NoVember 01, 2012

Juniper Networks® wireless LAN solution provides secure, scalable connectivity for mobile users and every one of their Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Combined with unprecedented reliability and unified management, Juniper provides the most dependable infrastructure for the mass deployment of mission critical mobility applications, including voice, video, telemetry, and location services.

With a comprehensive family of the most intelligent and advanced controllers, access points, and management tools, Juniper enables nonstop indoor and outdoor mobility for enterprises of all sizes, from small retail operations to the largest campuses.

With Juniper’s WLAN solution, organizations can build end-to-end, high-performance wireless infrastructures that deliver a seamless, secure, and reliable mobility experience regardless of where, when, or how users access the network. juniper.net

+ Þ Inbound Response Management Priya Sharma v:1800 209 3062 f:022 66765553 Authorized Distributor: Avnet Technology Solutions India Pvt Ltd | Drishti Hembrol | Email: Drishti.hembrol@avnet.com | 9820661421

Fujitsu recommends Windows 8.

Perform with style lifebook.in.ts.fujitsu.com

The extensive Fujitsu LIFEBOOK portfolio offers you a wide range of mobile devices to meet every requirement. From elegant ULTRABOOKs guaranteeing highest security and boundless mobility to touch-based tablets providing ultimate versatility, every Fujitsu LIFEBOOK provides the greatest reliability for all business tasks either in the office or on the move.

LIFEBOOK UH572

LIFEBOOK LH532

LIFEBOOK S792

LIFEBOOK T902

■ Up to Intel® Core™ i7 processor ■ Windows 8 Pro 64-bit ■ Stylish and slim design combined with small form factor at only 1.6 kg ■ Optional embedded 3G/UMTS, WLAN and Bluetooth

■ Up to Intel® Core™ i7 processor ■ Windows 8 Pro 64-bit ■ Stylish Matt soft Finish with 14” (35.6cm) HD Display ■ HD Camera, SpillProof KB & Anytime USB Charge

■ Intel® Core™ i5 vPro™ processor ■ Windows 8 Pro 64-bit ■ Maximum Security with Advanced Theft Protection (ATP), optional TPM module and fingerprint sensor including Omnipass Security Software ■ Comfortable working thanks to antiglare display and port replicator

■ Intel® Core™ i5 vPro™ processor ■ Windows 8 Pro 64-bit ■ Modular bay for a second battery, second HDD, DVD/Blu-Ray drive or weight saver ■ Optional integrated 4G/LTE or 3G/ UMTS (incl. GPS)

with the 3rd Gen Intel® Core™ vPro™ processor family – Enriches your life.

Copyright © 2012 Fujitsu India Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. * Conditions Apply. Taxes & Levies extra.

To find out more, call: 1800 102 3457 or email: marketing-india@ts.fujitsu.com Prices Start From `

23999*

contents

November 01, 2012 l Volume 2 Issue 01

Cover Story

Rules of

Engagement

In a survey of leading enterprise VARs, CRN captures partner perceptions about IT vendors’ rules of engagement and how well they deliver on their promises, both in letter and spirit

20

Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik

NEWS Analyses

Channel Chief

Canon aims at market leadership in inkjets

6

Sony scouts enterprise partners

6

Pantum enters Indian printer market

8

Extreme revamps partner program 8 Oracle introduces entry-level bundles

10

Cisco bets on OnePK

10

READ More Opinion

14

Feedback

14

Channel Buzz

35

New Products

36

Shadow Ram

38

Get Personal

38

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

16 Market Focus The outlook for Windows 8 While Microsoft’s new OS is expected to create buzz in consumer segment, many believe that its new interface will hinder its adoption among businesses

18 Special Focus

26

Editorial 12

4

N Jagannath Patnaik Director, Channel Sales, South Asia, Kaspersky Lab, speaks about the performance of the company’s consumer business and its plans to attain market leadership

Enterprise apps get more social Traditional enterprise applications are coming out of their introverted back-ends and going social and mobile to foster collaboration among employees

Role Model Steely determination Rajiv Gupta, Director, Sara Infoway, started off with a big advantage but then had to overcome tremendous health setbacks to prove his mettle and get to where he is today

30

starting line MUST

Canon aims at market leadership in inkjets

Sony scouts enterprise partners

n AMIT SINGH

Read

Sony India is increasing its focus on the commercial notebook business. The company grossed revenue of `6,330 crore in FY2011-12, of which notebooks accounted for about 20 percent and commercial notebooks added 1 percent.

While Sony is looking at 35-40 percent growth in the current fiscal, it is targeting 10 percent of its notebook revenue from commercial notebooks.

The company is primarily targeting SMBs for its commercial notebooks, and has a 4-pronged strategy for this purpose.

The company has expanded its notebook portfolio from two SKUs last year to six in 2012.

“We will have an extensive line-up of notebooks for SMB customers, and we recently introduced an ultrabook on Windows 8 for SMBs,” informed Kenichiro Hibi, MD, Sony India.

The company will expand its SMBfocused partner base of about 60.

“Sales in the SMB segment depend on the relationship the partner has with customers. This fiscal we want to add about 20 partners who have good relationships Kenichiro Hibi with SMB customers.

Partners can be from our existing consumer partner base or new ones with a presence in the SMB space,” he said.

The company has appointed six managers located in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad to target SMB customers and provide sales support to partners in their regions.

Sony will have a 360-degree campaign for its product range, and it has allocated a marketing budget of `150 crore for the festival season of October-December.

The company will start a 100-city roadshow with Microsoft from November. On the consumer front, Sony recently introduced the Windows 8-based, touch-screen-enabled, VAIO E14A series and ultrabook T series of notebooks.

The company also launched a lucky-draw scheme for consumers which enables them to win prizes including Sony Bravia TVs, personal 3D viewers, Xperia tablets and smartphones. n — Amit Singh 6

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

C

anon is aiming to become the No 1 in the inkjet printer category by 2015. Of the `932 crore inkjet market in India, the company held 23 percent share in Q32012 and targets 25 percent in 2013.

“Canon had 33 percent growth in the inkjet category with revenue rising from `95 crore in 2011 to `125 crore in 2012. With the vision of becoming a $1 billion company in 2015, we are targeting inkjet revenue of `200 crore in 2013,” said Alok Bharadwaj, Senior VP, Canon India.

While inkjet currently has a 45 percent share in the total printer market of 2.7 million units in India, the company expects inkjets to grow faster than laser printers with the lowering of prices and running costs. Said Bharadwaj, “Besides the high traction of inkjet AIO printers in the consumer space, inkjets are also finding a place in SOHOs and SMBs. We expect AIOs to acquire 70 percent of the market by 2016.”

Canon has a 3-point strategy for its inkjet growth: build momentum for ink-efficient inkjet printers, innovate in applications to promote usage, and have a strong retail presence.

The company recently added the MG4270, MG2270 and MG3170 photo printers to its portfolio. Available in three colors and priced at `5,965, MG3170 offers full-photolithography inkjet nozzle engineering technology for high-quality and high-speed printing. Besides, Canon has introduced the E510 and E600 ink-efficient AIO printers priced at `6,700 and `8,495 respectively.

Remarked Bharadwaj, “With their ink-efficient technology, we expect 30 percent of our inkjet revenue to be coming from the E series printers.”

To promote printer usage,

“With the vision of becoming a $1 billion company in 2015, we are targeting revenue of `200 crore in 2013 from inkjet business” Alok Bharadwaj Senior VP Canon India

Canon has launched an imaging software, My Image Garden, for its inkjet printers. Besides scanning and printing, the software integrates software packages including Creative Park Premium, Fun Filter Effect and Full HD Movie Print.

My Image Garden helps organize photos by sorting by events, dates or people. The Creative Park Premium allows the downloading of images to create collages, greeting cards, calendars, etc.

In addition, the company is counting on features such as Google Cloud Print which allows the printing of Gmail messages or Google Docs from smartphones or tablets.

On the retail expansion front, Canon is expanding base and intends to increase its Canon Empowered Partners from the current 890 to 1,500 in 2013. Besides, it will increase its Original Ink Cartridges Centers from 610 to 1,000 in the same period.

The company will also increase the number of its Canon Image Square (CIS) stores from the current 80 to 100 by 2012end, 200 in 2013 and 300 in 2014. “Our target is to increase the contribution from CIS stores from the existing 5 percent to 15 percent of the inkjet revenue,” said Bharadwaj. n

starting line MUST

Pantum enters Indian printer market

Extreme revamps partner program

n AMIT SINGH

Read

Enterprise network specialist Extreme Networks has scrapped 22 channel programs globally to replace them with a single partner program.

According to Theresa Caragol, VP, Global Channels, Extreme, the yet to be named channel program will go live in less than a month.

Meanwhile, Extreme has stepped up its channel engagements in the country. “We are going to have a two-tier approach in India. We will have five partners in tier-1 while 70-80 partners will form our tier-2,” Caragol said.

She said that the company will directly bill tier1 channels, and directly manage them. “We have chosen three partners to go after verticals such as government, high performance computing (HPC) and enterprise data centers. The other two partners will be used to manage some strategic accounts across all verticals.”

While the rest of the channel will be managed by Westcon India, all partners will have benefits under the new channel program including deal registration and multi-level rebates.

Extreme has Theresa Caragol appointed Joy Ghosh as VP, Asia Sales, and Chiradeep Rao as Country Sales Manager, to drive its India growth.

Caragol said that QoQ revenue through tier-2 channels has doubled in the last quarter in India.

Though Extreme is focused on niche high-end markets in data centers, HPC, BYOD and virtualization, Caragol said that through tier-2 channels Extreme will go after broader opportunities. “We obviously cannot go after the entire market, but we have a very strong focus on the campus switching and wireless market. We believe that tier-2 partners will play a bigger role in this space.”

She also said that the vendor has formed a Global Channel Partner Advisory Council with the goal of deepening understanding and relationships with its partner base across the globe. “We will soon rope in partners from India to join the council,” Caragol stated. n — Ramdas S

8

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

P

antum, a Chinese printer brand, has entered India with ambitious plans. The company is aiming to be among the top five laser printer brands in the country by 2015.

Pantum is aiming to ship 10 lakh units globally and one lakh units in India by 2015 to grab 5 percent marketshare internationally and in India.

“We are one of the prominent brands in China with a presence in the United States, Europe, Australia, Latin America, Russia and Japan. The company ranked fourth on a recent Forbes list of the 100 fastest growing companies in China,” informed Jackson Wang, President, Pantum International.

In India the company is currently focusing on SOHO and SMB customers. To start with, it has launched two models (P2000 and P2050) of single-function laser printers, offering speeds of 16 and 20 PPM. Pantum will expand its product range in mid-2013 by introducing its laser MFPs and color printers. According to Wang, Pantum laser printers offer a monthly duty cycle of 20,000 pages—four times higher than similar products, and one lakh pages of average engine life— more than twice that of similar products. “For SMB and SOHO customers, low TCO is of utmost importance because of their high printing needs. Our toner cartridges offer 1,500- and 2,300page printing that lowers the TCO by 10-20 percent.”

