a larger project and harness each others technical strength has been a much discussed topic in partner circle. However, when 70 odd VARs and SIs (mainly software partners) from India converged at the ISODA Tech Summit in Bangkok recently, it got a much needed boost. In fact, ISODA members are seriously devising a blueprint to put this idea into practice in the Indian market. With fierce competition 14

and big system integrators addressing the mid market space aggressively, it has become imperative for tier II partners to ride the collaboration bandwagon. Mikroz InfoSecurity, a Delhi-based solution provider looks at collaboration as a significant force for organizations for their business model. Capt. Ashok B. Shiroor the firm’s Managing Director, said, “We have been collaborating in the areas of information security. We plan to add the other areas like storage, as we progress with the formaliza-

tion of the code discussed during the conference.” “In the future, I would like to offer solutions in the area of data centres and would look at collaborating with other channel partners for the same,” said Nityanand Shetty, MD, Essen Vision Software, a specialized solution provider of network security & backup solutions.

More Advantages According to partners what is pushing the collaboration agenda is the fact that it takes years to specialize in a particular

domain, gain clients trust, and build a loyal clientele. At the same time, it might not be feasible to specialize in or build expertise in all technologies. In such a scenario, collaboration is the way forward. It is beneficial to collaborate with partners to provide multiple solutions and pitch for bigger projects. Collaboration would also benefit the clients as they can avail of a plethora of services from the same organization they have developed a level of understanding and trust with over years. According to K Gunasegharan, Director of Chennai-based eCaps Computers India, the obvious advantage of collaboration is the financial profitability for both the partners. Besides, geographical advantages like a partner in the north can be supported by partner in south or vice versa.

Teething Troubles However, several teething problems could arise in collaboration between two partners. “Although collaboration is sealed at a top-management level, it is essential to ensure that the importance of the collaboration is filtered down to the bottom-level and that people ensure that the synergies of both organizations are well synchronized,” says Shetty. “If handled correctly and when guided by a formal code of conduct, I see no disadvantages,” says Shiroor. Besides, partners feel that there is a need to device best practices for collaboration and preferably an arbitration committee should be set up to resolve issues, though they agree that the latter is easier said than done. 

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Dossier Name: Keith Goodwin Designation : Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partner Organization Organization: Cisco Present Role: Develop the strategic initiatives and program innovations that create capacity to drive Cisco’s growth in existing markets and new areas of opportunity. Career Graph: Joined Cisco in 1999 as VP of Operations for the Worldwide Field group. Before coming to Cisco, Goodwin spent 20 years with HP. In his most recent role as VP and GM of Worldwide Enterprise Accounts organization, he led a team in direct and channel sales, technical support, and partner relationships for HP’s computer systems business.

n The Grill

Keith Goodwin

Sr. VP, Worldwide Partner Organization, Cisco, emphasizes the underlying principle behind Cisco’s ‘architecture’ approach

Cisco Borderless Networks is an enterprise architecture that includes routing, switching, mobility, security and wide-area network optimization. Isn’t it a case of old wine in new bottle? A year and half ago, we conveyed to partners that future focus of Cisco would not be limited to products and technology, but more around architectures. We announced three architectural focus areas– Borderless Networks, Collaboration, and Virtualized Datacenter. The idea of Borderless Networks is that everything we design is borderless from geographic perspective and the fact that mobility becomes central to network. The partner specializations have moved from technology to architecture and so have the incentive programs. Cisco has developed beyond a networking vendor of routers and switches. Does this transition actually spell more business for partners? Our intent is to lead four significant market transitions which we identified around collaboration, pervasive video, virtualization & datacenter and finally cloud computing. All this is enabled by network (borderless, seamless, february 2011

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n The Grill | Keith Goodwin Organization. We identified strategic pillars – invest and innovate channel programs, build transformational partnership like VCE, focus on fastest growing SMB and scale our infrastructure to support partners. Cisco’s proprietary architecture has often been attacked by Brocade (Open Standards), Juniper (Junos OS) and others. Is there a bigger picture for your partners and customers? We don’t think ours is a proprietary approach at all. At times, you innovate a new technology before a standard is developed and in many cases, we are creating the standard if you will. Our philosophy is around open and standard based systems .

Now, we are embracing a wider and larger set of partners for emerging technologies like cloud and datacenter

secure) and that’s the sweet spot for everything we do with partners. Historically, the partner program revolved around resellers. Now, we are embracing wider set of partners (solution providers, consultants) for emerging technologies like cloud and datacenter. These technology partners may not necessarily resell Cisco but serve as a critical link to deliver solutions to customer. A year ago, channels organization and strategic alliance organization was formed into Worldwide Partner 16

Grill.indd 16

Gartner analysts, stated that after interviewing various organizations that have introduced a second vendor into their Cisco infrastructures, the reality is that a singlevendor Cisco network isn’t necessarily less complex, easier to manage or more reliable than a network with multiple vendors when implemented with best practices. Does Cisco believe in ‘Single Network’ approach? There are distinct advantages around Cisco architecture and value proposition as an end to end vendor to the customer. We absolutely believe Gartner is one data point but there are data points which will support other positions there. We can demonstrate advantages in terms of cost efficiency associated with Cisco architecture and integrated technologies to customers as we mentioned earlier in case of Borderless Network. Video is an imperative thrust at Cisco. But Indian partners are yet to make much money in the video portion of Cisco stack? Video is our highest growth technology right now. After successful acquisition, the growth rate with Tandberg video and Telepresence are exceeding our expectations on worldwide basis. Video is a market transition that demands new set of certifications and roadmap. We are empowering best of partners to deliver whole video proposition to customers extending from Telepresence at top to desktop conferencing (Tandberg). Webex has also been integrated. A common partner program will be rolled out soon. Datacenter architecture is a pitch by most

vendors. Why should partners sell Cisco datacenter story to enterprise customers? Clearly, our architecture approach is to build next generation datacenters. Everything we do with Nexus and UCS is to accelerate virtualization at datacenter and broader vision around cloud computing and cloud based services. Cisco technology associated with UCS gives us significant lead in this space. The VCE coalition with EMC and VMware to create vblock brings datacenter components under single architecture. Our key differentiator is our ability to identify and lead market transitions through partners. When Cisco forayed in voice market (VOIP and telephony), there was lot of skepticism. It was not about selling telephones but unified communication and ultimately collaboration. The same analogy applies to datacenters as it is not about selling servers but selling virtualized datacenters through partners. Compared to Juniper, Avaya, Extreme to name a few, Cisco has much larger partner base. How do you ensure partner profitability of one and all? Out of 65,000 partners worldwide, 3500 certified Cisco partners drive 95 percent of channel business. These partners have heavily invested in us from technology and services perspective. A hallmark of our programs is ‘profitability is fundamental objective to ensure partners to register top line and bottom line growth’. Recently, we introduced ‘Select Certified Partner’ category in SMBs. Cisco has over 1500 partners in India and 200 odd partners drive bulk of the business. All vendors talk about partner profitability, services revenues and other channel initiatives. Why according to you should partners stick with Cisco than your competitors? A distinctive opportunity with market transitions is for channels in services. An average Cisco certified partner over time derives almost 50 percent of total business through services — professional, managed and now cloudbased services. Partner profitability is multiplied though our blended portfolio of products and services.  —Yogesh Gupta

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n opinion

Preston Gralla Is Google Suffering from MS Syndrome?

hy was Eric Schmidt suddenly demoted as

Google’s CEO? There are as many opinions as there are analysts, but I think the reason is clear: Google is worried that it’s suffering from Microsoft syndrome, and thinks having Schmidt step aside may be the cure. What is Microsoft syndrome? There are several symptoms. One is when a tech company becomes so successful in a market and grows so quickly that it overlooks potential new markets. Another is when a tech company gets so large that it becomes increasingly difficult for it to innovate. To understand why Google has begun to suffer from Microsoft syndrome, you have to take a look back at Schmidt’s tenure there. He was hired in 2001, when Google was privately held, still relatively small and run by two brilliant engineers who knew a lot more about Internet search than building and running a successful, profitable company. Schmidt, who had previously been Novell CEO and Sun CTO, was brought on to bring business discipline and focus, establish a clear business plan and then put it into effect. As he has fre18

quently said over the years, he was brought on to provide adult supervision. He’s turned Google into a profitable powerhouse that’s dominant in search. Without his guidance, it’s unlikely that Google would be as successful as it’s become. But on his watch, Google missed the next big thing — social networking. Facebook, launched in 2004, became a worldwide phenomenon, and according to the web-tracking site Experian Hitwise, became the most popular site on the Internet for 2010 among US users, with 8.93 percent

n For engineers, Facebook has become more attractive than Google as a place to work. Google is no longer on top.

of all site visits, compared to 7.19 percent for Google. Google’s own attempt at social networking, Buzz, was poorly designed and indifferently received, and it’s rarely used. In addition, Google appears to have built up the kind of bureaucracy that stifles engineers and creative professionals. Douglas Bowman, visual design lead at Google, for example, left in 2009 when he found himself spending far too much time debating issues such as whether a border should be three, four or five inches. And he cites an instance in which a Google team had to spend its time user-testing 41 gradations of blue for the color of a Web page . For many engineers, Facebook has become more attractive than Google as a place to work. And Google is seeing an outflow of those looking to start their

own companies, because Google is no longer the entrepreneurial place it had once been. Schmidt is at least partially responsible for all this, for the very reason he has been able to help build the company into the success it’s become. A focus on the right business model and on efficiency tends to overlook potential markets and to build a rigid corporate structure. All this is not to say that Google has been unable to be innovative and recognize new markets. The company can’t yet be said to be suffering from Microsoft syndrome. But the top executives at Google were smart enough to recognize that the company was headed in that direction. By moving Schmidt aside and putting Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, in charge, the company is returning to its roots. A creative engineer will once again be at the top of the company. Google’s hope is that Page will be able to recognize new opportunities more quickly than Schmidt did, and help forestall any potential brain drain. Engineers aren’t always the best CEOs. Still, Google was smart enough to recognize that it had begun to stagnate, and this move is a good step toward ensuring that won’t happen.  Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com.