The company has appointed Rashi Peripherals as its ND and is scouting for RDs for a regional presence. “We will have a presence in 65 cities by 2012end and in 190 cities by 2013end. Our focus will be to offer the highest margins to partners.

The current festive season will

“We are one of the prominent brands in China with a presence in the United States, Europe, Australia, Latin America, Russia and Japan” Jackson Wang

President Pantum International

see several incentive schemes coming. Moreover, partners will be able to offer both hardware and consumables to improve their margins,” Wang disclosed.

Pantum is moving in a phased manner and currently focusing on north and east India. It will launch its products in the western region in November-end and in the southern market in December-end or early January.

The company sees higher uptake of laser printers in the consumer segment in the next 1-2 years, and will get into the retail segment through retailers and LFRs in mid-2013.

Under its demo program, the company will offer demo units to customers for usage and creating awareness. Said Wang, “The idea is to make customers aware of our strengths in product innovation.”

Pantum will soon establish its India head office in Delhi or Mumbai. It has appointed a sales manager and will shortly add 10 people to its sales team.

Rashi will also act as authorized service provider for the company through its 65 branch locations. “We will also look for another service provider with the product expansion,” Wang added. The company offers a 1-year carry-in warranty on all its printers. n

starting line Oracle introduces entry-level bundles n Sonal Desai

T

o help Indian SMBs to quickly transition to a private or public cloud, Oracle has introduced entry-level bundles, including virtualization solutions.

The company is marketing the templatized bundles as a partneronly initiative. Said Mitesh Agarwal, Chief Technology Officer and Director, Systems Division, Oracle India, “Partners can download at least 90 templates from our Website. The bundles include a built-in operating system, virtualization, infrastructure provisioning and system management in an integrated stack.

The resellers will be able to directly sell these pre-configured bundles, and build around our x86 and Sparc servers and storage at customer sites. Since it is a single-vendor solution, the entire stack can now be deployed in six hours.”

“The resellers will be able to sell these pre-configured bundles.

Since it is a single-vendor solution, the entire stack can now be deployed in six hours” Mitesh Agarwal

Chief Technology Officer and Director, Systems Division, Oracle India

The company will depend on its 1,000 partners in India to sell the bundles to mid-market and SMB customers. “The partners have to be vertically strong, or should have a strong cloud practice. We are looking at an ISV relationship where the partners can wrap their solutions on top of our bundles,”

Agarwal added. “A large number of ISVs in India have already started evaluating the ‘application in a box’ kind of solution. These ISVs could partner with us to provide their software as a service bundled with Oracle hardware.”

Even as Oracle said that it would give partners a free hand to decide on the pricing, it has released an official price list of $25,000 for 25 virtual machines, $50,000 for 50 virtual machines and $100,000 for 100 virtual machines, including 3-year warranty support.

Welcoming the move by Oracle, Vinod Menon, Director, Technology, Ashtech Infotech said, “Mid-sized organizations across India are looking at consolidating and virtualizing their current IT infrastructure. However, factors such as enormous cost, complex management and security risks are holding them back. The bundles will enable them to move to the cloud.” n

Cisco bets on OnePK n Sonal Desai

C

isco Systems has announced a 3-pronged strategy around software defined networking (SDN).

The strategy centers around three platforms—One Platform Kit (or OnePK); Cisco OpenStack Controller and OpenFlow Agent; and the Cisco Virtual Overlay Solutions. Since the latter two are still at the PoC stage and yet to mature, the company is betting big on OnePK to penetrate SDN. Cisco has signed hundreds of customers globally for its OnePK. The kit has already generated interest from network operators who see revenue opportunities in services utilizing the network infrastructure and meeting application-specific requirements.

OnePK is a unified software development kit across IO, IOS-XR and NX-OS. It simplifies the deployment of configurations, changes,

10

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

“With BYOD becoming common, we are betting big on OnePK. We are also working with some MDM for device security” Sashi Kiran

Senior Director Market Management, Cisco

operations and maintenance flows across a diverse suite of network products.

“With BYOD becoming common, we are betting big on OnePK, which is essentially a platform for API developers. We are also working with some mobile device management companies which control device security,” said Sashi Kiran, Senior Di-

rector, Market Management, Cisco.

According to him, SDN will be in demand from customers who are transitioning from physical to virtual and cloud environments. “We have piloted OnePK for customers in hi-engineering, R&D and data centers, and are looking at customers who can do their own programming. We expect a lot of traction for the platform even for the services partners of Cisco who will be able to offer it as Infrastructure-as-aService.”

Cisco believes that OnePK will offer the services arms of partners the opportunity to engage closely with their customers, and that the revenue pie from the platform will rise significantly. “Only partners can convince customers to open up their networks.

Talk with the customer starts at a consultative level, and opportunities, both greenfield and for deep-selling, will increase as the level of deployment matures,” Kiran said. n

edit opinion Doubts about Windows 8

Volume 2, Issue 01

dhaval valia

M

icrosoft launched Windows 8 last week, but the hype and buzz one saw around its OS launches in the past were clearly missing.

That was expected though.

Microsoft is no longer the dominant force it used to be. Today, an Apple or Google launch is more awaited and creates greater buzz.

Also, the buzz around a new launch is proportional to the product’s relevance to customers.

Windows 8 is a dramatic departure from previous Windows.

Microsoft has worked really hard to create what it calls a Metro interface. This may tempt consumers, but with enterprises it could prove a liability.

Companies love stability and standardization, and a completely new platform will deter them from moving to Windows 8 because not only will it create migration and IT support issues, but will also require them to train employees on the new interface.

Not to forget that Windows 8 comes within three years of the Windows 7 launch. Most organizations that migrated to Win 7 did so in the past two years, and hence may not go for the new OS for at least the next couple of years. Also, weighing heavily on many minds will be the current economic downturn.

Analysts believe that Windows 8 is Microsoft’s bid to gain share in the tablet and smartphone markets. At present the company has less than 5 percent share of the smartphone market and almost no share in the tablet market.

Getting Microsoft accepted as an alternative to iOS and Android is no mean task. Microsoft does not have the apps ecosystem which these two vendors command, neither does it have the support of smartphone OEMs that Google Android has.

Another big gamble that Microsoft has played is having a common brand for PC and smartphone variant of the OS. Even Apple has kept Mac and iOS separate. Let’s not forget that the rate of innovation in the tablet market is rapid. Google and Apple have been launching new versions every year with significantly new features.

Is Microsoft capable of delivering major upgrades and new versions of its OS in the tablet and smartphone segments at the same pace with Google and Apple?

In the PCdom, with its dominance, Microsoft could get away with delayed launches, but in the tablet and smartphone market it can’t afford to do so, as it is a laggard. Even if it manages to match its competitors, the bigger question is whether Microsoft will launch a new PC OS version every time it launches a new version for tablets and smartphones?

In essence, the Windows 8 launch has raised more questions than answers—questions that probably even Microsoft doesn’t have answers to. n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 12

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

Managing Director

Printer & Publisher Associate Publisher & Executive Editor

Group Commercial Director

Contributing Editor

Assistant Editor

Principal Correspondent

Senior Correspondent

: : : : : : : :

Sanjeev Khaira Kailash Pandurang Shirodkar Dhaval Valia Salil Warior Ramdas S Sonal Desai Abhijeet Mukherjee (Mumbai) Amit Singh (Delhi)

Design Art Director : Deepjyoti Bhowmik

Senior Visualiser : Yogesh Naik

Senior Graphic Designer : Shailesh Vaidya

Graphic Designer : Jinal Chheda

Designer : Sameer Surve

Marketing Advertising Co-ordinator : Jagruti Kudalkar

online Manager—Product Dev. & Mktg. : Viraj Mehta

Deputy Manager—Online : Nilesh Mungekar

Web Designer : Nitin Lahare

Sr. User Interface Designer : Aditi Kanade

Operations

Head—Finance : Yogesh Mudras Director—Operations & Administration : Satyendra Mehra

Sales

bangalore

Manager—Sales : Sudhir K sudhir.k@ubm.com

(M) +91 9740776749

Delhi

Senior Project Manager : Sanjay Khandelwal sanjay.khandelwal@ubm.com

(M) +91 98117 64515 mumbai

Manager—Sales : Ranabir Das ranabir.das@ubm.com

(M) +91 9820097606

production

Production Manager : Prakash (Sanjay) Adsul

Logistics Deputy Manager : Bajrang Shinde

Subscriptions & Database Manager : Manoj Ambardekar

manoj.ambardekar@ubm.com

Senior Executive : Deepanjali Chaurasia deepa.chaurasia@ubm.com Head Office UBM India Pvt Ltd, 1st floor, 119, Sagar Tech Plaza - A, Andheri-Kurla Road, Saki Naka Junction, Andheri (E), Mumbai 400072, India Tel: 022 6769 2400; Fax: 022 6769 2426 Printed and Published by Kailash Pandurang Shirodkar on behalf of UBM India Pvt Ltd, 6th floor, 615-617 Sagar Tech Plaza - A, Andheri-Kurla Road, Saki Naka Junction, Andheri (E), Mumbai 400072, India.

Executive Editor: Dhaval Valia Printed at Indigo Press (India) Pvt Ltd, Plot No 1c/716, Off Dadaji Konddeo Cross Road, Byculla (E), Mumbai 400027 RNI No. MAHENG/2011/39915 Associate Office - Pune Jagdish Khaladkar, Sahayog Apartment 508 Narayan Peth, Patrya Maruti Chowk, Pune 411 030 Tel: 91 (020) 2445 1574 (M) 98230 38315 email: jagdishk@vsnl.com USA Huson International Media (West) Tiffany DeBie Tiffany.debie@husonmedia.com Tel +1 408 879 6666 Fax +1 408 879 6669 Huson International Media (East) Dan Manioci dan.manioci@husonmedia.com Tel +1 212 268 3344 Fax +1 212 268 3355

Japan Pacific Business (PBI) Shigenori Nagatomo nagatomo-pbi@gol.com Tel: +81 3366 16138 Fax: +81 3366 16139

South Korea Young Media Young Baek ymedia@chol.com Tel: +82 2227 34819 Fax: +82 2227 34866

EMEA Huson International Media Gerry Rhoades Brown, gerry. rhoadesbrown@husonmedia. com Tel: +44 19325 64999 Fax: + 44 19325 64998

Important Every effort has been taken to avoid errors or omissions in this magazine. In spite of this, errors may creep in.

Any mistake, error or discrepancy noted may be brought to our notice immediately. It is notified that neither the publisher, the editor or the seller will be responsible in respect of anything and the consequence of anything done or omitted to be done by any person in reliance upon the content herein.

This disclaimer applies to all, whether subscriber to the magazine or not.

For binding mistakes, misprints, missing pages, etc, the publisher’s liability is limited to replacement within one month of purchase. © All rights are reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Mumbai only.

While care is taken prior to acceptance of advertising copy, it is not possible to verify its contents. UBM India Pvt Ltd. cannot be held responsible for such contents, nor for any loss or damages incurred as a result of transactions with companies, associations or individuals advertising in its newspapers or publications. We therefore recommend that readers make necessary inquiries before sending any monies or entering into any agreements with advertisers or otherwise acting on an advertisement in any manner whatsoever.

edit opinion Skate toward the puck ROBERT FALETRA

H

istorically, trends in this industry need many more years to play out than predicted.

That’s not the case with the current move toward cloud services.

Wayne Gretsky, considered to be the best all-time goal scorer in ice hockey, was once asked why he was so successful. He answered by telling the interviewer that his strategy was to skate to where the puck (disc used in ice hockey) was going to be, not where it was.

I’m convinced solution providers need to do the same. You need to assess your business model now and ask yourself if your customers are going to buy the way they do today in a year or two. You need to realize that customer buying behaviors are changing, and you need to match your product and service portfolio to that spend. You need to skate to where the spending is going to be, not where it is today.

Here’s the danger as I see it. No customer is going to proactively tell you that he is less likely to do business with you in the future because he sees himself going in a different direction. Customers who don’t believe that you can fit with their future needs will simply look elsewhere unknown to you. Months after they have made that decision you will figure it out by realizing that your business with those customers has come down.

The fact is, the traditional buying process inside corporates is changing. The CIO is no longer the sole decision-maker. In some cases, the CIO is not involved, especially when it comes to off-premise public cloud purchases. Often these decisions are being made by line-of-business managers. Those services are being paid for with operating budget money and are not being capitalized as has been the case in the past.

As such, the approval process inside the organization is different.

My feeling is that you are at huge risk if you are not building a futuristic model which is designed to deliver services rather than products. Your model of the future is to sell services and not even quote products separately.

Some smart partners I know are keeping the product make-up of the proposed service/solution completely off the quote because they don’t want to get into a discussion around the pricing of parts.

Most importantly, it’s time to begin thinking deeply about it now or you are going to find yourself skating to where the puck is one of these days only to find out it has been passed so far ahead of you there is no way to get there. n Email Robert Faletra at robert.faletra@ec.ubm.com 14

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

Partners making critical difference All the six case studies mentioned in the feature were awe-inspiring. Each case study detailed the unique challenges faced by the organization and measured the complete scope of the project for a channel partner. This was truly unique. As more and more partners add the data center to their portfolios, such features provide good learning points about what to do and how to execute things. Also, the fact that the SIs were rewarded for their efforts by an esteemed publication such as CRN and leading vendor Emerson proves that partners can create their own identities in the field of data centers, and that the technology is no longer a spark deep on the dark horizon.

Vishvanatha Venkaiah via email

Protect & attack Your cover story on Lenovo in the last issue was a killer. It presented a very fair and logical representation of the strengths of Lenovo; it also projected how the company acknowledged its weaknesses, and took some hard decisions to address those issues, which is very positive.

Kudos to Amar Babu who did not fall prey to the rat race, but instead took his time to build a strong and stable team, iron out problems in distribution, and pay heed to the feedback from the ground—the Lenovo channel. Of course, there are miles to go. But with strategies in hand, and a strong team, Babu will achieve many more milestones. Keeping Lenovo at Number 1 is just one of them.

Archana Gupta via email

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

Advertiser Index Company name

Page No Web site

Sales Contact

Juniper

2

www.juniper.in

Priya Sharma 1800 290 3062

Fujitsu Disk Storage

3

www.lifebook.in.ts.fujitsu.com

marketing-india@ts.fujitsu.com

Compuage-Odyssey

5 www.compuageindia.com

odyssey@compuageindia.com

IBM

7 www.ibm.com

ibm.com/puresystems/in/in

Wipro

9 www.wipro.com

scale.erp@wipro.com

Symantec

11 in.norton.com

in.norton.com/support

Seagate

13 www.seagate.com

www.seagate.com/goflexsatellite

Socomec

15 www.socomec-ups.co.in

info.ups.in@socomec-ups.co.in

VCS

29 www.interop.in

salil.warior@ubm.com

CDR’s

33 www.crn.in/cdrs

salil.warior@ubm.com

RDP

37

1800 200 2444

Biz

38 www.indiaantivirus.com

Eaton

39 www.eaton.com/powerquality/india EatonPowerQualityIndia@eaton.com

Kaspersky

40 www.kaspersky.co.in

www.rdpcomputing.in

sales@indiaantivirus.com

sales@sakri.in.

powerful !

UPS Green Power 2.0 :

“Reduce your Costs – Increase your Power” The new Socomec Green Power 2.0 UPS range combines unbeatable energy efficiency with unity power factor to give you the ultimate ‘future proof’ critical power solution for data centres True power factor 1, 11% more power than UPS with PF=0.9 Highest energy efficiency in market in full on-line double conversion (VFI) mode independently verified Two advantageous “knockout punches” to combat your energy costs and carbon footprint. +91 44 3921 5400 or email info.ups.in@socomec.com

European UPS New product Innovation award

B U R E A U VERITAS

www.socomec-ups.co.in

UPS Green Power 2.0 from 10 to 400 kVA/kW

PUB 8720133

To see how Green Power 2.0 UPS can save you money call

channel chief “By next year we will be market leader” N Jagannath Patnaik, Director, Channel Sales, South Asia, Kaspersky Lab, spoke to Dhaval Valia about the performance of the company’s consumer business in the past year and its plans to attain market leadership Over the previous 12 months Kaspersky has spent aggressively on marketing, with Sachin Tendulkar as your brand ambassador. What’s been the impact of this on the brand and overall sales?

Our aim in signing up Tendulkar was to position ourselves as the best end-point brand and also improve our connect with customers across the country.

We have succeeded in doing this. For instance, over the past 12 months our daily and monthly user activation rates have gone up by two-fold. While no third-party research figures are available, this puts our marketshare in the consumer antivirus category (1-5 user licenses) at around 16 percent.

Besides, the perception about Kaspersky in the consumer’s mind has improved considerably. This is indicated by the fact that our average MOP has improved by 25-30 percent. For example, for a singleuser license which earlier retailed at `400 we are now commanding over `500.

Based on our partner feedback, the brand recognition of Kaspersky has improved significantly because of Tendulkar. The number of customers asking for Kaspersky has increased.

Kaspersky has recently revamped and expanded its consumer products distribution. What are the changes made?

It was an exercise which was done in keeping with our intent to expand our market coverage to upcountry locations. We have almost doubled the number of Platinum partners (regional distributors) from 15 to 28 currently. The Gold partners have also gone up from the earlier 90 to 200+ with the expansion of geographical territories and markets.

We have appointed and added Platinum partners in states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, and in many states in the north-east where earlier we had no presence or a limited presence. Besides, we have added partners in metros such as Kolkata, Karnataka, Mumbai and Delhi where we are growing rapidly and partners have been demanding more distributors to source from.

We have uniformly increased our distribution

“The perception about Kaspersky in the consumer’s mind has improved considerably due to Sachin. Over the last 12 months our daily and monthly user activation rates have increased two fold and our MOP has improved by 25-30 percent” 16

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

network in all regions, and our market coverage has doubled from 200 cities to 400 due to this expansion.

To support this we have spruced up our sales force, our partner program PRIMA (Partner Recognition & Incentive Management Application), and have also enhanced our post-sales support footprint.

We believe that this 2-fold increase in market coverage will help us increase our marketshare by 1.5-2 times in the next 12-18 months. Conservatively, our target is to raise our marketshare from the present 16 percent to 30 percent within the next 12 months. This will make us the market leader in the space.

We will soon be launching end-user schemes to create additional market pull.

Could you elaborate on the changes in your partner program? How will you support these partners?

We have augmented our PRIMA program to ensure that even small resellers from small towns are eligible for marketing benefits and incentives. We have floated schemes whereby a partner selling five boxes per month also becomes eligible for incentives.

In addition, we have increased our focus on sell-

channel chief out to ensure that products move faster through the channels to reach the customer. Through our national distributor, Sakri IT Solutions, we are providing more marketing funds to Platinum partners who in turn will be providing channel and customer marketing funds to their Gold partners to drive channel and customer demand through local marketing initiatives.

We have also allocated more funds for channel training, and Platinum and Gold partners have been mandated to conduct monthly training programs.

This will ensure that the new resellers we have onboarded due to channel expansion will be able to sell Kaspersky on its technical capabilities more effectively.

Meanwhile, Sakri has doubled its channel sales force on the ground from 20 to 40 to support geographical expansion.

On the support front, we have revamped our telesupport to include local language support. Sakri has created a dedicated regional tele-support; this means that customers calling from the north-east have dedicated tele-support engineers.

On the ground we continue to expand our support engineer base through our Platinum partners.

What can we expect you to roll out in the next few months?

“We will soon launch the Kaspersky Small Office Suite targeted at small businesses with 10-25 users. This suite has enterprisetype features including encryption, Web filtering and bandwidth management�

Security. In addition to antivirus, firewall, antispam, antiphishing, parental control and all the other expected components, it offers back-up, system tune-up, file shredding, encrypted storage, password management and much more. This will be a big differentiator for us in garnering more customer mindshare and marketshare.

We will soon be launching the Kaspersky Small Office Suite targeted at small businesses with 10-25 users. This suite has enterprise-type features including encryption, Web filtering, bandwidth management and back-up.

The small business market in India is huge, and still mostly untapped. By various estimates there are more than 10 million such small businesses with less than 25 users; even if we get 1 percent marketshare of this it will be significant. n

We recently launched Kaspersky Pure 2.0 Total

Connect and interact with more than 1,000 resellers at half the cost of a 50-delegate F2F event May 30-31 & November 21-22

After the successful launch of CRN Virtual Expo in May 2011, CRN brings to you two Virtual Expos in 2012.

CRN Virtual Expo 2012 will bring together more than 1,000 channel partners from across 150+ cities, thus making it the largest such virtual initiative in the IT channels in the country.

A combination of web and video-based live conference program and an interactive online exhibition, the CRN Virtual Expo promises to be the most cost-effective channel marketing tool for IT vendors.

Register and attend the CRN Virtual Expo 2012 and win exciting gifts

www.crn.in/virtualexpo

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

17

market focus The outlook for Windows 8 While Microsoft’s new OS is expected to create buzz in the consumer segment, many believe that its completely new interface will prove to be a hurdle for adoption among businesses n AMIT SINGH

B

y introducing Windows 8, Gartner feels that Microsoft has taken a big gamble with Windows— one of the two products responsible for most of its revenue and profit.

Gartner believes that making radical changes is not advisable as organizations want to reduce technology risk by deploying mature, stable, well-supported products. Secondly, the new Metro-style UI has large buttons for touch and eliminates the ability to boot to the familiar Windows Desktop and have a traditional Windows start menu. Although the new OS looks good on tablets, hybrids (convertibles), people are questioning its appropriateness for traditional desktop and notebook, which comprise most of the existing PC market.

Microsoft licensing is also an important topic because it represents a significant percentage of the annual IT budgets. The decision about whether they require Software Assurance (SA) on Windows or an Enterprise Agreement will depend on changes Microsoft makes to the Windows 8 SKU line-up and SA benefits. And lastly, organizations who have just begun deploying Windows 7, will not want to upgrade to a newer version so early.

Notwithstanding the apprehensions, PC OEMs like Lenovo, Acer, Dell, HP, Sony and Asus have announced products on Windows 8 OS. “Windows 8 will be a game changer in accelerating both the PC and tablet business.