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On Record n

Bryan Jones

Director, Global Data Center Marketing & Strategy, Dell, talks about the company’s data center vision By Radhika Nallayam

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The industry had made an interesting observation about Dell — that it’s a glorified box pusher and that its positioning in the high-end data center space when comparing to IBM and HP has never been so great. Has the situation changed after the launch of Virtual Integrated System? What exactly is your strategy for data centers? Jones: As the director of data center marketing and strategy, I have been working on a transformation process for the last two years. The first manifestation of this is the introduction of the VIS system. But you’re actually right. The traditional view of Dell is as a hardware provider. However, we believe that hardware is important as it gives us the mid-point in the data center space and that’s where our entire value proposition has been traditionally focused in terms of how to get the right products, the cost points and the time and resources to deploy it. But that’s really the mid-point and our VIS solution is designed well beyond that now. So, what are those new elements that you’re talking about? Jones: VIS solution is designed to start with the hardware box because our legacy lies there. It addresses issues like how you deliver workloads and applications to businesses in a more streamlined fashion. So, this second half of the solution is the continuum that customers have traditionally not heard from Dell. We have taken the key learnings

from the fist half, which is the hardware part, and applied it to the second half, the application stack. We help enterprises to collapse the individual systems that are in place. So we are not moving away from our hardware heritage, but we are extending it further into the application side. But how is this different from the similar converged offerings of your competitors? Jones: Dell’s data center story is different. If you look at some of the solutions from our peers in the industry, it requires you to buy their storage, server and networking. Dell does not lock customers. A customer can buy the application stack of VIS from Dell and still decide not o buy a single piece of hardware from us. They can run every bit of it on a non-Dell brand. So, we don’t want to lock the customer into our stack. Our solution is designed to work with Dell and non-Dell products, physical and virtual environments, multiple hypervisors and the infrastructure that a customer currently has rather than replacing it with new. Dell does not have all the necessary components to offer a competing stack like other vendors. So, what else can you push other than the open mantra? Jones: It’s not because of the non-availability of something internally that we have come up with something like VIS. It’s a chosen path. In most of such solutions, the intent is to build a lock-in with a particular vendor. The

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Bryan Jones | On Record n hardware has always existed from multiple vendors, which is why we want to give our customers the freedom to choose the hardware they want. It also allows them to continue using the existing heterogeneous hardware infrastructure, without really knocking anything down. Besides, we are convinced that an integrated architecture is what the customer demands are going to be centered around. There have been a lot of talks and launches around the converged infrastructure space in the last six months. We started to see a support and demand for the model that we are promoting because the reality of a single-vendor stack is not really appealing for an enterprise. Through this model, he is eventually going to get into a point of ‘no-return’ where he will have to depend completely on that vendor for his end-toend requirement. One of the things we say in our ‘intelligent infrastructure’ is, do you really need a seven-layer, super complex, singlevendor Cisco networking solution or should you have the best-of-breed. And, the customers seem to be clear about what they want. We are trying to kind of democratize the data center. But a lot of enterprises prefer to deal with a single vendor rather than managing multiple of them. Jones: Our value proposition really is ‘choice’. Though we do recommend a best-in-class architecture to the customer, he can choose

We are very cautiously using cloud around this, because there is a negative connotation to in lot of the traditional IT guys’ minds. which hardware he wants, and we will help him put everything together and deliver the same composite output. It’s a multivendor ecosystem that we promise to compose in an effective way. The solution also gives the customer the freedom to de-couple the architecture if something more compelling comes up post the deployment. What we don’t believe in is the ‘bigbang’ theory. We don’t tell our customers that if you turn your sever into a VIS and all your problem will be solved. Why is Dell not using the word ‘cloud’ very extensively? All said and done, isn’t that a smart way to grab some attention these days? Jones: We are very cautiously using cloud around this, because there is a negative connotation to this in lot of the traditional IT guys’ minds. It’s a moving target as far the definition is concerned. Everyone understands public cloud and we are pretty active on that front from a hardware and infrastruc-

ture perspective. But that’s not the case with private cloud. A lot of people are confused. We have seen a lot of marketing people, who don’t know how to name their product, simply drop ‘cloud’ in front of it or behind it and you are done. That creates quite a bit of backlash from the customers. We don’t get so hung-up on that shifting definition so much as we do get focused on the attributes that the IT professionals are trying to get into, which is converged infrastructure, variable opex, self service and many more. So, we focus more on delivering all these in your own private infrastructure. Failure to acquire 3PAR, however, was unfortunate. How would it impact your cloud or data center strategy? Jones: We believe that 3PAR potentially was a key asset to some of our own internal development around our storage platforms. We did not cancel our EMC relationship and in fact we have strengthened it further. 3PAR was another technology point in our data center transformation and we will continue to make acquisitions in the data center space. 3PAR, we felt, was an interesting technology, but it quickly became a bad decision from a cost perspective. Dell is a financially conservative company and we don’t make emotional decisions in a business game. But alternatives to 3PAR’s solutions are indeed limited, in terms of maturity and market-readiness. Jones: For what that cost

at the end, we could do a lot of our own development! So, we are evaluating our options there. Do you kill the channels of the companies that you acquire, because Dell is known for its direct-tomarket approach? Jones: No. The acquisition of EqualLogic is a perfect example. We protected and kept that channel even after the acquisition and they continue to upgrade their capabilities through our partner directorial. All we did was to accelerate their conception of our products through our direct channel. We understand that there is absolutely a solid value proposition around the channel. But would you look at channels for something like VIS? Jones: Channels will definitely have a play there. There are two reasons for this. One is that a significant portion of the customers do see value in buying through channels. Secondly, it increases our capacity tremendously. in the Indian context especially, channel has a significant role to play as we would want to leverage their reach in the mid market as well as the public sector. The partners, who sell the components of VIS, will do their own services. So, there is a value proposition for channels in VIS as well, in terms of the architecture, installation and integration. So, it’s not about mere reselling. The partners who would take VIS to the market will need to have very significant data center capabilities. 

february 2011

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HOTLINE

compelling ways for our customers. Juniper continues to expand its business in India, as the push towards high-performance networking is driving the demand for more robust security and networking equipment in enterprises and amongst leading service providers. We look forward to a ramp up of our switching business as customers have shown

excellent response to our new architecture as compared to the legacy designs from other vendors. Mobility will continue to be an area of focus for us, continuing from last year’s launch of a suite of mobile security products. People can use smartphones for business-related tasks with enhanced security. It is critical for businesses to ensure that user productivity is maximized by making secure network connectivity and authorized access as seamless and transparent as possible. Securing an organization’s IT infrastructure has become critical, and Juniper’s superior technologies and solutions will address the security threat for enterprises and their mobile users. For the benefit of our esteemed partners, we recently announced new training and education programs. These programs focus on areas including cloud networking, security, switching, routing and mobility etc.

more than 6,000 smartphone and tablet users across 16 countries, including India. Ninety percent of the Indian respondents expressed concern for mobile security issues. The concerns in India were around phone/data loss (84%), parental controls (77%) and identity theft (87%). This clearly indicates that while consumers are embracing mobile devices like never before, mobile security has not kept pace. Today, Juniper Networks is changing this dynamic with its Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite which is the industry’s first comprehensive

solution that can secure, manage and control all smartphones. It is also the industry’s only integrated client that is able to deliver security and secure connectivity. The Suite protects smart devices from viruses, malware, device loss, theft, and other threats. It remotely backs up and restores data and can be used to lock, wipe, and locate devices in the event of theft. Today, Juniper solutions help secure the majority of the IP network traffic within the United States. It is also the global leader in the SSL VPN market.

RAVI CHAUHAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INDIA & SAARC, JUNIPER NETWORKS

VIEW FROM THE TOP

2011 Promises New Mobility Products

hough the global economy is still in recovery, 2010 was a good year for Juniper, during which we showed an overall growth in all quarters and the year.

The year 2011 is important for us as we prepare for the introduction of innovative new products that focus on mobile Internet and cloud computing in unique and

FUTURE TECH - MOBILE SECURITY

Survey: Indians Concerned over Mobile Security Due to the recent explosion in smartphones, personal devices are more frequently accessing the corporate network, and in turn, opening the door to a plethora of security risks. Forrester Research estimates 73 percent of the global enterprise workforce will be mobile by 2012. Enterprises can only expect more consumers to use their personal devices to

access corporate networks and sensitive information in the years ahead. Juniper commissioned a survey on mobile security and spoke to

CUSTOM SOLUTIONS GROUP

Juniper Secures Apple iPad for Mobile Enterprises

NEWS

Juniper Networks to Expand India Excellence Center Juniper Networks plans to expand its research and development center, the India Excellence Center (IEC) in Bangalore. Juniper’s IEC is responsible for a full spectrum of activities including hardware and software development, test engineering, field trials, program management, quality assurance, technical documentation and product line management.

Juniper Networks Boosts Leadership Team With Key Appointments: The appointments include Ashish Dhawan who leads the company’s enterprise business, and Dhananjay Ganjoo (Deej), who heads the service provider business. Dhawan and Ganjoo provide strategic direction to Juniper’s key business units. Continuing Education Program: Juniper Networks recently announced a new train-

PARTNER VIEWS

Technical Expertise Helps in Customer Retention RAJEEV GOEL, Director, Intec Infonet. How well has the networking market progressed in the last couple of years and what is the future outlook of this market? Over the last few years, all organizations have realized the potential of the IP based communication systems and the need of the hour is to consolidate their data, voice and to some extent video applications. Organizations are not only augmenting their enterprise networks and adding capabilities like 10G, high performance wireless with seamless roaming and video and voice capabilities, they are also securing their networks both from external and internal vulnerabilities.

PRODUCT SHOWCASE

RAJEEV GOEL

How have you benefitted from your association with Juniper? Intec Infonet has been associated with Juniper for close to two years. We have some of the highest numbers of Juniper certified professionals – both in sales/pre-sales as well as technical after sales profiles. Due to a highly skilled and experienced team and the close relationship with Juniper, Intec has had some major wins from some very prestigious accounts in the country.

ing and education program built to enhance the expertise of its partners in the key areas of cloud networking, security, switching, routing and mobility. Available at no cost to Juniper partners, the program features a flexible training structure that encourages partners to select courses pertaining to their business model and technology interests. In turn, Juniper partners are rewarded for their achievements with specialized accreditations of expertise that can be easily marketed to end-user customers and prospects to help win opportunities.

What are the verticals that you focus on? Intec has traditionally been very strong in the education, energy and steel verticals. We saw some gains in the government sector during 2009-2010. Intec also started focusing majorly on the defense segment with dedicated and experienced sales professionals working closely with the OEMs to cater to the Indian armed forces. How has Juniper been accepted in these verticals? Although Juniper had a late entry in India, many organizations from various verticals have evaluated Juniper’s offerings and are opting for it. They realize that Juniper has some of the best Ethernet switching and routing, security and application acceleration products that are ideal for small business and branch offices; converged campus, enterprise networks and the datacenters as well as carrier networks.

Juniper Networks announced the Junos® Pulse App for the iPad, which enables anytime, anywhere secure remote access and connectivity to all enterprise resources. It is now available as a free download for iOS 4.2 from the Apple iTunes App Store. The app has been built for ease of

use and seamless deployment, so enterprises can enable the mobile workforce of iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users to be productive and secure.