We expect 45-50 percent increase in our Microsoft attach business in 2013,” says Rajesh Thadani, Director, Consumer Business Segment, Lenovo India.

OEM support Lenovo has announced 12 SKUs of notebooks, 5 SKUs of desktops, and 2 tablet SKUs on Windows 8. “We are counting on our Z and U series of ultrabooks and slim notebooks, and the Yoga series of tablets. We will transition all our SKUs to Windows 8 within a month,” informs Thadani.

Acer has launched its Windows 8 tablet, Iconia W5.

“We will be making available Windows 8 in 15+ SKUs, of which 5 will be wholly touch-enabled devices,” says Saji Kumar, Director, Product Management, Acer India.

Sony has introduced Windows 8 based touch-screen enabled VAIO E14A series notebooks and T series ultrabooks priced at `74,990 and `64,990, respectively.

Dell has introduced the OptiPlex 9010 AiO touch, Latitude 6430u Ultrabook, XPS 12 convertible ultrabook and Latitude 10 tablet.

The buzz In an upgrade offer, PC OEMS are offering consumers an

18

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 for `699. Also since the Windows 8 launch coincides with the festival season, the market is filled with promotional offers.

Sony is offering lucky draw prizes like Sony Bravia TV, personal 3D viewer, Xperia tablet and smartphone. “This festive season, we plan to achieve sales of `2,850 crore, which is 50 percent more over last year,” adds Kenichiro Hibi, Managing Director, Sony India.

Further, Sony and Microsoft will start road shows in 100 cities from November. The company has allocated marketing budget of `150 crore for October-December.

Lenovo is offering wireless multimedia headsets on the purchase of the A and B series of AIOs. It is also giving a free accessories set with wireless mouse, sleek headset and multimedia speakers worth `2,500, or an extended 2-year warranty worth `5,000, on the purchase of its range of Z580, Z500, Y500, U310, U410 and U510 premium notebooks.

“We are investing in improving awareness and skillsets among partners besides launching programs for consumers,” says Thadani. “We completed a 15-city road show for training on Windows 8. Now, we will create awareness in cities such as Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, etc.”

What Windows 8 offers Some partners who have tested Windows 8 complain that the change from the earlier versions of Windows would force users to re-learn how to operate their computers.

In tune with modern computing demands, Windows 8 will help users configure their cloud services from the setup stage. The OS will give a push to Microsoft’s SkyDrive Cloud services and will help users configure their Google Drive or one of the many cloud services.

The new iteration of the Web browser, Internet Explorer 9, also arrives with Windows 8. Among other things, the browser has improved privacy settings.

market focus “Windows 8 will be a game changer in accelerating the PC and tablet business. We expect nearly 45 percent increase in Microsoft attach business in 2013”

“There is enough opportunity for both the Android and Windows 8 operating systems to co-exist without eating into each other’s marketshare”

Rajesh Thadani, Director Consumer Business Segment, Lenovo India

Saji Kumar

Excitement among consumers While the vendors are busy with promotional plans, partners are observing increased curiosity from customers but have not seen any delays in purchases due to that.

“We are getting inquiries from consumers about the SKUs on Windows 8. Although there is a slowdown in IT retail, there has been no delay in purchases,” Rishi Sudhakar, Director, IDM Solutions.

Many partners assert that Windows 8 may prove beneficial for the PC market. “While October has been about 20 percent lower than a normal month, we expect 20 percent increased business till Diwali, partly due to Windows 8,” says Ajaya Kumar, MD, Park Networks.

Yet partners are in no hurry to liquidate their inventory of Windows 7. “Because Windows 8-based SKUs will be `1,500-2,000 dearer than Windows 7 SKUs, the latter will attract more customers,” he believes.

Many partners foresee increased uptake of OSattached SKUs. “Of our total PC sales, about 70 percent are without OS. But with Windows 8 coming, we expect lower prices of Windows 7-based SKUs. Due to this we anticipate almost 25 percent growth in OS-attached sales,” explains KR Jayaram, National Head, Channel Sales, ECS Biztech.

“We expect many Windows Vista or XP users to use Windows 8 because of positive reviews,” he says.

Lukewarm commercial market Windows 8 may appear to offer something for everyone: touch-screen functionality for tablet enthusiasts, a slick new interface for the younger set, and multiple versions to make it compatible with traditional desktop PC software.

But partners say there is no compelling reason for enterprises to adopt the new OS. Indeed, the reality is that most organizations are still working on eliminating Windows XP and deploying Windows 7.

Jayaram opines, “Windows 8 is, frankly, more of a consumer platform than a business platform, so it is not something that makes any sense from a business perspective at this point of time.”

Tryst with tablets Microsoft, despite being a very strong player in the PC market, has so far been found wanting in the tablet and smart phone market. Windows 8 is its big push in that segment, where the OS is as much about the PC as it is about the tablet/smart phone, and addresses convergence.

With Windows 8 Microsoft is trying to address the excitement of the tablet market by adding a tablet interface to Windows.

Director, Product Management, Acer India

PC vendors foresee a sustainable future for Windows 8 in the tablet market. “The Android OS has been in the market for a while now and has gained widespread acceptance from all quarters due to its easy user interface.

However, there is enough opportunity for both the operating systems to co-exist without eating into each other’s market share,” states Kumar of Acer India.

Thadani agrees. “We believe that though Android leads the tablet market, Windows 8 has enough space to grow.”

Adds Kumar of Park, “People are so tech-savvy nowadays that they will not take time to switch to Windows 8 if they find it user-friendly enough.”

Besides Acer and Dell, Microsoft has introduced its Surface tablet and wants to capture market share with Windows 8.

Adding zing to ultrabooks PC vendors expect that with Windows 8 the sales of ultrabooks and thin & light notebooks will increase.

“Because consumers will get better multimedia experience, lighter weight and improved performance, they will go in for these devices. According to Intel, ultrabooks will comprise 40 percent of the total notebook sales by FY2014-15,” says Thadani. “We expect that contrary to the general perception, ultrabooks will see major traction in India 2 (tier-3 and -4 cities) where we are seeing ultrabook adoption by tech-savvy people.”

Convertibles While Windows 8 has found space in notebooks and ultrabooks, vendors like Dell, Acer and Asus are introducing devices which are half-tablet, half-notebook with detachable screens or with screens that fold down over the keyboard. Vendors are optimistic that these devices will be adopted by professionals on the go.

However, partners are doubtful about the success of these devices unless they offer value beyond just being a tablet-cum-ultrabook. “While price has always been a decisive factor for most consumers, some tech-savvy customers may opt for it due to additional utilities.

However, we can see increased adoption if the price difference is 10-15 percent only,” says Jayaram.

Conclusion While vendors are confident that as Windows 8 cuts across various hardware devices including PCs, tablets, smart phones and smart TVs, it will drive the PC+ era with better synchronization between these devices, channel is keeping its fingers crossed for bright business in the remaining fiscal. n

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

19

cover story

of Rules

Engagement

In a survey of leading enterprise VARs, CRN captures partner perceptions about IT vendors’ rules of engagement and how well they deliver on their promises, both in letter and spirit n RAMDAS S & SONAL DESAI

W

hile appreciating some of the policies within the different Rules of Engagement (RoE) frameworks seen in IT channels, partners polled in the CRN Principles of Engagement (PoE) Survey 2012 were univocal in demanding improvements to existing channel programs.

Though most partners appreciate the spirit of channel engagement frameworks, they feel that practical challenges in the implementation coupled with the

20

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

pressure on the vendor sales teams to achieve numbers are the prime reasons for the frameworks not delivering desired results.

For the past decade or so, IT vendors have introduced RoE frameworks to ensure transparency, channel profitability and better control of sales cycles. The programs also reduce channel conflict, nullify allegations from channels about favoritism, and increase the visibility of end-user purchase cycles.

cover story RoE frameworks have also been used as mechanisms to provide channels with special price clearances, and lay platforms for more intuitive financial and nonfinancial rebate programs.

“Today, almost all vendors have some kind of engagement rulebook. For some vendors it’s a highclarity document. For others it’s a more principles-based framework where some of the details are unwritten but implemented based on trust,” remarks Sudarsan Ranganathan, CEO, Veeras Infotek, Chennai.

Going direct One of the main reasons RoE frameworks started appearing in the channel tools of vendors was to lessen channel conflict in cases where vendors address some customer opportunities directly.

Most leading vendors have a few accounts in the country where the business is direct. The general practice has been to announce a list of accounts whose business is managed directly by the vendor; channels are advised not to bid for these. This practice is described as a ‘named accounts policy’ by most vendors. The numbers vary from company to company. IBM’s STG division is said to have less than 320 such accounts while for Lenovo it’s around 250 and for Dell it’s around 2,000.

“Primarily, for most large vendors, the named accounts are the global accounts where there are price lock-ins as well as some services contracts that cannot be delivered through partners. There could also be some strategic accounts where the order values are substantial which makes it difficult to route credit through a partner.

Some examples could be large government, PSU or bank contracts,” explains Ashok Pamidi, former VP, IBM India, who was responsible for rolling out the first RoE framework, during his tenure at HP India.

While channels understand and respect named accounts policies, there are allegations that vendors keep poaching accounts which were previously managed by partners. In the CRN PoE Survey, 52 percent of the partners said that in the previous four quarters the number of such instances had gone up, while 18 percent felt that vendors had curbed their account poaching activities.

Almost all large vendors with direct business models Have instances of vendors poaching customer accounts increased in last 6-12 months?

have been accused by partners of poaching. The most frequent explanation given for this poaching is the competition among various vendors—to win an order the vendor had to do away with the partner in the supply chain.

Others blame it on the pressure that vendor sales teams go through. “The market has slowed down, and sales cycles are longer. The practice of going direct is largely because of the excruciating sales pressure compounded by the high targets set by the vendor for business in the region,” explains Saket Kapur, MD, Greenvision Technologies, New Delhi.

While many vendors publish the list of accounts that will be handled directly and those that will be handled by partners, many do not explicitly publish a list. “We are still not clear how vendors actually do a mapping of accounts for direct and nondirect business,” complains Prashant R Rajurkar, CEO, Micropro Software, Nagpur.

Another challenge has been the concept of ‘white spaces’ followed by vendors. “Every year, both channels and vendors try to woo new customers who are not in any of the published lists. This is where a lot of the confusion happens. We try to choose our battles carefully in the white spaces, and also try to stick with the partner with whom we are fighting that battle,” says Ramprasad L, General Manager, Value Business, Fujitsu India.

Some of the vendors, notably Lenovo, blame it on perception rather than any real poaching of accounts.

“Some channels feel we are growing our business by going direct. They often compare their own growth to the rate at which we have grown, and draw the conclusion that Lenovo is doing a lot of direct business. Frankly, beyond the 200-odd global accounts, and a handful of government deals such as Elcot, the rest of the business is routed through channels,” says Rahul Agarwal, Executive Director, Commercial Business, Lenovo India.

Many vendors say that even in the accounts where the billing is direct, the channel partner gets an overriding commission or a management fee or a service fee depending on the involvement of the partner.