Juniper Networks Expands Security Services Gateway Line to Address Small to Mid-Size Data Centers Juniper Networks launched the SRX1400, the newest member of its leading SRX product line. The SRX1400 is a consolidated security services gateway ideal for securing small to mid-size enterprises, service providers and mobile operator data center environments. Not only does the SRX1400 help companies migrate their mid-size data centers to 10Gbps, but it helps them scale and reduce costs.

Juniper Introduces Smartphone Software to Defend Your Mobile Life Juniper Networks introduced the Junos® Pulse Mobile Security Suite, the only integrated security software solution in the market that provides both security and secure connectivity for virtually all mobile devices. It includes anti-virus, personal firewall, anti-spam, loss and theft prevention, and monitoring and control services.

Game plans

As cloud computing becomes a reality, here is a look at five partners who have successfully encashed on the cloud wave. By Radhika Nallayam

Apps on the Cloud Money on Ground

oogle Apps is a

hassle-free product. A customizable package of simple business applications delivered over the internet. Very flexible, cost-effective and more over, saves companies the trouble of deploying software locally. Incidentally, a lot of partners happen to hate this product, simply because it does not require their involvement. And, if 24

you too happen to think that Google Apps would weaken your opportunities to sell traditional email solutions, think again. Here is a company that has already started making sustained revenues and a healthy bottom line out of it. Bangalore-based MN World Enterprise today has more than 5000 user accounts for Google Apps. All the company did was to

leverage an exiting relationship that it had with a telecom service provider. The result â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a new and recurring revenue stream besides a smart addition to its exiting portfolio. The company is a reseller partner for the InstaOffice suite from Tata Communications, which is basically GoogleApps bundled with support services. Offered on a pay-per-use model, this product provides repeated commission to the SI through licensing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our association with Tata Communications goes back a long way. We were basically selling their bandwidth to corporates. When Tata Communications launched their SaaS offerings, InstaApps

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suite, last year, we became their exclusive partners for both InstaOffice and InstaCRM,” says Praveen Dwarkanath, Director, MN World Enterprise. While the CRM suite is something that is yet to take off, GoogleApps became a huge success. MN World sold this product to companies of all sizes both in SMB as well as enterprise markets. While there are many companies that have made direct partnership with GoogleApps itself, MN World’s strategy is a bit off the beaten track. Dwarkanath believes that the services part makes this product even more appealing as a lot of customers do not feel comfortable with just email support. “A customer can buy this product directly from Google if he wants. But Google will only provide him email support, where as Tata Communications offers localized voice-support. As a reason, we are able to position this in a much better way,” adds Dwarkanath. And, the numbers speak for themselves — MN World sold 5000 licenses in just six months flat. Apart from giving recurring revenue in the form of commission, this product also provides better margin to the company. “The revenue from licenses is consistent and I get better margins on this product while comparing with other traditional offerings of the vendor. It’s almost three times higher,” says Dwarkanath. Besides, the product also brings repeat business for the partner. “An offering like internet leased line from Tata Communications, for example, only has limited scope to get repeat order from a customer. But he would undoubtedly add

Coverstory_new.indd 25

email accounts as he grows. Besides, not many would risk experimenting with email solutions. So, there is no question of loosing the customer. So I am expecting consistent business to come in,” adds Dwarkanath. The company also wants to ensure that it is one step ahead of others. It has taken a conscious decision to have an unbroken link with these customers. “We don’t stop at taking the licenses to our customers. We also offer them on-site support. There are customers who do not have the in-house expertise to manage their email environment and such people require on-site support. That’s a separate agreement that we have with them,” adds Dwarkanath. Thus services is not just another stream of revenue for MN World, it also ensures that the company is in constant touch with its customers. While it’s easier to take such a product to a set of existing customers, MN World has also cracked new accounts for Tata ComWe don’t stop at munications. taking the licenses While to our customers. We the success offer them on-site supstory around GoogleApps port as well. And, that’s a is pretty separate agreement that exciting, we have with them.” MN World expects to Praveen Dwarkanath, repeat it Director, MN World with the Enterprise InstaCRM offering as well. Though it has not closed many deals for this product, the feedbacks so far have been extremely positive. The company’s aim is to target the SMB sector for this product, as it’s an economical option compared to other SaaS CRM offerings that are currently available.

P h o t o b y S r i v at s a S h a n d i lya

cover story n

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Securely at Your Service Y

ou’re a specialist.

“We have developed an end-point security diagnostic product. When the product was ready to be taken to the market, we realized that it would make more sense to offer this as a service to our customers, on a payper-use model,” explains Anuj Gupta, Director-Sales, MIEL e-Security. The company is also planning to work closely with its peers (ISODA members to start with) in the industry and offer this service to them so that they in turn can take it to their customers. Cloud, thus, opens many doors for this partner and business comes from far and wide. Its partnership with other SIs in the industry will drastically im-

P h oto by foto c o r p

You have been focusing diligently on developing new skills around one area over the years. You have been acquiring new customers, adding new products and concepts to your portfolio. It definitely seems like a trouble-free journey. But how would you achieve that ‘quantum jump’ in your business? It’s certainly not possible by continue treading on that ‘trouble-free’ path. At the same time, it’s only possible through effectively using your expertise. And that’s exactly what Mumbai-based MIEL e-Security has done. The company started offering its own branded cloud service.

prove the reach of this prod- else currently offers this in uct, which otherwise would the market,” says Gupta. It have been sold among a lim- provides an independent ited set of customers. Bethird-party view of the stasides, as the IP holder, the tus of individual endpoints, company would continue and complements the automaking money as and when matic update-push technolothe licenses are sold. gies implemented by various MIEL has made substanindividual products. tial investments to build its HELIOS, as the product is own cloud service, not just called, runs about 200 such in building the infrastrucchecks off-the-shelf, and ture, but also in the form of can be quickly configured resources to manage that to address more of checks. cloud infrastructure. The It scans hundreds of endinitial responses received by points within the network Gupta, however, have been in negligible time, takes up overwhelming and have negligible resources, and built up his confidence that most importantly, runs on the investment would be agent-less technology, needjustified quickly. ing no client software to be “Our installed biggest difin the endWhen the product ferentiator points to be would be diagnosed. was ready to be our unique To make it taken to the market, we capabilities more attracrealized that it would in security. tive to cusThis prodmake more sense to offer tomers, the uct itself is company this as a service to our something has incorcustomers.” very unique porated a lot and no one of customAnuj Gupta, Director, made feaSales, MIEL e-Security tures and services to the package. Specialty, sometimes considered a restrain for fast growth, thus becomes the biggest strength of this company. Skills around security give the company an upper hand in the market. An early realization that security has no future if it’s offered in the traditional way would help the company in a great way in the coming days. The partner is already seeing solid interest among customers in the SMB sector and from industries like finance and BPO. Though MIEL has not formally announced this product, the company is ready with its action plan.

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No Longer Cloudy A

company that offers

software consultancy and development services to markets outside India should normally have no specific interest in the SMB sector in the country. Its aspirations and opportunities lie outside the boundaries of that market. But curiosity is definitely a strong calling. And the reason wasn’t different for Delhi-based Compro Technologies to have a partnership with a company like salesforce.com, way back in 2005 — a time during which ‘cloud’ was still strongly related to ‘rain’. “I had been in the CRM space for quite a few years before starting Compro and CRM as a service definitely sounded like a great idea. We saw a huge potential for that product. I approached Salesforce.com and expressed my

interest to have a partnership and that’s how it started,” recalls Dushyant Jamwal, Head of Practice - Salesforce, Compro Technologies. Back then, this curiosity did not result in business as most of the customers had not even heard of the concept of SaaS. Compro had a tough time communicating the concept and explaining its advantages. But, fortunately, time can change a lot of things and it did change the mindsets of customers too. Today, Compro has more than 120 customers in the SMB space who use Salesforce. A major part of its business is from industries like manufacturing and e-learning. “Earlier we were selling the concept of SaaS. Today we are selling Salesforce.com,” says Jamwal. Compro’s success with

were to approach the IT team, we would have to face fierce competition from the traditional IT vendor of that customer,” explains Jamwal. Interestingly, when the partnership kick-started in 2005, Salesforce had no focus on a partnerdriven model We need to do a lot and Compro of customization at was getting the application level. Then compensation for the we implement it and leads that it passed on. It ensure a seamless wasn’t giving integration with their the company existing applications.” any recurring revenue Dushyant Jamwal, Head as the comof Practice - Salseforce, Compro Technologies mission was Salesforce given only has been so for the first great that it was awarded year and was not repeated ‘The Partner of the year for when the renewal happened. India’ in 2010 by the vendor. Today, the same vendor has Besides, a partner like a completely channel driven Compro gets to play a crucial model, at least for the SME role in the chain, rather than market and the resellers are being an ‘agent’ of salesforce. promised recurring revenue com. “We take the concept to for reselling and renewal the customer and convince of licenses. him about it. Besides, it’s not Compro’s investments an off the shelf product. We were more around developneed to do a lot of customiza- ing an internal sales team. tion at the application level. Since it’s a development Then we implement it and company, technical and supensure seamless integration port teams were already in with their existing applicaplace. Even the sales part tions,” says Jamwal. was not such a challenge for Compro has separate serCompro as the vendor itself vice agreements with some proactively forwards a lot of of its customers for offering leads the company. Currenta lot of such services that do ly, about 80 percent of the not come as part of the CRM leads are passed on by the suite. As a company that vendor to Compro. This defalready has strong developinitely talks volumes about ment skills, Compro could how clear the SaaS vendor is naturally project its services about the role of partners in capability to its customers. a market like India. The fact that it does not “Salesforce.com does neihave to approach the core ther have the bandwidth nor IT team to sell this projthe interest to serve such a ect helps it in a great way. vast market directly. Thus “CRM is a product that is partners are the key link used by the business people for them, especially for the in an organization and thus small and mid-sized busithey take a call on it. If we nesses,” adds Jamwal. february 2011

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its customers more than two having a state-of-theyears ago. art Proof of Concept “We had been adding a lot (PoC) center was definitely of capabilities around our not a small achievement. PoC over a period of time. While we can have a long One led to another and we list of how such a PoC later decided to capitalize would help you get more our infrastructure. That’s business, it’s also a fact how we started offering that the world moves on. these cloud services to our PoC thus becomes just anSMB customers,” explains other essential element of Rohit Luthra, Director, Proyour customer acquisition gression Infonet. This was strategy. It at a time becomes an when SalesThe industry is investment force.com rapidly evolving that would was the only and customers want to probably company give you that talked optimize the way they diminishing about the buy computing. We are returns over concept of clearly seeing this shift a period ‘as a service’ happening among our of time. offering. But, let’s customers.” not jump Rohit Luthra, Director, into such cliProgression Infonet chéd conclusions. There are companies that have found smart and novel ways of how such an investment can be converted into a successful business. Delhi-based Progression Infonet today is a proud cloud provider who offers platform, infrastructure and software as a service to its customers out of its 10,000 square feet data center (which is currently being expanded to a 25,000 square feet facility), which at one point in time, was just a PoC lab. And, the company wasn’t just jumping on the cloud bandwagon one fine morning. It in fact started offering hosted services to 28

couple of years ago,

their entire IT infrastructure. This is something the company could not have even thought of had it been just focusing on systems integration. Though Progression has its systems integration business running in parallel, Luthra believes that it makes more sense to have increased focus on its ‘shared services’ business. “The industry is evolving and customers want to optimize the way they buy computing. We see this shift happening among our customers,” adds Luthra. The SI also sees huge opportunities around setting up private cloud infrastructure for its enterprise customers. Thus its cloud strategy has been carefully shaped around the concept of both public and private clouds. In future, Progression has plans to extend its datacenter to other SIs, who in turn can offer similar services to their customers.

P h oto by b i p l a b m u k h e rj e e

From PoC to Profit Center

This early bird definitely caught plenty of worms. Today, the SI has more than 150 companies using its cloud services on a pay-per-use model. The company definitely had to make a huge investment of an estimated $3 million towards building the infrastructure, people, and processes, in the first phase. It also had to develop new capabilities around security and manageability in the cloud environment. Besides, Progression also developed a strong service team to ensure that the infrastructure and hosted applications are up and running. Today, the SI also plays a key role in integrating its customers’ private infrastructures seamlessly with the public cloud infrastructure that it offers. In effect, the company has drastically improved its scope to impact its customers through multiple ways — as a cloud service provider, a deployment partner, an integrator and a trusted consultant for

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Symposium & Awards

The Most

Exclusive Celebration of Excellence in IT Business

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6 May 2011 | the westin, Pune

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Virtual Cloud Enabler been a pioneer in the space of virtualization. It has done umpteen implementations, many of them very challenging and interesting, across many industry verticals. While virtualization is a stand-lone opportunity by and of itself, Veeras wanted to take it to the next level and cash in on a lot of opportuniSetting up a cloud ties around this coninfrastructure cept. One improves the span of our of the ways portfolio that we offer to by which Sudarsan a particular customer. RanganaWe are able to sell all the than, CEO components as a single of Veeras, package to them.” wanted to execute this Sudarsan Ranganathan, was Cloud & BPO serCEO, Veeras Infotek Computing. vices and In fact, consulting Cloud changes a lot of company, to help it offer its things, especially for virtucloud service for its customalization players. “At presers. It was a Rs 200 crore ent, cloud is a great busideal where the SI provided ness proposition as it offers all the components of the us new ways of selling and infrastructure, integrated it, packaging our products. We and is also servicing the cusdo not have so many optomer. “This implementation tions in our traditional sysis very important for us as tems integration business,” it was the very first public says Ranganathan. cloud that we built up. So it Veeras is now focusing becomes an excellent case on building cloud infrastudy for us to further go structure for customers. and convince more customAnd, this is not just about ers. Besides, it was also a setting up private clouds learning experience for us in for companies. It has also understanding our strengths taken up the larger role and weaknesses as a cloud of being a ‘cloud enabler’ enabler,” adds Ranganathan. (a neologism created by “The beauty of the word vendors!) and has already cloud is, it can instantly set-up public cloud infrarelate to and align with the structures as well. business goals of customThe company recently ers. All said and done, IT built an end-to-end infrais otherwise considered a structure for a leading IT ‘spending’. Cloud changes 30

P h oto by h a r i

eeras Inotek has

that mind set. IT becomes a ‘return’ all of a sudden,” adds Ranganathan. Let’s look at the typical components that go into a private or public cloud infrastructure. It has the three basic pillars — the servers, the networking and the storage. Around storage comes storage virtualization and technologies like de-duplication. Virtual machine (server virtualization) is another inevitable part. Security at the virtual layer is also a key factor. When we add backup and recovery as well, we have a ‘cloud infrastructure’ that is ready and complete. Under normal circumstances, getting a deal that comprises all these elements was a rare case for Veeras. Most of the deals were fragmented and it used to get bits and pieces of this package and in many phases. But today cloud acts

as a binding threat. “Setting up a cloud infrastructure improves the span of our portfolio that is being offered to a particular customer. Today, we are able to sell all these components as a single package to customers,” explains Ranganathan. This means improved deal size and even improved margins for Veeras. Here is where the representation of a ‘virtualization expert’ comes into play for Veeras. Virtualization certainly is the underlying and inevitable aspect of cloud computing and Veeras gets an edge over companies that do not have that skill to showcase. It certainly had to acquire a few new skills, especially around security and change its approach when cloud came into picture. But that was hardly an effort when the returns are taken into consideration. 

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t’s a controversial idea, and the law

generally frowns on cyber attacks in general, but at the Black Hat DC conference, some speakers took up the issue of whether and how organizations should counterattack against adversaries clearly using attack tools to break into and subvert corporate data security. One idea that got plenty of attention was the notion of exploiting vulnerabilities in attack tools and botnets to try to determine what the attacker was going after or feed fake data, or even dive into the attacker’s network lair. If it turns out an attacker has taken control of a corporate machine, it’s logi-

Should revenge assaults be just another security tool large IT shops use to counter cyber attacks and data security subversion? By Ellen Messmer february 2011

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n FEATURE | security cal that you’d want to “counter-strike” to find out what the attacker is up to, perhaps by finding a hole in the attack tool being used and planting a backdoor of your own to watch the attacker, said Laurent Oudot, Founder and CEO of TEHTRI-Security, a French-based ethical-hacking and vulnerability research firm, who spoke at Black Hat. “We want to strike back. We want to exploit his network,” said Oudot. You want statistics and logs related to the attacker, and it might be the idea of attacking ZeuS or SpyEye or even a state-sponsored attacker. It’s not so complex to find zero-day vulnerabilities that would allow subversion of attack tools, noted Oudot, whose firm has experience in identifying vulnerabilities, including several related to mobile devices. He suggested it would be fairly simple to strike back against exploit packs such as Eleonore, or feed fake information into attacker’s hands. “You can strike back,” Oudot said. “Your en-

It’s possible to “tie up resources in an attack,” said Weeks, and it would make sense to monitor what hackers are up to. There’s scant evidence that companies or civilian government agencies are trying to turn the tables on attackers in these ways, but the military arms of several governments around the world, including the US, are building up cyber-forces with an eye toward supporting a retaliatory strike capability. And no one denies espionage takes place in cyberspace.

Long battle ahead While counterinsurgency could slow down the threat of cyber attacks, Black Hat speakers said data thieves are still getting into corporate networks too easily -- in some cases simply by tricking one targeted victim to open a phishing e-mail. Data thieves sneak in by this route to collect the most valued information and they tend to go about it at a methodical pace over months, if not

If it turns out an attacker has taken control of a corporate machine, it’s logical that you’d want to “counter-strike” emies are not ethical hackers.” Matthew Weeks, a security researcher who recently joined the Air Force, also spoke on the question of counterattacks against hackers clearly using attack tools to break into networks, acknowledges the law would probably regard most counterstrike ideas as illegal. But as a contributor to the opensource version of Metasploit, a tool that can be used for either good or evil to test and explore network vulnerabilities, Weeks says tools such as this have their own vulnerabilities much like any type of software will, and attackers may not pay attention to patching their own attack tools. While the idea of counterattacks remains contentious, especially since there could be “unintended consequences,” Weeks noted, his inclination as a security researcher is to explore how countermeasures such as “tarpits” could be put to use, which would put attackers in an endless spin cycle when they connect. 32

years, and patience is the key to catching them at it, according to security firm Mandiant. Mandiant shared some of the findings its incident-response teams have seen in investigations, noting that far from being one time grab and run events, data cyber-theft is often a long methodical process. The attacker, who usually gets in through a phishing e-mail targeted at a particular employee to gain control of a Windows-based computer, then begins to move around the network to look for the most valued data, then starts collecting it in a “staging area” on a compromised machine, in order to try to eventually transfer it out in data containers such as a RAR file. In speaking on the topic of how attackers exfiltrate data out of the network, Mandiant security consultant Sean Coyne said in many cases, “the attackers were there for several months, if not years.” A defense contractor that was hit, he notes, found that over 120 GB of data, mostly Word documents,

were stealthily collected over a period of months, with the attacker picking a staging area to bundle up what was stolen and send it in a digital container, such as a RAR, ZIP or CAB file. “It’s easier to move one large file than several smaller ones,” he noted, adding, “Most corporate IT users are completely oblivious” though they may wonder why their computers, used as a staging point, suddenly seem slow. Often, backdoor trojans and data-collection tools such as one called Poison Ivy are often used. But data thieves are artful dodgers who do a lot manually, not automated, to evade attempts at security controls such as intrusion-prevention systems or data-loss prevention (DLP), according to Mandiant. Mandiant consultant Ryan Kazanciyan says he saw one case where the victimized organization was using McAfee host intrusion-protection system to look for RAR files but the attacker figured that out that an alert had been set off and simply changed to something that wasn’t being monitored. “Some guys will take everything but the kitchen sink,” and get it out to sort through it later, while others are “pickers and choosers,” though evidence shows data thieves today exhibit a tendency to use habitual methods suited to their own style, Coyne noted. When asked if DLP tools that seek to monitor or block attempts at unauthorized transmissions of data outside the organization are effective in instances connected with data exfiltration, both Kazanciyan and Coyne expressed skepticism. DLP is mainly useful for “keeping users from accidentally sending files out,” Coyne said. “It’s not built to stand up to a targeted attack.” Kazanciyan expressed a similar opinion. If an organization suspects a data thief is in their midst, the first thing is “don’t panic,” said Coyne, by making slap-dash changes to the network that will simply make any attackers suspicious and change their tactics. It’s a risk-based decision, but for a while the decision might need to be made to watch data being stolen, however painful that is, while a quiet hunt to flush out the attacker’s operations set up inside the network can proceed.  — Network World

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n ISV is

one smart cookie. Everyone knows that. He, at times, has a superior role than the systems integrator itself in swinging a deal and turning it into his favor. Sometimes, he has such a firm hand on the tiller that the traditional SI who would have been in the picture for a longer period of time, will be forced to take a back seat and just take care of the integration part. The IT infrastructure implementation at Travel XP, a group company of Media WorldWide, is a classic example for this- of what an ISV can do to a typical deal that would otherwise have been carefully carved by a traditional SI. In the end, the ISV not just won a happy customer, but also kick-started a fruitful and beneficial partnership with a technology vendor like IBM.