Explains Uday Birje, Country Manager, Network Consulting & Services, HP India, “The network consulting and services business at HP is direct in the sense that all customer orders are picked up by HP and the accounts are managed by HP. However,

Does vendor involvement help you in bagging the project and get better margins?

Vendors actually help us negotiate a better margin

Such instances are down

Are vendors fair in aligning and realigning customer accounts to partners?

Vendors have been fair

Cannot comment

24%

18%

34%

32%

45% 52%

Yes

30%

31%

There is no real increase

It really does not impact the margins

34% Vendor representation reduces margins

Vendors have been unfair Base: 121 enterprise VARs

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

21

cover story “For some vendors the engagement rulebook is a highclarity document. For others it’s a framework where some details are unwritten but based on trust”

“Some channels compare their growth to the rate at which we have grown, and draw the conclusion that Lenovo is doing a lot of direct business”

Sudarsan Ranganathan

Rahul Agarwal, Executive Director,

CEO, Veeras Infotek

Commercial Business, Lenovo India

we completely depend on our channel ecosystem for delivery, deployment and support. In large orders it’s more or less a co-delivery model where revenue is shared with partners.”

Adds Agarwal of Lenovo, “Even in the case of orders such as Elcot, we have a partner who completely manages the inspection, delivery, installation, demonstration, post-sales support and collection of payments. The partner gets compensated for each service delivered. I would say that in 70 percent of the orders which are booked directly by Lenovo there’s some involvement of a channel partner.”

Another contentious issue which has cropped up in the vendors’ channel management has been the involvement of vendor sales teams in partner accounts.

Over the past few years vendors have invested in sales teams to manage partners and partner accounts. While this move has been appreciated by almost all channels, such sales team involvement is often seen to hurt partner profitability.

Partners blame sales pressure for this. “Due to the pressure to meet their sales targets, vendor representatives are killing margins, or are seeking partners who are willing to work at lower margins or offer more credit to the accounts managed by the partners,” says Rajurkar of Micropro.

Rahul Meher, Director, Leon Computers, Pune agrees. “Many vendors have sales teams which have weekly targets. It’s extremely difficult for anyone to keep meeting targets in such short periods because sales cycles often take months, so they do everything possible to pick up orders.”

Anantharam Varayur, MD, Webcom Information Technology, Bengaluru is cynical. “When vendors feel there’s a chance of losing an order, or if they feel that a Have recent changes in vendor rebate programs increased your profitability?

Hasn’t affected

Increased profitability

29%

34%

partner is making good margins, they force us to drop prices.”

Most vendors concede that the problem exists— they however blame it on customers. “Customers feel that speaking to the vendor often helps in getting a better deal, so they start negotiations with us. This will naturally put the sales person in a bit of a bother,” admits Shailendra Trivedi, Director, Operations & Channel Development, R&M India.

Nikesh Sakaria, MD, CDP India, agrees. “Customers feel that if they talk directly to the principal they will get a better price. Unfortunately, the principals have also been encouraging customers. Principals have invested in more manpower thinking that they would manage channels better, but some of them are just depleting our margins.”

Many SIs have taken the decision to not involve vendor sales teams in closing an order. “It has not affected us because we do not involve vendor sales teams in any of the sales cycles,” says Suresh Ramani, CEO, Techgyan, Mumbai.

Says Neel Shah, Director, Insight Business Machines, Mumbai, “Channels need to engage with principals on a case-to-case basis. Unless the situation demands it, we do not involve any sales person from the vendor’s side.”

Sakaria demands that vendors start trusting their partners and showing some patience. “The only solution is that vendors need to remain behind the scenes and provide the partner the time and resources to close the order. The longer the sales cycle the more impatient a vendor sales rep gets, and he feels that by throwing in some discounts the customer will place an order immediately. He needs to trust the instincts of the partner. Whenever discounting happens, it’s the channel margins that disappear first.”

Are deal registrations fair and transparent?

What do you prefer between an account-based deal and an opportunity-based deal?

Opportunity-based deal registration

More or less

29%

34%

58%

Reduced profitability

37%

It needs a lot of improvement

Base: 121 enterprise VARs

22

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

37%

Very much

Account-based deal registration

42%

cover story “Due to tremendous target pressure, vendors are killing margins, or are seeking partners who are willing to offer more credit to the accounts”

“While our team gets involved with customers in all aspects during sales process, we step away from transactions. That’s partner territory which we dont trespass”

Prashant R Rajurkar

Anil Valluri

CEO, Micropro Software

President, NetApp India

Some vendors have the policy of not being involved on the commercial front. “We simply do not encourage direct negotiations with customers; partners are completely empowered to deal with every aspect of commercial transactions,” says Sunil Sharma, VP, Sales, Cyberoam India.

Many vendors are clear that they will only provide a list price and a transfer price to the partner, and will not get involved in the margins the partner makes. “While our pre-sales team gets involved with customers to help in all aspects including planning and designing, we step away from all commercial transactions. That’s a territory for the partner which we will not trespass,” says Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India.

Others feel that a practical solution is to take the partner into confidence. Comments Subhasish Gupta, Country Manager, India & Saarc, Allied Telesis, “It’s impossible for an enterprise vendor to not be involved in a large transaction as we need to ensure that the specing and detailing of the solution is perfect to increase our winnability. We believe in utmost transparency between the partner and our company. We empower our sales management with factory pricing and do an upfront costing, then we add the margins, and make the process as transparent as possible with the partner.”

When queried about the features which channel partners looked for in a channel engagement program, assurance of profitability ranked highest—65 percent partners considered it a hallmark of a good program. 63 percent of the partners felt that simplicity and clarity in a program were very important, while 56 percent wanted initiatives for protecting partner interests. 53 percent said that faster reaction to requests was important. Says Rajeev Mehta, MD, Zest Systems, Delhi, “Requests for special price clearances and the speed at which vendors Common explanation offered by the vendor for disapproving your deal registration 60% 48% No explanation offered

Deal registration When it comes to maintaining a fair and level playing field in the channel, most solution providers agree that deal registration is the most effective tool in the arsenal of a vendor or supplier. Around 34 percent of those polled gave an emphatic thumbs-up to the deal registration processes followed by vendors, while 29 percent felt that vendors had more or less got their act right on deal registration. About 37 percent felt that the processes needed to improve or that better models were needed to replace the existing deal registration processes.

“Deal registrations are the best method to ensure free and fair channel engagement,” says Anoop Nambiar, Director, Channels, IBM STG, India/South Asia. “We have an automated deal registration model which reduces human intervention and is completely processdriven. We keep the process as transparent as possible, partners are aware of the progress on a deal registered, and there are methods to escalate based on certain parameters.”

There are two deal registration models which vendors follow. One is an account-based model that stems from the named account policy where accounts are locked with one or in some cases two partners. The other is a more open-ended process which is based purely on who discovers the opportunity first.

Vendors as well as channels are divided on which works best. 58 percent of those polled in the survey opined that account-based registrations are better, while 42 percent felt the same way about opportunity-based deal registrations.

While many vendors such as IBM and HP started off Features that you lookout for in the rules of engagement of a vendor program

Some other partner has registered the deal Already a named account by the vendor

address them are very critical. Many a time an order is won or lost because of speed or lack of it.”

Assurance of profitability

65% Clarity and simplicity

63% Protecting partner interest

34%

57%

Details were missing

Faster reaction to requests

23%

53%

Lack of certification

Overall fairness

21%

52% Base: 121 enterprise VARs

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

23

cover story with account-based deal registrations, they are said to be in a transition to accepting more opportunity-based deals.

“At CommScope we believe in account-based registration. We believe that a partner who has invested in developing an account, establishing our brand and building customer confidence should be protected from an opportunistic player,” says Natarajan Viswanathan, MD, India & Saarc, CommScope.

Others such as Dell India are clear that opportunitybased deal registration is the way to go. “For our business model, opportunity-based deal registration works best, and both customers and partners can get the best benefits. We are very proactive, and almost in a 24-hour cycle can even come up with a budget quote for a channel partner,” says Mahesh Bhalla, Executive Director, CSMB, Dell India.

Dell partners note that deal registration is required even for a Latitude laptop or an Optiplex desktop because a standard price-list is not made available to partners for products which are bid for through deal registration. HP usually has at least some of the models in its enterprise range on a Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) model, and partners usually do a deal registration for models that do not figure under MOQ. The thumb rule is to work with the first partner

“Special price clearances and the speed at which vendors approve them are very critical. Many a time an order is won or lost because of speed or lack of it” Rajeev Mehta

MD, Zest Systems

who registers an inquiry. But partners feel that many channel partners take advantage of the good work done by other channel partners and poach an account through opportunity-based deal registration.

“We want vendors to stick with one partner for an account. We do not make money on all transactions, so at least this helps us maintain a relationship,” remarks SN Gowda, CEO, CNS Infotech, Bengaluru.

However, there are partners who feel that opportunity-based deal registration creates a level playing field. “Some partners take customers for granted, and become complacent. Vendors may miss out on a deal because they back a partner who is not aggressive.

Moreover, if a partner has taken pains to create an opportunity he needs to be rewarded,” says Deepak

vendor view: ashok pamidi

A

This in turn will give the partner advance s markets evolve, vendors will increasingly look knowledge of the requirements of the customer, and at opportunity-based deal registration and will in many cases help him to identify new opportunities prefer not to lock any account to any specific partner.

This is primarily because the needs of customers are or even create new opportunities.

Remember that many inquiries come directly to constantly changing, and it’s unrealistic to expect a partner to keep building skill-sets and expertise as new a vendor first, and the vendor will be keen to lock a customer in some way or the other. One way would technologies emerge. Both customers and vendors be to align the customer with a channel partner who would like to bet on multiple partners to deliver different solutions. can implement value-added services.

It’s also important for partners to understand I believe that opportunity-based deal registration makes better sense because it creates a level playing in detail the deal registration process of a vendor.

This includes an understanding of the back-end field for all channel partners involved. In addition, it Ashok Pamidi process, and the precise rules in the contract on keeps partners aggressive and attentive to the needs of escalating issues if the partner feels channel managers are not customers. being proactive enough. Remember, the process is different from While vendors recognize that partners are extremely important, they know that the customer is the king. Hence, unless vendor to vendor, so it’s important for the channel partner to a customer explicitly tells a vendor that a specific partner needs understand how things work at each vendor. to service an account, in future vendors will be reluctant to lock Finally, ensure that all processes are followed according to the instructions of the vendor, and provide details correctly accounts to specific partners. so that the deal does not get rejected on technical grounds. It For a partner, it has therefore become imperative to work even makes sense to have dedicated personnel who are trained to more closely with a customer to keep winning new opportunities. register and follow up on deal registration, and are also familiar While there are several strategies and tips to be offered on customer retention, to ensure that the partner is able to lock with rebate-related activities. n opportunities and win them it’s important to build some form of services contract with the customer. Unlike product reselling or a pure systems integration business, a services contract gives the The author is former Director of Channels at HP India. reseller a bird’s eye view as well as insider’s view of the specific He has recently taken a sabbatical following a stint as business requirements of a customer.