CLAYTON JoHn, Director, Verchaska Infotech

Tilting the

Balance

Covincing a customer about replacing one vendor with another is no small matter. Verchaska Infotech did just that. By Radhika Nallayam 34

Photo by fotocorp

Beginning the Journey An ISV almost always possesses the chance of being the first to be approached by a customer as the customer need would primarily be around the software part in most cases. The story was not different in the Travel XP deal as well. The company wanted to make a loud entry into the online travel segment, by launching its travel portal, followed by a huge launch of its high definition travel channel for the India market. The entire IT infrastructure had to be built from scratch as the company had just ventured into the travel space. Its primary requirement, quite naturally, was an ERP that is designed specifically to address the needs in the travel space. As it was hunting for the right technology solution in the travel space, Prashant Chothani, MD, Travel XP India came across the Mumbai-based ISV, Verchaska Infotech and decided to give it a try. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A travel portal requires a highly customized software as it has to talk to numerous disparate components. There were not too many options for us in the market in the first place. We even thought of developing an in-house team, but later decided not to get into that as it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t our core business. We shortlisted a lot of global solution providers and that was when we came to know about

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case study n Verchaska. We thought that it would make more sense to go with an Indian company as it would be able to understand our requirements in a better way. Thus we approached Verchaska and were pretty happy with the features of their product,” explains Chothani.

Twist in the Tale To make things easier, the new version of Verchaska’s ERP suite was also platform and database independent, which means, the customer could choose the hardware and database. This would have been the end of story in many cases, but it was just the beginning for Verchaska. Usually, the SI would step in at this stage, propose the hardware as well as the database, work in tandem with the ISV and implement it the entire thing beautifully for the customer while taking away his share of margin. There, of course, was an SI in this story, Wipro, who suggested an Oracle database with Sun hardware. Here starts the twist in the tale. The customer, who was pretty wellinformed about the options available in the market, wasn’t really confident going for a Sun-platform. “We made a comparison between the Sun and Intel processors and found out that the Sun platform was not on par with Intel’s Nehalem processors from a power consumption point of view. It was a critical part as we would otherwise have to pay through our nose for power in a city like Mumbai. We were also not sure about how Sun would upgrade its technology in the coming days in view of Oracle’s acquisition of the company. So, we wanted to evaluate the other available options in the market and zeroed in on IBM hardware,” says Prashanth.

The turning point Along with the hardware, the customer also decided to look at other database options and turned to the ISV for any possible suggestion. Verchaska’s past implementations were mostly on Oracle database, but things had changed in between. The company was now an ISV partner for IBM and the vendor was also showing increased interest in taking that

marking,” added John Chothani was also impressed by the overwhelming response it received from the IBM team that was introduced by the ISV. “We were really happy with the pre-sales support that we got. There were technical people to address my queries, which is quite rare during the pre-sales cycles. We did not see that level of keenness from Oracle. Besides, the TCO of the solution proposed by Wipro (Oracle Database and Sun hardware) was too high as compared to that from IBM.”

Snapshot Key Parties: Verchaska Infotech, Travel XP India, IBM

Implementation Partner: Wipro Key Competition: Oracle Location: Mumbai Key Technologies: Verchaska’s travel management solution-Provesio, IBM x-Series BladeCenter, DB2 for database

The Nail on the Head

Total cost of the project: $ 1 Mn Challenges: Convincing the customer about an alternative in database

partnership to the next level. Apparently, Verchaska was also on the verge of working on a couple of other projects in partnership with IBM on DB2. The ISV had almost completed the migration of its software on DB2 and was waiting for a test bed. “We did not have any live examples of how our software would perform on DB2, especially for a market segment like travel, which is highly performance oriented. Apart from Travel XP, we had signed up with IBM for another big project in this segment. As Travel XP was ready with the investment quite fast, we thought it would be the right time for us to do the testing of our product on DB2. So we proposed the IBM database, keeping this in mind,” says Clayton John, Director, Verchaska Infotech. While John suggested DB2, Travel XP definitely was not planning to accept it blindly and thus it became John’s sole responsibility to convince the customer about DB2. “I decided to bring the right technology resources, apart from the pre-sales personnel, to answer all the queries of the customer. Our relationship with IBM had been maturing over a period of time and the vendor had asked us to pass on any potential deal to them. So I got all possible support from IBM right from the initial documentation stage and through the pre-sales circle to the virtual bench-

Like every other deal, this story wouldn’t be complete without a price war. While the deal was moving very close to Verchaska and IBM, Oracle (represented by Wipro), stepped in with more discounts. The price of the Oracle solution was now on par with that of IBM and the customer was in a dilemma. He finally turned back to the ISV for his opinion. “We decided to stand pat and very strongly recommended DB2. My experience with Oracle was not very good, in terms of implementation support and I voiced my concerns. I also guaranteed the customer that we would handle all kinds of support-related issues on DB2. I had the strong backing of the partnership with IBM. We had our technical team, the developers and the infrastructure team trained on DB2 by then and we were quite confident,” says John. Verchaska’s assurance definitely was the final salvo and Travel XP singed up a deal with IBM. As Wipro was there in the picture right from the beginning, the implementation part was taken care of by it eventually. Verchaska, on the other hand, has a proven model and a strong brand to ride on in the future to bag more such deals. “It was a conscious risk that we took as how our software would perform on DB2 was still unknown to us at that point. We are now pretty excited about the results. So, it was worth the effort, especially while taking the long-term association with IBM into consideration,” concludes John. 

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n FAST TRACK

Chabria Infotech

rated software industry was thriving as much then as it is now. Though the contours of the piracy industry were not well defined, but most people never understood the impact it made. “This was just the early phase of IT in India and there was no concept of buying legal software. So my objective was to utilize this opportunity,” adds Chabria.

The mission is to exceed the expectation of clients says Hemant Chabria, CEO, Chabria Infotech

alue of a survey can

never be under-estimated. It does involve innumerable assortment of questions and possibilities, but the derivatives can land one an opportunity of a lifetime. In 1992, when Hemant Chabria, Founder and CEO, Chabria Infotech, decided to go back home to Kolkata (then Calcutta) as a fresh engineering graduate from 36

FT_Hair.indd 36

Bangalore, he decided to move thorough the path of entrepreneurship. “I did a small survey to understand the market at that point in time. I realised that most of the companies functioned under the hardware sector and very few had a software role to play. There were very few corporates at that time. There were no dedicated software players, so I decided to get into this sector,” says Chabria. The pi-

ph o t o g r a p h by foto c o r p

The Birth Pangs Inexperience often creates jitters, let alone when setting up a new venture. The challenges faced by new companies to setup and flourish are countless. This was also the time when India had opened up its economy and the odds were in favour of entrepreneurial individuals. “As expected, starting any business is tough. There were challenges. We were not sure of the direction we had to take. We were unsure about the sustainability of providing only software. There was a lack of clarity then, and getting legal software was not easy. But as we gained orders, the experience too kicked in. But surely the initial days were tough. Slowly companies like Microsoft and Autodesk were looking for authorised partners for their products. That was the time when we decided to partner with these companies,” recollects Chabria. But for certain reasons Lotus was not keen to authorise partners in the eastern region and that seemed to be a challenge for Chabria Infotech as Lotus was the highest selling product compared to Microsoft Office those days. The process of getting orders soon began in 1994 for Chabria Infotech. It was time to march forward for the company. “We were selling games and shareware till then and that’s when we got an order from East India Pharmaceuticals for WordStar and I went to deliver the product to the company. Then we had a tender from CMDA and that’s how the whole cycle began,” recalls Chabria. Chabria Infotech presently has close to 7000 customers. In nearly two decades there have been various challenging implementations undertaken by the company. They have done software licensing for various educational institutions. Chabria In-

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Revenue Split

Diversified Offerings

10%

15%

20%

25%

Sevice and Support

5% Apple 5% Oracle 5% Services 5%

Cisco

Enterprise

Security

SMB

Adobe 5% Autodesk

70% 20%

Microsoft

Source: Chabria Infotech

fotech has also accomplished security implementation for various defence establishments in past few years. Today, the company caters to customers throughout the country through an extensive network of business partners and associates spread through the region. According to Chabria, the mission is to exceed expectation of their clients and deliver on their commitment professionally, on time and within the prescribed budget.

Eye on the Future “We plan to get into managed services. We have to increase our service offerings in the future and I think that is a challenge. This is how we can sustain and compete in this market with profitability. Otherwise the profitability will go down for the company,” says Chabria. With the hype around the cloud reaching stratospheric proportions, what happens to a company like Chabria Infotech if a cloud service provider also adds managed services to their fold? “The managed services sector market is very big. Our skill sets are based on marketing. Online marketing which includes Google, Facebook and other social networks is a big factor in our business process. The entire structure has changed in the last few years. So when one talks about the cloud, the marketing too has to be done through the cloud,” believes Chabria. A list of 7000 odd customers is impressive. So how does the Chabria Infotech manage provide the best available solutions consistently. “One-to-one I don’t think we had any competition. Obviously in each verti-

cal we had a couple of competitors. You have to look at the wide spectrum of offerings we provide. I do not believe that there are too many companies which have such a wide array solutions. We have companies from Microsoft, Apple, and Red Hat etc. There may be a few competitors but that also helps us stay grounded. In terms of training we have regular subscriptions to the technical training portals of various vendors. We also have expert training exchanges for the employees. We have a dedicated team and a fully qualified team for providing full turn around, competitive prices and technical support. I think this helps us stay ahead,” says Chabria. When a company offers so many solutions and services through variegated partners in different domains

Snapshot Founded: 1993 Headquartered: Kolkata Key Principals: Microsoft, HP, Autodesk, Symantec, Watchguard, RedHat, Oracle, McAfee, Novell, SonicWall, Corel, Apple Revenue 2008-09: Rs 23crore Revenue 2009-10: Rs 25 crore Key Executives: Hemant Chabria, CEO, Saurabh Basu, Head (Sales and Channels) Employees: 48

and verticals, it is inevitable that there would be some pressure from the vendors to meet targets. “We focus on only eight to ten vendors in each vertical and close five to six in each domain. So if they have solutions and products for particular domain, we use those often, otherwise we will be unable to do justice to the offerings,” states Chabria. The company has lately also added hardware to its portfolio. Evidently, the need to grow and evolve as a market force will require valuable additions to the verticals. “We decided that to continue the stickiness with a customer we had to either add new products or grow geographically. I could be wrong with regard to this, but I think that’s the way ahead for us,” says Chabria. For Chabria Infotech, nearly 70 percent of the business is focused on SMBs and 20 percent on enterprise customers. They, at present, do not intend to increase focus on enterprise customers. “There comes a point when the vendor makes the business strategy. So our role is limited there. The technology and pricing has to be cleared by the vendors. So I would say that we are not very focussed on enterprise customers though we do have close to 70 big accounts,” states Chabria. Chabria Infotech provides solutions and services in six verticals across the spectrum which includes infrastructure, academic institutions, media & entertainment. Like most solution providers, Chabria Infotech was choosy in selecting the projects during the slump in 2008. They had also added the hardware bit to their business which went their way. The company also decided on not rushing into projects. Chabria is looking at managed services for the future. “We also intend to work on the offering through an online portal, maybe also work on the cloud services. At present we are looking at expanding geographically. Our goal is to deliver quality products, increase profitability and customer satisfaction. We also assure that we employ competent staff for all our projects,” concludes Chabria.  — Shreehari Paliath

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n FAST TRACK

Spectra Computech

n 1995, about

160 kilometers from capital of India, in the city of Chandigarh some IT Professionals founded a company named Spectra Computech and started selling PCs of Tata Information Systems Limited, which was a joint venture between IBM and Tata group. In course of time the company has now become partner with world renowned companies such as IBM, SAP, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Apple, CA, Cisco, EMC, APC, SAP, Catia, Wacom, and Acer, to name some. Today Spectra is catering to various verticals in different technologies around the country. Founder and Managing Director Sandeep Vig recalls, “We started with selling a range of IBM products including IBM PCs and servers. At times, whatever you sell you support also. The first deal did not even cross one lakh rupees, then a project of around six lakh rupees came up. From then we never looked back. At that time none of the tier two cities had good support services. So we grabbed the opportunity and gave support for all the products we sold. Even then, that time commercially, we were not getting any money for services. Gradually that led us to deliver more of value added services. Then we also branched out in other areas in terms of peripherals and services and today partnering with major global vendors.”

A Different Ball game Vig believes that one should have has a completely different strategy for doing business in a tier 2 market. Relationship building is more crucial for business in smaller cities. “In tier 2 states market size is

Right attitude is the key to success, says Sandeep Vig, MD, Spectra Computech 38

FT_Karthik.indd 38

very small as compared to a metro city. You need to expand in all the cities around the state and the distances are large. We have to build strong relationships with clients to continue doing business with them. One cannot afford to lose so many orders,” says Vig adding, “To generate revenue in a tier 2 city you have to become the jack of all trades. You can’t specialize in a particular vertical, domain or technology and limit yourself with small revenues.” Spectra is trying to adjust itself in almost all corners of technology business whether it is banking, eGovernance or technology in education. The company is trying to become the one stop shop for its customers. Right attitude is the key to success in these conditions according to Vig. He says, “Because of the background of selling to corporate space we know about what is possible. Here right attitude and knowledge of capabilities is missing in solution providing. People are more than satisfied in selling PCs and peripherals only, but we are not. We aim big, and hence are getting business and revenues.” According to Vig It is essential to put some extra efforts in Tier Two markets to keep the company abreast of all the latest technologies and investments happening in IT space, Vig explains, “Companies in metro cities easily grasp big projects because of there early reach and quick actions. We send our employees in big cities to share more knowledge and keep up with the pace. Our management team also go through various IT publications and keep searching online for better opportunities. ” The company boasts about its experienced employees and intensive internal training. According to Vig quality matters over quantity, “we have people with over 15 years of experience in our company. Let people move in and out the knowledge prevails because of the rigorous internal knowledge sharing in our company. We keep schooling our people

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through web conferencing, web access training, vendor trainings and internal knowledge sharing.” he elucidates by adding, “I am certified by many vendors personally and our other employees also getting certified with various vendors at different fronts as we are moving ahead. As team effort is crucial for success so we believe in building a good team rather than individuals.”

cloud as the Future Cloud Computing will go higher in the next year according to Vig. The Managing Director believes that SMBs and mid markets will adopt cloud computing at faster rates. “It doesn’t make sense for small businesses to buy servers, nor do they have enough people to manage this infrastructure, which is where the importance of cloud comes. They don’t even have their own email servers, the same is the case with applications, in this way dependence on cloud will be more in coming years,” says Vig. For corporate market Vig finds virtualization to be a key technology in coming years . Vig finds it a right idea to maintain good relationship with selected partners in spite of having normal relationship with all the vendors. He says, “We have very strong relationship with IBM. From the inception Spectra has remained loyal to IBM and in return has got immense of support and recognition from the vendor. It’s better to concentrate on a few rather than engaging yourself with all the vendors.” “Initially we tied up with IBM as

Snapshot Founded: 1995 Revenue 2008-09: Rs 19.65 crore Revenue 2009-10: Rs 23 crore Key Executives: Sandeep Vig, Managing Director, Sanjeev Sharma (Director), Surinder Shanker Anand (Director) Key Principals: IBM, HP, Acer, TCS, SAP Headquarter: Chandigarh Branches: Ludhiana Number of Employees: 65 Website: www.spectracomputech.com

the exclusive IBM business partner. In last five to seven years we have branched out into other relationships also. Only in last couple of years have we become a multi brand firm, but still we are focusing majorly on only a couple of brands. For servers, it’s largely IBM and to a less extent HP. We are opportunistic with every brand.” Recently Spectra Implemented Flexcube CRB at Punjab State Cooperative Bank and automated 40 branches. It was a successful deal of about Rs 12 to 13 crore, which persuaded the company to reach more in the government sector. Vig explains, “It was a large project. In case of software selling it is important for the product to be good, hence it is important to tie up

Revenue Split

Vertical Split

20%

15%

SMB

30%

Government

Others

30%

Mid Market

Enterprise/ Govt

25% Education

10% 20%

Telecom

with the vendors who are equally responsible to do a professional job with you,” adding, “Though we are looking for more opportunities to work with government sector, but it is quite challenging to work with government. You have to select the best suited project for your company as there are too many large and small projects and you have to scrutinize the best suited one and apply for that. Then you should bid early as otherwise you will surely lose the tender.” Spectra also Developed and implemented dynamic web application for Indian Railway, to cater a collaborative environment between departments, employees, vendors and general public. “Apart from static pages, this application has various dynamic functionalities such as user management, menu management, complaint management, workflow, scrap management, tender, vendor payment details, news, discussion board and content manager etc,” explains Vig.

The Way Ahead Commitment and trust building are the two important factors in Spectra’s success according to Vig. “Customers have seen our commitment in past years.Therefore, they are still continuing with us. We believe in spending more time with our customers rather than the vendors because more customers means more vendors in our business. Customer is the boss at the end of day,”says Vig They are looking to sell more of solutions than just the products. Spectra believes to log a customer in its business and get a long time business. “We are looking for more global and national tie ups. Recently we tied up with TCS in the space of cloud computing. Customers have become quite price conscious we are trying to provide cost effective solutions. Keeping ourself updated of the happenings in IT space, we are looking forward to more tie ups and to expand the company across the northern part of the country,” concludes Vig. 

Manufacturing

— Kartik Sharma

Source: Spectra Computech

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■ maCRO VIEW | G Srinivasa Raghavan

With the Indian enterprises spending heavily on end-to-end IT solutions, top SIs have a vital responsibility in bringing value to the table. By Yogesh Gupta

Serve To Lead 40

Macroview.indd 40

G. Srinivasa Raghavan, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, Country Head - India Business, TCS, emphasizes the company’s impetus to reign as end to end solution provider for Indian enterprises. How is TCS helping enterprises to streamline their IT infrastructure? India business at TCS is one of the most integrated units, which excels in end to end responsibility for account management of IT needs of an enterprise – acquisition, solution, conceptualization or implementation. Whether it is systems integration, outsourcing or cloud across verticals, clients have a single point of responsibility. That’s the amend we brought 18 months back and it had a significant impact with respect to the market acceptability. I think Indian clients need a face in which they can trust and they need the con-

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■ maCRO VIEW | G Srinivasa Raghavan fidence that it can be delivered. There is clearly a want for newer business applications providing ‘time to market’ for an (Indian) economy growing at 8.5 percent. What arsenal should a solution provider possess?A solution provider needs to bring domain capability which is India specific along with global experience. One needs to have wide range of business solutions which are fairly critical. Secondly, it’s about end -to -end ownership and accountability whether it is program management or delivery. It is important whether the solution provider is able to bring transformation alongwith the accountability of delivery. From an infrastructure perspective, there is a greater need towards managed services where he not only provides cost efficiency but also proactive monitoring, which I call as ‘Infrastructure Assurance’. Which technology trends are on top of the radar for TCS? We have made significant advancement in the cloud area. For us, cloud essentially is how to provide ‘time to market’ for new businesses to start. It is not about providing boxes on the cloud like Amazon. We launched ‘banking on cloud’, a first in India which focuses on regional, rural and co-operative banks and financial institutions. Today, it has more than 5000 branches and 10 million customers as we have established complete leadership in that space. Our focus on cloud is more on SaaS model for entire business across a vertical. We also launched complete ‘HR on cloud’ offering in India. How do we get best of systems in place be it payroll management, workforce administration, benefits and compensations, competency management across each sector on the cloud so that we can charge per employee? We are more committed to business applications for cloud which also provides capex savings for clients to embark on it than ‘time to market’ proposition. What best practices does TCS adhere to for services? For managed services, TCS infrastructure business globally is one of the leading businesses. 42

Macroview.indd 42

It is fastest engine for TCS crossing half a billion dollars in revenues and growing. We have established best practices with respect to NOC, monitoring services, managed services to ensure wide coverage and application running. TCS expanded that to Indian clients who can receive best practices of RIM and enjoy the benefits of processes on Indian based projects. Secondly, the focus is on datacenter. The true value for TCS is that we are completely technology neutral. We do not have vested interest towards any particular hardware infrastructure. This helps to provide an optimal IT architecture or deployment architecture where the client does not have to spend an extra penny but at the same time continuously looks at opportunity to optimize the infrastructure. The third trend is how to drive energy management or Green IT as an asset with cost of power increasing. Has the recession and an increasingly competitive landscape compelled enterprises to opt for stricter SLAs? I haven’t seen any SLA concession because of recession. SLAs have always been in demand. What is happening after recession is the focus on DR/ backup and security infrastructure where I thought there was a little bit of relaxation. Now, the overall situation is witnessing increased awareness and sensitivity to ensure ‘best in class’ security infrastructure. The Government is a substantial rev-

It’s about taking complete ownership and accountability, whether it is program management or delivery.

enue churner for TCS. How different is its apporach to IT infrastructure vis-a vis private players? Public sector or Government are basically large transformational opportunities. For example, APDRP looks at whole enterprise automation whether we look at banking infrastructure or Shipping Corporation of India. There is enterprise wide transformation and hence they are large SI projects. Whereas, private sector has a continuous improvement mechanism. But in terms of project management and technology management, a change management perspective is needed as the environment and culture is different. The scale varies to a large extent otherwise I do not see much difference in both sectors. Which are the other major verticals for TCS? Apart from the power sector, surround sectors like resources, oil and gas, water are emerging in big way. Retail which slowed in downturn is rebounding in a transformed model. There would be growth at TCS too but it will be very clearly business value led growth. What key trends in the IT market can SIs capitalize. There will be uptake on the channels and devices which is linked to mobility. It will influence customer experience management, enterprise productivity and service delivery models of organizations significantly. It is not about only ERP going on mobile but the business processes tightly coupled with ERP to drive entire enterprise productivity. Anybody who says I will enable my applications on mobile would be a gross under valuation of the opportunity. The second is integration. For organizations from India going global or organizations expanding business, they are still stand alone enterprises which demand a greater need to integrate these businesses. With explosion of mobile and eCommerce, we still haven’t tapped the full potential of internet base. Lastly, it is cloud especially from ‘time to market’ perspective whether it is ‘Infrastructure as a cloud’ or ‘Business service as a cloud.’ 