Vice President, Geo-expansion at IBM India

Opportunity-based deal registration makes better sense because it creates a level playing field for all partners involved. In addition, it keeps partners aggressive, and attentive to customer needs

24

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

cover story “Vendors use certifications to control partners. Certifications must be used for building partner competence, and not to build channel-vendor relationships”

“A partner loses an account only if a customer is very unhappy. Our decision is based on customer feedback, and only after taking the partner into confidence”

Vasant Vartak

Manu Bansal

CEO, Kalyx Infotech

VP, Advanced Technology, Channels, Cisco India

Jadhav, Director, VDA Infosolutions, Mumbai.

Some vendors leave the call to the customer, but ensure that if a partner did work on creating the opportunity the partner gets rewarded. VMware and IBM Software use a rebate scheme to reward multiple partners for an effort. “We leave the final decision to the customer, but rebate claims for both creating the opportunity and specing solutions get awarded to partners based on the deal registration and other guidelines,” says Ganesan Arumugam, Director, Channels & Alliances, VMware India.

IBM Software does not allow distributors to bill licenses to a partner who is not registered under its Valueplus program; instead, it passes on a finder’s fee in select cases while the business gets billed only through existing partners.

Winnability also matters. “At the end of the day it’s business. Most companies try to align with a partner who is likely to win the business. However, we try accommodating the partner who gets us the lead,” says Gupta.

Many vendors say that once a partner has been locked in with a customer opportunity they do not go back on the commitment to do business through that partner.

“We believe in winning and losing business on that case with the partner who has been registered on the deal,” states Ramprasad.

Almost 60 percent of the channel partners polled said that the primary reason for a deal registration not getting accepted was that some other partner had already registered the deal or had locked the account. 48 percent of partners had the experience of a deal registration not coming through because the vendor had already named the customer as a direct account. About 21 percent of partners said that they could not do a deal registration because of lack of certification. Notes Ramprasad, “Certifications are important in selling some of the highend solutions. Customers will give more importance to a partner who is certified than to someone who is not.”

However, some partners see certifications as a way to control both margins and partners. “Vendors are using certifications as a tool to control the partner.

Certifications must be used for building competence, but should not be a yardstick by which channel-vendor relationships are measured,” argues Vasant Vartak, CEO of Kalyx Infotech, Mumbai.

Rebate alignment In the past 2-3 years, so many vendors have started restructuring their rebate programs that many partners are complaining that understanding and predicting the

money they could make has become difficult.

Observes Vartak, “Most partners are unable to understand the pricing mechanisms followed by some vendors. Discounting rules do not seem very logical to many of us. The rebate component has become complicated. The structure has become complicated.

There are lots of ifs and buts to get the rebate. The rebates are good if you achieve the targets, but the targets have been set with such complex rules about product mixes and customer categories that you cannot possibly achieve them.”

Enterprise channels for PCs have been complaining that the removal of rebates on some transactions has made the final transactions negative.

Around 34 percent of the partners reported that the new rebate alignments had increased their profitability, 37 percent said it had decreased profitability, while the rest felt there had been no effect on their margins.

“Frankly, rebates are a functional representation of how much margin a vendor makes on a transaction.

Some vendors make more margins, and they pass on more margins,” says Shaishav Singh, Director, Dot Cad, Ahmedabad.

There have been several instances of account realignment done by the vendor allegedly at the behest of customers. 33 percent of those polled felt that the account realignment had been more or less fair, while 33 percent cried foul.

“A partner loses an account only if a customer is very unhappy. Usually we have a meeting with the customer, and get feedback. Any decision we make is based on that feedback, and we take a call only after taking the partner into confidence,” says Manu Bansal, VP, Advanced Technology, Channels, Cisco India.

While there were murmurs about favoritism shown by channel representatives, most partners believe that vendors do not show any favoritism. Says Ujjwal Mhatre, Director, Orient Technologies, Mumbai, “I don’t believe a vendor shows any favoritism. But there is some selfishness shown by some of the channel team members who will go all the way to help a partner aligned with them to win the case. Ultimately it depends on individuals, and how the processes and policies of the company actually reduce the impact of such human behavior.”

While some channel partners are cynical and pessimistic, many feel that with improvements in existing frameworks and more proactiveness from the vendors’ side to ensure that all issues are addressed properly, the RoE frameworks can be powerful mechanisms to improve profitability. n

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

25

special focus Enterprise apps get more social Traditional enterprise applications are coming out of their introverted back-ends and going social and mobile. They are evolving to include features which foster easy collaboration and information-sharing among employees n AYUSHMAN BARUAH

N

ot so long ago, social media applications got the step-motherly treatment in enterprises. While some CIOs neglected them, others weren’t sure whether to embrace them or wrestle them down.

Things have changed much since then. While the latent demand was always there, the real potential and momentum has built up only in the last two years.

Until then, customers were dabbling around with some of these social tools. This year software vendors are seeing more mature customers who are seriously considering the integration of social media in their organizations. The global market for enterprise social software was worth just $0.9 billion in 2011, but IDC predicts this will rise to $4.5 billion over the next five years. Sales of social collaboration software are set to grow more than 40 percent a year till 2016. IDC also expects social software to encroach on, and possibly replace, other collaboration applications throughout the forecast period, with sales growing at a CAGR of 43 percent.

According to most vendors, customers are increasingly showing the desire to integrate social apps with their current applications. For this reason most of the technologies offered in the market today

26

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

have the ability to link up to existing intranets without ripping or replacing them. Majors such as IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce are all chasing this market opportunity. There are also smaller players like MangoSpring and Saba.

IBM’s product is called Connections. Explaining the features of the social software, Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager, IBM Social Business & Collaboration Solutions, IBM India & South Asia, says, “It has the ability to extract the content from, or the ability to connect to, the customer’s ERP or HR system. The beauty of our technology is that we give the most modern social business tools to our customers without them having to rip and replace anything, and utilize the content or the pre-work they have done in the past. We pretty much give the ability to use all the features which we get on the three popular social networking sites from a Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter perspective.”

Web applications company Zoho says it does two things when it comes to ‘social’ in their enterprise applications. “First, integrating external social tools, and second, building social features into the

special focus “To make enterprise applications social, two things are important— integrating external social tools, and building social features into the applications”

“Essentially, the intranets which were one-sided communication tools with static content have become dynamic and two-way communication tools”

Raju Vegesna

Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager, Social Business & Collaboration Solutions, IBM India

Chief Evangelist, Zoho

applications. Both are equally important. Regarding integration with external social channels, our enterprise applications such as Zoho CRM and Zoho Support contextually integrate with external apps like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn where information about a customer/prospect is pulled in from external channels and presented within the enterprise apps,” says Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist, Zoho.

According to Zoho, a sizable number of its customers use its Twitter and Facebook integrations to offer customer support using these social channels.

Using social media apps There are numerous ways whereby enterprises can make use of social media. One of the simplest examples is how HR departments use it for employee onboarding.

“When new employees join, it’s quite a task for the HR department to keep training and re-training people.

With such tools what you could do is give the employee a login and password the moment he joins. He would thus have access to the content—including videos and static content—and the ability to see himself in the hierarchy, and to connect with people. So essentially, the intranets which were one-sided communication tools with static content have now become dynamic and two-way communication tools,” says Goyal.

Sanjay Manchanda, Director, Business Division, Microsoft India, believes the social part has to be intricately woven into the fabric of the tools that people already use. “We have to create a connected social experience across the enterprise. Tools such as Microsoft Lync have made it possible to have remote employees work as if they are not remote. They can see and hear their co-workers, have real-time conversations, and share content as easily as if they were sitting next to each other. They can therefore spend time with their families, yet be available to work the hours needed to achieve their goals,” he explains.

In India, Microsoft has customers such as Infosys, MindTree, L&T Infotech, Wipro and Aditya Birla Financial Services which have built social networking sites within their enterprises. For example, MindTree has chosen Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for building PeopleHub, which is designed to integrate the social networking capabilities of SharePoint with blogs, wikis, discussion forums and communities. Infosys developed its Infy Bubble using SharePoint 2010 and FAST Search. Infy Bubble today hosts about 80,000 profiles and three lakh connections, and has helped Infoscions tap into a larger talent and knowledge pool.

In the social space, Oracle is offering WebCenter Portal which delivers intuitive user experiences for enterprise applications. Explains Bikram Bedi, VP, Fusion Middleware, Oracle India, “This enterprise portal enables the development and deployment of internal and external portals and Websites, composite applications and mash-ups, with integrated social and collaboration services and enterprise content management capabilities. The portal helps optimize connections between people, information and applications; provides business activity streams so users can navigate, discover and access content in context; and offers dynamic personalization of applications, portals and sites so users have a customized experience.”

Oracle is also focused on integrating social interactions with the CRM environment. By integrating Web 2.0 tools, all of Oracle’s CRM products are equipped with social CRM capabilities. “Because these new social intelligence tools integrate seamlessly with the existing IT environment, there is no need to replace the core existing applications. This is in line with our philosophy of protecting the existing investments made by our clients in enterprise applications,” says Bedi.

Likewise, SAP is offering a collaborative decisionmaking software, StreamWork. It connects to the SAP back-end so customers can pull purchase history or account history from the ERP into a collaborative decision-making environment. SAP employees use StreamWork for collaboration; records of employee discussions are stored on the cloud, not on the client.

StreamWork is aimed at the Facebook generation of users; it allows them to create an activity and add people who become part of the collaborative discussion.

Salesforce.com, a pioneer in social collaboration, offers Chatter, a social network for connecting with co-workers and being more productive. Given the strong demand for going social, Salesforce.com has built a special ‘social contacts’ feature which enables users to import and view social network profiles and other social information for accounts, contacts and leads directly within Salesforce.com’s sales cloud and service clouds. Added capabilities such as Salesforce Radian6 enable organizations to become socially engaged with insights about social media through metrics, measurement, and sentiment and analytics reporting. “Generally, people are using Chatter to stay on top of what’s happening at work, share files, work more closely with each other, find internal experts, and reduce email traffic,” says Lee Thompson, Senior VP,

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

27

special focus “We believe that the social part has to be intricately woven into the fabric of the tools that people already use” Sanjay Manchanda

Director, Business Division, Microsoft India

Corporate Sales, Salesforce.com.

Acquiring the social dimension Many enterprise solution providers have gone the acquisition route to stay ahead of the social media curve. Way back in 2008 Cisco acquired a company called Jabber, a provider of presence and messaging software.

Salesforce.com acquired Radian6, the industry-leading social media monitoring platform for approximately $276 million in March 2011. In the same year, it also bought Rypple, a cloud-based social performance management company. The acquisition of Rypple marked Salesforce. com’s entry into the human capital management market for the social enterprise. Most recently, in June this year, the company entered a definitive agreement to acquire Buddy Media, a leading social media marketing platform, for about $689 million.

28

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

In May last year Oracle announced the acquisition of Vitrue, a leading cloud-based social media marketing firm. According to an Oracle statement, Vitrue’s social media SaaS marketing applications help customers amplify their social community engagement by giving marketers the ability to develop campaigns from global to local, across multiple social networks and devices, and publish content that engages fans and drives leads.

Through its $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors early this year, SAP got a collaboration tool called Jam. This tool has Facebook-like microblogging characteristics such as profiles, groups, activity streams and likes.