Indian Channelworld february 2011

2/15/2011 11:02:11 AM

Focal Point I l l u s t r a t i o n s by U n n i k r i s h n a n AV

everything about Mobility

A Changing Landscape

What many IT administrators may have once thought impossible has happened By Nancy Gohring

s recently as

a year ago, many enterprises couldn’t have imagined that the iPhone would now be second place in terms of security features that enterprises require, behind

only the BlackBerry and ahead of Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. But at the end of 2010, that’s how many enterprises regard the smartphone landscape. Over the next couple of

years, experts predict that BlackBerry will hold onto the most securityconscious enterprises but that the other platforms will take up a growing share of the market. The release of iOS4, the latest iPhone software that came out in June 2010, marked a dramatic shift in the enterprise smartphone market. With that update, many CIOs grudgingly admitted that the iPhone had became “good enough” to meet the most basic security requirements that most enterprises need, said Tim Weingarten, CEO of Visage Mobile. Visage Mobile’s software manages 100,000 devices from US corporations of every size. Among those devices, BlackBerrys still outnumber iPhones and Android phones 10 to one, he said. Research In Motion currently has 51.2 percent market share in the enterprise, according to recent research from comScore. Apple follows with 22.7 percent and Android comes in third with 12.1 percent market share. Microsoft trails at 8.8 percent, comScore found. In the wider market, RIM’s share of the US smartphone market dropped from 39.3 percent in July 2010 to 35.8 percent in October 2010, ComScore said.

A Buyer’s Decision The smartphone mix in an enterprise often depends on who actually buys the phones. Corporations that decide to standardize on a platform and issue phones to workers tend to go with BlackBerry, said Tony Kueh, senior director of enterprise

mobility management for Sybase. But when companies offer to subsidize the users’ data plans and let workers buy their own phones, people are choosing iPhones, he said. Updates to the iPhone since it first launched have allowed it to be an option for corporate workers. “If you’d talked to someone in IT at a typical corporation prior to the launch of iOS 4, they would have said it was nowhere good enough and they weren’t going to support it,” Weingarten said. But there was “a sea change with iOS 4,” he said. Now the iPhone offers just enough security to make it palatable to most enterprises, he said. Onboard device encryption is built into the hardware and it supports remote wipe and kill as well as passwords. The iPhone supports 20 of about 40 policies built into ActiveSync, he said.

A Trailing Android Android has improved with version 2.2 of the software, but most enterprises say it isn’t there yet. “Android is a few steps behind the iPhone in terms of security capabilities,” Kueh said. Google has just released Android 2.3, which will first become available this week on the Nexus S phone. “I did not see any feature enhancements for enterprises in 2.3,” said Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner. “I suspect and hope there will be announcements for the enterprise in 3.0 because right now the Android system is about where iPhone 2 was.” Rehabcare, a company that owns and operates hospitals, is one orga-

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n focal point | Mobility nization holding off on Android. “We’re still not satisfied with the security capabilities,” said Dick Escue, CIO for Rehabcare. He mainly deploys iPhone. Android 2.2 is the first version of the operating system to support meaningful enterprise security features, but it doesn’t support as many as iOS does, Weingarten said. Currently about 43 percent of Android phones are running version 2.2. IT administrators can enforce password policies and remotely wipe Android 2.2 phones. But other important

operating system on the market at any given time. “We are concerned about the fact that there are, and may always be, many different implementations of Android, which makes our ability to support them difficult,” he said. Experts have differing opinions on whether to expect Google to improve features that might appeal to enterprises. The release of Google Apps Device Policy, which allows for management of many phones including Android, indicates that Google is interested in and serious about serving

Webcor Builders, primarily uses BlackBerry devices but has begun using Good Technology to control the Android phones he supports. That allows him to securely send e-mail, contacts and other data through the secure Good servers and also remotely manage and control the phones. In addition, phone makers are adding their own features to Android, Weldon noted. For instance, Motorola’s Droid Pro includes a number of features that other Android phones don’t, including remote wipe of SD (Secure Digital)

Over the next couple of years, experts predict that BlackBerry will hold onto the most security-conscious enterprises but that the other platforms will take up a growing share of the market. Players like Android and Windows Phone 7, which are currently trailing behind, are most likely to catch up. features are missing. For instance, file system encryption isn’t available on Android, Kueh said. That means if users root their phones, they have access to the file system and can copy e-mail databases, he said. Even if there is applevel encryption, the key potentially could be found somewhere on the device, he said. “It’s pretty hackable,” he said. Android presents additional problems for enterprises with its open application store. That makes employers worry that workers might accidentally download an application that contains malware that could corrupt corporate data. In addition, Escue worries about the many different versions of the 44

enterprise customers, Weingarten said. “Android is behind but it’s going to catch up,” he predicts. Kueh didn’t sound so sure. “I would hope future versions will beef it up, there is demand for it,” he said. “The question is how committed Google is in terms of addressing the enterprise market.” Third-party vendors might help bring Android into the enterprise space in a big way. Mobile-devicemanagement software providers like Sybase helped the iPhone become more useable in the enterprise, said Kitty Weldon, an analyst with Current Analysis. She expects the same would happen in the case of Android. Gregg Davis, CIO for

cards, the ability to force users to create new passwords after a set time, and a VPN. Android 2.2 included device policy management APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow developers to write applications, which for example enforce minimum password strength, remotely set passwords, enforce regular password changes, remotely lock devices, set password complexity rules and wipe the phone after a set number of failed login attempts.

Window of Insecurity Despite Microsoft’s reputation as an enterprise vendor, Windows Phone 7 is at the bottom of the list in terms of features for corporate users — for now.

Of the 40 or so policies supported in ActiveSync, WP7 supports about 8. The phones are less secure than their predecessors running Windows Mobile 6.5. “They did rip out almost everything enterprises would have used to develop apps and you can’t manage it, other than the few things you can do through Exchange server,” Kueh said. WP7 devices are not compatible with Microsoft’s System Center Mobile Device Manager, software that lets IT workers manage Windows Mobile 6.5 phones. Microsoft had already started de-emphasizing System Center for mobile “because it got a bad reputation of being cumbersome to deploy,” Weldon said. It boosted ActiveSync capabilities slightly in response, she said. Because WP7 applications must be built using Silverlight, developers must essentially re-write apps that previously worked on Windows Mobile 6.5. In addition, the phones no longer have a lightweight version of SQL, meaning there is no database access on the device, Kueh said. Vendors and analysts expect Microsoft to add more features in future updates to the software. In addition, if Microsoft succeeds in attracting consumers to WP7, that could drive more enterprise adoption, Weldon said. “If Windows Phone 7 takes off among consumers, then you have the same thing going on with the iPhone and Android. People will bring it into the enterprise and maybe that’s the plan,” she said. 

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Chrome OS vs. Android 3.0

Which Platform Will Prevail? Developers have two Google OS’ to choose from, but one platform may have an advantage in the long run. By Neil McAllister

oogle says it

has a vision of the future of software. And since Google is without doubt one of the most important and innovative computing vendors today, independent developers would do well to pay attention. The question is, which vision should we pay attention to? The usual story casts Google and Microsoft as polar opposites -- Microsoft, the lumbering, oldworld behemoth of retail software, and Google, the young, agile champion of cloud computing. In a Google future, Web-based Google Apps would replace traditional office suites, databases, and messaging clients, while cloud storage and services would eliminate the need for onpremise data centers. To this end, Google is developing Chrome OS, an operating system for netbooks and connected devices that is essentially a browser in a box. Chrome OS supports no locally installed software, and it uses the cloud for its primary storage. Developers who want to write software for these devices will be writing Web apps, pure and simple.

But Chrome OS isn’t the only iron Google has in the fire. Android 3.0, previewed at a Google demo recently, sees the search giant’s smartphone OS blossoming into something more closely resembling a general-purpose computing platform -- including many features the Chrome OS folks told us we’d never need. In fact, if developers really want to write software “the Google way,” my money’s on Android, not Chrome OS.

Chrome: Already Old? Plenty of people have scoffed at Chrome OS before me, but there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with running applications in a browser. Web apps work well for countless enterprises today, and certainly for SaaS providers such as Salesforce.com. The idea of browser in a box is hardly objectionable, either -- provided you take a very narrow view of the future of computing. Chrome OS was conceived at a time when netbooks were the hot devices. The problem was that nobody really knew what a netbook should be. Were they just cheap, underpowered laptops, or were

they something else? With Chrome OS, Google created a platform that skirted netbooks’ limited processing capabilities by ditching the traditional desktop and making Web connectivity their most important trait. The trouble is, increasingly the future of computing doesn’t look like a netbook. Mobile browsers are already the preferred window to the Web for many users, particularly in Europe and Asia. Tablets are poised to flood the U.S. market beginning later this year. Some users are even browsing the Web using such oddball devices as TV set-top boxes or Amazon.com’s Kindle. What all these devices have in common is that trying to shoehorn a traditional Web browser into them is like hammering the proverbial square peg into a round hole. The classic browser view assumes the content will be narrow and users will scroll up and down to see more. That assumption doesn’t hold on devices that can switch the screen from landscape to portrait view at the drop of a hat and where users scroll using finger gestures. Rollovers? Hovering help tips?

Custom cursors? None of these tools are available when there’s no mouse pointer. And intermittent connectivity, coupled with mobile carriers’ tiered pricing, makes lightweight UIs a must for mobile devices, in contrast to the rich Web experiences touted by Chrome OS.