In the backdrop of industry consolidation, the latest comes from Microsoft with its $1.2 billion acquisition of Yammer, a provider of enterprise social networks.

Moving forward, Microsoft is said to accelerate Yammer’s adoption alongside complementary offerings from Microsoft SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics and Skype.

Conclusion With strong demand from the market, vendors are going all out to strengthen their social strategy by integrating social capabilities in traditional enterprise applications. others are acquiring specialist companies. n Courtsey: www.informationweek.in

Connect and interact with more than 1,000 resellers at half the cost of a 50-delegate F2F event

November 21-22, 2012

After the success of CRN Virtual Expo held on May 30-31, 2012, CRN brings to you yet another one.

Slated on November 21-22, 2012, the CRN Virtual Expo will bring together more than 1,000 channel partners from across 150+ cities, thus making it the largest such virtual initiative in the IT channels in the country.

A combination of web- and video-based live conference program and an interactive online exhibition, the CRN Virtual Expo promises to be the most cost-effective channel marketing tool for IT vendors.

Platinum Partners

Gold Partners

Register and attend the CRN Virtual Expo 2012 and win exciting gifts Visit

www.crn.in/virtualexpo

role model Steely determination Rajiv Gupta, Director, Sara Infoway, started off with a big advantage but then had to overcome tremendous health setbacks to prove his mettle and get to where he is today n ABHIJEET MUKHERJEE

R

ajiv Gupta, Director, Sara Infoway, a Hyderabad-based SI, started his career as an employee in his father’s business of steel manufacturing, but soon realized that his true potential lay elsewhere—in IT. What started as a venture to satisfy his inner urge for entrepreneurship eventually culminated in shaping Sara into a remarkable company delivering application-based infrastructure solutions.

“From my father I had learnt the processes required for running a successful business. This inculcated enough confidence in me to start on my own. I used to meet a lot of clients, and it was there that I learnt the art of converting customers,” remarks Gupta.

After graduating with chemistry from Delhi University in 1990 and assisting his father for a few years, Gupta finally decided to take the plunge into entrepreneurship in 1997 by assembling PCs with a seed amount of less than `50,000 from his savings. “I saw good demand for assembled PCs coming from the home segment, so I strategized how to sell to this segment, spent my Sundays organizing canopy events in our local market where I distributed pamphlets, and educated consumers about the advantages of using a PC at home. It worked well, and Sara clocked revenue of `90 lakh in the first year itself,” recalls Gupta.

The focus was on the SMB segment as well as education. Says Gupta, “In the first year we sold on an average 30 desktops per month to SMB customers.”

This went on till 1999 when Gupta decided to tie up with HCL for its branded PCs, BusyBee and Beanstalk, as a retail partner. “We sold the products to SOHOs, the home segment, as well as to IT/ITeS and automotive companies. We did an average of `50 lakh per annum only from HCL.”

“From 2006 we shifted focus to solutions business and started doing small server and storage set-ups. Later we got into business applications which became our forte” 30

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

2000 was an active year for Sara as the company ventured into corporate reselling. Gupta’s initial customers were clients from his father’s steel manufacturing business to whom he sold storage, servers, networking products and PCs. “In the first year our clients included names like Automotive Manufacture, a renowned automotive company in AP, as well as Supergas,” Gupta informs.

As a promotional activity, Sara initiated a roadshow to captivate home consumers for both its assembled systems as well as HCLbranded PCs. Says Gupta, “We organized our first promotion at Lifestyle Mall in Hyderabad and got a tremendous response. We were given a letter of recognition by HCL that year.”

Impressed by the success of HCL PCs, Gupta started selling Compaq Presario in the same year. “I converted my Omni van into a mobile shop and drove around the city promoting the product. I also got an award for selling a good number of Presarios. The strategy was to make ourselves as visible as possible.”

In 2001 Sara decided to venture into multi-brand retail under the name of Red Planet, and started selling PC brands such as HP, Acer and Lenovo. Despite meeting with an accident in May 2001—and losing an arm—Gupta decided to carry on with his retail plans and came up with his first store in August 2001.

From 2001 to 2004 Sara expanded its retail footprint by adding eight stores in Hyderabad. Each store contributed an average of `30 lakh per month. Sara added new brands like WatchGuard in 2003; it also became a Microsoft partner in 2005.

But Sara’s retail success did not last long. In 2005 Gupta realized that Red Planet would not be able to survive the tough competition from LFRs, and so he shut all his retail stores by 2006.

“From 2006 we shifted our focus to the solutions business and started doing small server and storage setups, firewalls, etc,” Gupta recalls. “Later we started getting into business applications which soon became our forte.

We started selling HP solutions for storage and back-up, and put in place two basic pillars of business—business solutions and technology solutions.”

Role model 1997

Founded Sara Infoway as a systems assembler, clocked `90 lakh as first year revenue

1999

Tied up with HCL to sell BusyBee and Beanstalk and did `50 lakh HCL business that year

2000

Ventured into corporate reselling and bagged some large deals

2001

MILESTONES

Started multi-brand retail stores under the name of Red Planet

2006

Gupta also started doing consulting in 2006 and won a couple of big consulting projects—a `1 crore project for Linkwell Telesystems for their complete IT architectural design, and a `70 lakh project for the Patil Group of Industries for their IT architectural design, ERP and mail messaging.

By 2008 Gupta realized that Sara would be successful as an infrastructure company, and so he focused on systems integration and aligned with software vendors to provide solutions. “Our primary goal was to align IT with the business goals of SMBs. We got three major projects in the first year itself.”

The first project was for multiple technology-based solutions such as ERP, server and storage for Sai Advantium—a pharma company; the project was worth `1.5 crore.

The second was a networking and consolidation project worth `1.5 crore for a real estate company, Aliens Developers. The third one was for Saw Constructions to design a data center based on Oracle EBS; the project was worth `50 lakh.

In 2011 Gupta became a part of AllTime IT—a conglomerate of 15 companies to provide cloud services.

Shut the retail business and ventured purely into IT solutions business

also keep ourselves informed about what our competition is doing, what they have done correctly, and what we should avoid doing.”

Some of the large deals Sara bagged recently include a project for a large cooperative bank in AP. Sara set up a cloud-based infrastructure model for the bank to meet the high performance requirements of different applications following renewed guidelines from RBI. The project was worth `3 crore.

For a sanitation product manufacturer Sara provided virtualization and consolidation based on SAP applications. The project was worth `2.5 crore.

Solutions contribute 65 percent of Sara Infoway’s revenue, while reselling provides 25 percent and the rest comes from services.

Future plans

2011

2008

Sara expects to grow 20 percent in FY2012-13 and 30 percent in FY2013-14.

The company wants to increase its focus on the bigger enterprise Clocked revenue of `30 crore accounts; the revenue contribution from SMBs and enterprises is in FY2011-12 expected to be 75 percent and 25 percent respectively. “We would like to add big accounts to the current SMB vertical that we focus on because compared to SMBs the understanding of Current business IT is far more matured in enterprises,” Gupta explains.

Sara Infoway grew 15 percent from `25 crore in FY2010In terms of technology Sara wants to focus on big 11 to `30 crore in FY2011-12. data, mobility and BI. Says Gupta, “We are in talks with The factors that led to the growth of Sara include companies such as HP, IBM and Oracle for our big data, geographical expansion to B- and C-class cities such as BI and cloud business, and expect to start it after March Indore and Aurangabad.

2013. We are planning to have a separate team and “Our understanding of customer requirements and our business model for this business.” expertise in providing application-based solutions have It wants to expand to the north and west; this will helped our growth. We understand how an application be driven by SAP and cloud implementation. “I see the behaves and what infrastructure design it requires, and future moving toward business driven by applications also how the customer requirement works, and we try to rather than hardware,” Gupta comments. “Customers will stitch the two together,” Gupta explains. look for outcome-based solutions.”

Currently the company has a presence in cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai.

The demand for technologies such as mobility, big On a personal note data, BI and the cloud has pushed Sara’s growth further.

Gupta is an active Rotarian and is currently president of “We have always been a front runner and first adopter his club. He is working on government-run school projects of technology. As an organization we are nimble, and to provide them with basic facilities such as sanitation, change faster than others to adopt new technologies. We drinking water and benches.

He is an avid reader and likes reading technology and self-development books. “I am currently reading India “We are in talks with HP, IBM and Oracle Grows at Night by Gurcharan Das.” Gupta loves to travel, and is planning a short trip to for big data, BI and cloud. We will have Haridwar with his friends. In 2013 he has plans to go to a separate team and business model for Ladakh with his schoolmates. n

Started focusing on the SMB segment and clocked revenue of `12 crore

the same”

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

31

tech focus Awaiting the next DRAM technology The faster and power-efficient memory spec doubles transfer rates and quadruples capacity, making DDR4 a significant and long overdue upgrade from the DDR3 n Edward J Correia

T

he PC industry hasn’t seen an updated memory spec in a while, and it was long past due. That upgrade came recently, as the memory standards group JEDEC revealed that it had published a spec for DDR4 SDRAM, defining features, functionalities, AC and DC characteristics, packages and ball/signal assignments, that builds on the DDR3 spec, first published in 2007. The DDR4 spec applies to SDRAM devices from 2 GB through 16 GB for x4, x8 and x16 buses. Here’s a look at some of the particulars.

Double data rate First and foremost, DDR4 memory doubles the maximum transfer rate of DDR3. The new spec supports a per-pin data rate of up to 3.2 Gig transfers per second (GT/s), twice that of its predecessor’s eventual maximum of 1.6 GT/s (the ceiling was raised over time). And, DDR4’s max could likewise go higher, as necessary, to accommodate faster components and bus speeds. So far, the only processor roadmap we’ve seen in support of DDR4 has been Intel’s, with its Haswell server processor slated for 2014; consumer-platform support isn’t expected until sometime in 2015.

Meanwhile, JEDEC member company Samsung announced in July that it had begun sampling the industry’s first 16 GB DDR4 RDIMMs, and that it will also offer a 32 GB module; and Samsung, Micron and other companies already offer smaller-denomination DIMMs that comply with the spec.

Lower power The DDR4 spec defines memory that operates on 1.2 V, compared with DDR3’s 1.5 V and 1.35 V low-voltage spec. According to Samsung, its DDR4 RDIMMs consume about 40 percent less power than DDR3 memory modules operating at 1.35 V. We’re not sure what math they used to arrive at that finding, but in a world increasingly mindful of power consumption and rising energy costs, 1.2V is better than 1.35V.

DDR4 market ramp-up DDR

DDR2

DDR3

DDR4

12% 67%

89%

92%

56%

69%

29%

2010

9%

7%

2011

2012

5% 2013

85%

42%

2014

2015

Source: IHS Suppli Research, June 2011

memory top-end by doubling the module maximum to 16 GB with a 2 GB minimum in as many as 16 banks.

That’s math we can handle. What’s more, DDR4 can arrange memory banks into as many as four groups, providing faster burst access to memory and separate read, write, activation and refresh operations for each group.