Android goes native A lot of folks don’t remember that Steve Jobs initially said the way to create apps for the iPhone would be as Web apps running in the mobile Safari browser. It didn’t take long for Apple to admit that wasn’t going to cut it and to issue a proper SDK. Today, many of the most popular apps you see in the iTunes Store are purpose-built UIs for individual websites, streamlined to take advantage of the device’s smaller screen and native UI widgets. Despite Google’s past dismissal of native apps, the Android market is following suit. Android 3.0 acknowledges this trend by offering a new UI framework aimed at improving user experience on a variety of devices, including a host of redesigned UI widgets and a new way to build modular, multipane UIs. The whole

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Android 3.0 Sneak Peek: A Screenshot Preview

he next version of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) will feature a new holographic look, five customizable home screens, a Windows-style taskbar and tabbed browsing. Google released a platform preview of Android 3.0 to third-party developers and a series of screenshots showing what’s new in Android 3.0 These screenshots offer a more detailed look at Google’s first Android version specifically designed with tablets and smartphones in mind. Here’s a look at what to expect in Android 3.0, Honeycomb. Ground Up: Google says Android 3.0 has been completely redesigned with a new user interface (UI) theme it calls “holographic.” Every app and system view in Android 3.0 will have a “system bar” at the bottom of the screen similar to the notification area in the Windows 7 taskbar. Google’s system bar gives quick access to things such as system notifications, OS is designed from the ground up to support larger screens and more versatile input methods, including USB keyboards. Another important trend is that chip vendors, ARM and Intel among them, have been steadily improving their mobile offerings by increasing processing speeds and bundling CPU cores with support components, such as GPUs and signal processors. To not take advantage of these components’ new features would be a wasted opportunity. Sure enough, Android 3.0 introduces accelerated 2D and 3D graphics and support for multicore pro46

system status and navigation buttons. When you watch a video the status bar will go into “lights out” mode for full screen viewing. Applications will use something called an “Action Bar” (not pictured) at the top of the screen for application-specific functions such as navigation and menu options. Customizable Home Screens: Honeycomb-powered tablets will have five customizable home screens that can be dressed up with specific widgets, app shortcuts, and wallpapers. You will have access to all installed applications on the device via the Android application launcher from every home screen. There will also be a dedicated search box on every home screen to help you find content on your device such as apps, files and contacts. iPad-style Multitasking?: When you want to see an active app in Honeycomb you touch a “recent apps” button on the system bar. This calls up all open applications and shows their current state. In other words, it shows

you what an app looked like before you switched out of it into another application. Copy-and-paste: Everybody’s favorite mobile device feature: copyand-paste is getting a redesign in Android 3.0. The new system sounds a lot like what happens on the iPad: press and hold to select a word and then adjust the selection area as needed. Google also says Android 3.0 features a new keyboard better suited to tablets. New keyboard keys include a tab button and easy access to voice controls to take advantage of Android’s text-to-speech features and search by voice. Tabbed Browsing: Taking a cue from Google Chrome, Android’s Web browser will include Chrome-style tabs instead of windows. You will also be able to sync Google Chrome bookmarks in Honeycomb. Bookmarks and history have been moved into a single, unified view, Google said. Tablet Camera: Rumor has it a rear-facing camera is coming to the next iPad, but Android will definitely get cameras with Honeycomb tablets, or at least

the software capability to have a camera. Android 3.0 has a new camera interface for tablets that includes quick access to functions such as exposure, flash, focus and switching between front- and rear-facing cameras. You will be able to view photo galleries in full screen mode on Android 3.0 tablets. Multi-pane UI: To take advantage of the increased screen space, applications can be broken into multi-pane interfaces. Such as this contacts application that shows a list of contacts, then a second pane for contact details and a third pane for editing contact information. Multiselect Drag-and-drop: Android 3.0 will also make it easier to manage lists such as messages in your inbox with a new multiselect system for functions such as drag-anddrop and copying. This would let you move multiple files around your system with just a few taps or select a number of items at once for deletion.

cessors. Google is working to add similar features to its Chrome browser, but in general Web-based apps don’t scale well to take advantage of hardware.

remained essentially unchanged since Netscape 1.1 — Android allows developers the opportunity to offer users something more, by combining HTML-based content and services with optimized native UIs. Astute readers will observe that this type of hybrid model is exactly what Microsoft has been touting with its “software plus services” mantra. While Microsoft remains wedded to thick-client applications, however, Google (and Apple) suggest a more lightweight approach, where most of the heavy lifting still happens in the cloud. Thick client or thin, I

think Android’s hybrid model will be the real future of software development, and not Chrome OS’s browser-centric model. Recently, I lamented that the HTML standard seems to have fallen under the control of the browser vendors. The most unfortunate aspect is the implicit assumption that browsers will be the primary consumers of Web content for the foreseeable future. Efforts such as Tim Berners-Lee’s semantic Web strongly suggest that this won’t always be the case; the evolution we’re seeing in the mobile software market all but proves it. 

Software & services What’s important to note, though, is that for all Android’s advantages, nothing about it precludes the Chrome OS application model, either. Android ships with a browser based on the WebKit rendering engine, the same as Chrome OS. The difference is that while the Chrome OS forces every application into the old-world browser experience -- which has

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Mobility | focal point n simplify their approach to mobile applications and devices, and secure them will get the pervasive mobile movement under control, according to the Forrester report.

Enter Private Stores

Mobility will be the mantra for enterprises and SMBs alike in 2011. It will at the top of their priority list. By Shane O’Neill

“mobile workforce” has been around for years, but in 2011, mobility will become even more of a priority for enterprises and vendors, according to a new report from research firm Forrester. Enterprise mobility is the biggest single trend across tech industry investment and innovation, even outpacing the cloud computing trend, states the Forrester report entitled, “Another Year of Outperformance for the Tech Industry — Forrester’s 2011 Tech Industry Predictions.” Enterprises and SMBs in 2011 will put mobile strategies at the top of the list by expanding the use of smartphones and investing in mobile applications that address the needs of all types of employees, from information and task workers to “mobile wannabes” who bring their personal smartphones to work. Forrester analyst and report author Chris Mines cites “the breakneck pace of consumer adoption of smartphones, tablets and applications” as a driver for enterprise IT to mobilize their own core applications such as CRM, ERP, he term

expense management, inventory management and time tracking.

Complex Benefits Indeed, an effective mobile strategy is no longer just something “nice to have” but is becoming a necessity for business growth. In an article on CIO.com about choosing the most secure mobile architecture, Sybase CTO Irfan Khan outlined the benefits of enterprise mobilizing.

In addition to helping workers get more done in less time, Khan writes that mobile devices and apps “can improve customer engagement, customer service, improve supply chain operations and partner/supplier collaboration as well as faster, more effective business decision making.” But with more mobile adoption comes more complexity on the security, networking and developer fronts. Companies that can

Yet Mobile Hurdles Remain Just getting your corporate apps inside a contained store will not resolve all enterprise mobile issues, as IT consultant Peter Gyurko points out in a recent blog post. Some bigger questions to ask about enterprise mobile apps, writes Gyurko, are: n What network are corporate apps going to run on: a private,

corporate Wi-Fi or the public cellphone network? n Are IT departments accustomed to BlackBerrys prepared for

corporate use of workers’ personal Droid phones and iPhones, which come with browser and coding complexities? n How do you slim down notoriously thick and data-intensive

enterprise apps so they can run on smartphones? “Enterprises realize the need and opportunity to extend internal applications to mobile devices, but still face many hurdles,” writes Gyurko. “Because of the small form-factor and inherent simplicity of current mobile apps, organizations must decide what enterprise features provide the most value in the hands of mobile users.”

One of the most efficient ways to simplify enterprise mobility, writes Forrester, is to build a private corporate app store in the vein of Apple’s App Store. “In 2011, we expect that 10 percent of enterprises will open private app stores, which simplify companies’ distribution of mobile-enabled corporate applications,” writes Mines in the Forrester report. Mobile app stores that cater to specific platforms like Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, RIM’s BlackBerry and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 have become hugely popular with smartphone users over the past few years. As consumers, users are comfortable downloading apps from an app store for everything from buying movie tickets to checking the weather to playing games like Angry Birds. The problem for IT departments, according to Forrester, is that 25 percent of workers are using such app stores to download work-related productivity apps for managing expenses and reading PDF documents. IT, in turn, has no way to monitor and secure these outside apps. “The emergence of private app stores, with a set of approved applications residing inside the corporate firewall, will let IT control and sanction approved mobile applications for employees.”  — CIO.com

february 2011

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INDIAN Channelworld

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n face off

EMC vs. NetApp

Venkatesh Iyer

Head – India & SAARC (VCE Initiative), EMC Corporation

Surajit Sen

Director, Channels, Marketing and Alliances- NetApp India

Battle for Virtual Storage Both EMC’s Vblock and NetApp’s FlexPod have Cisco and Vmware support. Which offering scores over the other?

block Infrastructure Packages offered by VCE,

are integrated infrastructure packages, have a reference architecture that is significantly different from what our competitors have to offer. Integration with vCenter, Unisphere, vStorage API, VPLEX, security (through RSA, EMC’s security division), Avamar, site recovery manager for data recovery (unique with VCE through EMC’s Replication Adapters) are some key benefits that the VCE’s deep integration with VMware technologies (more than 60 points of integration) offers. They are validated, secure, de-risked and warranted. Customers of all sizes who want an integrated data center infrastructure package to be able to implement pervasive virtualization on the road to private cloud computing will find Vblocks ideal. We are already seeing significant adoption for the Vblock proposition in the Indian market from service providers and organizations alike and are far ahead of competition in the practical world. A clear message to our customers and partners is that they can benefit from the single contact point that directly connects them to a team of VCE solution technical support experts. We deliver seamless support through a single company where all resources are cross trained on EMC, Cisco and VMware technologies (more than 10,000 hrs of cross training), resulting in faster resolution for the customer. Think of it as ‘the hotline’ to depend on irrespective of which of the three coalition companies initiated the customer engagement. Now, compare this to ‘collaborative support’ offered by competitors, where an issue is referred to the relevant technology company.

ith FlexPod, NetApp introduced new capabilities

to its portfolio, including Secure Multi-Tenancy (SMT), Long Distance VMotion (LDVM) and support for vShield Zones. FlexPod provides a variety of NetApp technologies that improve storage efficiency including deduplication, Snapshot, thin cloning, thin replication, RAID DP and more. Customers will use at least 50 percent less storage with NetApp systems and at least 35 percent less storage on existing systems. It integrates into the customers’ existing environment. NetApp solutions enable customers to virtualize all of their existing storage, including any third party storage, with our V-Series controllers. FlexPod packaging is new, but the architecture has already been adopted by countless virtualization and cloud customers (end-users and service providers). We have many joint references for comparable configurations. Our 3-way integrated support model provides customers with a direct 24x7 contact path to experts from NetApp, Cisco and VMware. Our open architecture provides APIs that enable a wide range of orchestration players to manage all layers of the stack, including BMC, CA, IBM and Microsoft. NetApp does not compete with other management platforms. FlexPod leverages a single unified storage architecture across the entire product family – same OS, management tools and software for backup, HA, DR, etc. – that reduces complexity and improves scalability and upgradability. Like other NetApp solutions, it provides a flexible, highly scalable architecture designed to scale up or scale out depending on their needs. — As told to Radhika Nallayam

Indian Channelworld february 2011

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