Incidentally, memory speeds of DDR4 will start at 1,600 MHz and balloon to 3,200 MHz. DDR3 mobiles are available mostly at frequencies between 800 MHz and 1,600 MHz, although the spec supports 1,866 MHz and 2,133 MHz memory, according to a comparison chart published by memory maker Micron.

Ramping up

More, wider memory

If DDR3 provides any indication, it could take two years or more before DDR4 becomes mainstream. Introduced in 2007, DDR3 didn’t even register significant market share until 2009, when it held about 24 percent of the market. According to a 2011 report by market researcher iSuppli, DDR4 might gain as much as 12 percent of the market by 2014, but could eclipse DDR3 the following year. DDR3 currently enjoys more than 90 percent of the market, which will continue through 2013.

While DDR3 supported DIMM sizes between 512 MB and 8 GB in as many as eight banks, DDR4 quadruples

Clearance Sales

Memory manufacturers Hynix, Micron and Samsung are expected to introduce DDR4 products by early 2013. By 2014, DDR4 is likely to corner more than 50 percent share 32

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

Hynix, Micron and Samsung all have announced that they’ve begun or are close to producing DDR4 modules.

As supplies begin hitting the market late this year or in early 2013, DDR3 prices will continue to fall, as they have been all year. For resellers, bargain-basement memory prices could mean an increase in sales to satisfy pent up demand as DDR4 memory fills the channel and platforms catch up. n

Defining Strategies & Best Practices for Future Growth With cloud computing, consumerization of IT, smarter mobile devices, customer preference is witnessing a paradigm shift. Add to that the growing trend of online buying and specialty retail, the IT distribution and retail segment is undergoing a transformation. While this ongoing transformation is expected to pose many challenges in the short term, in the long term it promises to open new avenues of opportunities for the IT channel.

To leverage the emerging opportunities, however, requires the IT sub-distributors and the retailers to adopt new business models and strategies. This will be the key focus of the forthcoming edition of the CRN Distribution and Retail Summit 2012. After its successful launch last year, CRN promises a bigger and better event at the scenic Orchid Vits, Pune from October 26-28, 2012.

The Summit will witness participation from CXOs of India’s 80 leading IT sub-distributors and retailers, handpicked by CRN through a comprehensive awards nom ination process. Certainly, the 3-day Summit offers technology vendors the best integrated platform to launch new products, share renewed market strategies, and gain the mindshare of the best partners in distribution and retailing.

Conference

Technology Showcase

Communicate your company’s strategic technology and market initiatives

Showcase latest products through display and live demonstrations

Awards

Backed by a comprehensive nomination process, the awards will be presented in 20 categories

Gold Partners

Exhibitors

For partnership opportunities contact Salil Warior: +91 9987580188 | North: Sanjay Khandelwal +91 9811764515 West: Ranabir Das +91 9820097606 | South: Sudhir K +91 9740776749

www.crn.in/cdrs

tech focus Samsung redefines ultra

Sleek, stylish and powerful, the company’s latest Ultrabook is thinner and lighter than the Apple MacBook Air n Edward J Correia

I

ntel might have written the Ultrabook spec, but Samsung is making it sing. For the latest case in point, look no further than the Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook, a thin, lightweight powerhouse that’s about as stylish and feature-rich as an ultraportable can be.

The sleek-looking Series 9 is chiseled from solid aluminum. The unit’s silver borders and flat-charcoal case are attractive, but the dark-colored cover tends to retain fingerprints.

Inside is a comfortable chiclet-style backlit keyboard with dedicated function keys for screen and keyboard brightness, video output, speaker, fan and Wi-Fi. There’s also a key to bring up Samsung’s Easy Settings screen, which puts eight major control panels and other system functions in a single place. We’re glad someone had finally done this; it simplifies Windows configuration and troubleshooting for IT departments as well as consumers.

Easy Settings also provides several Samsung-only functions, including Fast Boot mode, which in our tests reduced cold boot time from an already amazing 11.2 seconds to 10 seconds flat. With a boot time that quick, you might be tempted to shut down Windows all the time. But then you’d be missing out on Samsung’s instant-on from sleep feature, which works in about one second.

Incidentally, the Series 9 Ultrabook also speeds up Windows shutdown to about five seconds.

Then there are the little things. While we liked Dell’s XPS 13 Ultrabook very much, its over-zealous lid spring requires two hands to open: one to open the lid and the other to hold down the base. The Series 9 can be opened with one hand; its spring is just right and the base stays put. And like the unit itself, the Series 9’s power supply is thin and light too. The right-angle power connector is less susceptible to accidental damage, but we’d still prefer a magnetic connector like Apple’s MagSafe to protect the cord, which gets kicked around like an Olympic soccer ball.

On the subject of Apple notebooks, the 13.3-inch Series 9 is on par physically with the 13.3-inch MacBook Air. Samsung’s unit weighs in at 2.55 pounds. That’s

The Series 9 is 0.04 inches thinner than Apple’s at its thickest point of 0.64 inches.

The touchpad which is as responsive as a Mac, and supports multi-finger gestures 34

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

almost a half-pound (0.41 lbs.) lighter than Apple’s 2.96 pounds. The Series 9 is a trivial 0.04 inches thinner than Apple’s at its thickest point of 0.64 inches. The large touchpad is as responsive as that of a Mac, and supports multi-finger gestures, which are documented in its control panel a la Mac OS X. The CRN Test Center looked at the Samsung Series 9 model NP900X3C, which is built around a third-gen Intel Core i7 3517-U 2.39GHz Ivy Bridge processor with two cores and four threads. The system was equipped with 4 GB of DDR3 memory and a 128 GB SSD, and it was running 64-bit Windows 7 Pro. The 1,600 x 900 pixel HD+ LED panel is rated at a super-bright 400 nits and is controlled by Intel’s highly-capable HD 4000 GPU. Before running any benchmarks, we made sure to uninstall all performance-zapping nagware. This included Absolute Reminder, Amazon Kindle, CyberLink YouCam and Symantec’s Norton Internet Security and Online backup. Thanks but no thanks. After a restart, we installed Geekbench 2.3 from Primate Labs, ran the 64 bit benchmarks five times and recorded the scores. It was from this group that the fastest score emerged. Next we adjusted Windows settings for maximum performance and ran Geekbench five more times. None were higher than the Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook’s Geekbench high score of 8,454. The unit delivered 4.5 hours of battery life as it continuously played a video with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and all power saving features enabled.

As with any ultrathin system, Samsung’s Series 9 Ultrabook comes with a few physical trade-offs. Wired Gbit Ethernet comes by way of an included adapter, and connecting an external monitor requires an optional micro HDMI adapter. Its two USB ports are full size, but only the left-side port is full speed; the other is USB 2.0. The righthand side also is home to a headset jack and a four-in-one SD card reader; there is no optical drive. All ports are on the sides; there are none on the front or back. All LEDs are inside, so there’s no way to check battery charge without opening the lid.

While a bit pricy at `1.02 lakh, the CRN Test Center recommends Samsung’s new Series 9 Ultrabook; it’s a modern marvel, and surely one to recommend to buyers seeking state of the art in performance and styling. When people look back on the year that was 2012, Samsung should clearly hold a place among high-tech innovators. n

channel buzz Kingston celebrates silver jubilee

K

ingston Technology recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. As part of the celebrations the company organized contests and promotions across India. Company representatives visited more than 800 shops across Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai to invite retailers to participate in a rapid-fire quiz. This initiative was to enhance the bonds between Kingston and its channel partners.

“It is a great feeling to be part of this company. The best aspects of the last 25 years have been the people who work here, our partners, and all the great relationships we have been part of,” said CEO and Co-founder John Tu. “I am truly amazed by the thought of where we started and where we are today, and look forward to the next 25 years.”

“In 1987 Kingston entered the market with a single product. Today,

n A promotional event organized by Kingston

it has grown to be the world’s largest independent manufacturer of memory products,” said Scott Chen, VP, APAC, Kingston. “In the past quarter century Kingston has been recognized as the best memory

brand; in future Kingston intends to keep its sole leadership in this competitive market.”

Kingston was founded on October 17, 1987 by Tu, COO & David Sun, Co-founder. n

R&M conducts roadshows in tier-2 cities

R

&M recently launched its roadshows to penetrate the major tier-2 cities, attracting more than 50 partners at each location. Some of the cities where the roadshows were conducted were Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Hubli and Belgaum. The company plans to strengthen its commitment to bring high-quality cabling solutions to the newer geographical

markets in India through a series of roadshows planned for tier-2 and -3 cities in the next quarters.

The roadshows provided a platform to facilitate effective conversation between the existing partners, prospective partners and top executives from R&M. A few partners grabbed the opportunity to discuss their customer requirements which needed the expert opinion of R&M;

n Shailendra Trivedi, Director, Operations and Channel Development, R&M India, explaining the company’s product portfolio

n Products on display at the roadshow

others spoke about the challenges and expectations of tier-2 cities.

Said Shailendra Trivedi, Director, Operations & Channel, R&M, “These roadshows are helping R&M and its potential partners to forge meaningful relationships and start working together to provide cabling solutions which offer maximum value to the end customer.” n

n Partners attentively listening to the company’s new channel strategy

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

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

35

New Products ZenFocus tablet

Z

enFocus has launched its new tablet, myZenTAB, that runs on the Android Ice-cream Sandwich platform.

The device is the second-generation tablet by ZenFocus, with a 7 inch capacitive and multi-touch screen with a resolution of 800x400 pixels. This tablet is based on the Boxchip A10 chipset and is supported by the Mali 400 graphical processor unit. It comes with a built-in 512 MB DDR3 RAM. The tablet has a 0.3 MP front camera and external support for an OTG, USB mouse and keyboard. It also has built-in Wi-Fi support for 802.11 b/g/n, and 3G support with phone calling facility and data access. The tablet has internal storage of 8 GB, nano flash, and external memory expansion up to 32 GB RAM. It comes with HDMI TV-out support with 1080p.

The new offering comes pre-loaded with features such as dictionary, calculator, 3D games and Android applications.

The product is priced at `9,930, comes with a 1-year warranty, and is available with ZenFocus authorized distributors. n

BenQ LED projector

B

enQ has launched its GP10 Ultra-Lite Wireless LED projector for home users. It weighs 1.5 kg and comes with power-efficient LED projection technology, 720p HD-ready short-throw projection, 30,000 hours of lamp life.

It also features an LED light source; 550 ANSI lumen brightness; optional detachable DVD player; HDMI multimedia connectivity; USB multiple format support for movies, pictures and music; wireless display; SD card slot; and two built-in 3W stereo speakers with SRS. The GP10 is capable of projecting 160 inch 720p HDquality image. It has a 10,000:1 contrast ratio and 100 percent NTSC wide color gamut performance.

The projector is equipped with multimedia connectivity to support DVD players, DTH and set-top boxes, PCs, tablets, gaming consoles and Apple devices. The product is priced at an MRP of `59,990, comes with a 2-year warranty, and is available at BenQ authorized distributors. n

Intex antivirus

I

ntex Technologies has launched its antivirus software, Intex Cop Basic, with cloud scanning technology and navigation complementing the latest hardware and OS. The AV is targeted at consumers who use desktops and notebooks.

It scans the computer system periodically to detect and delete unknown threats while monitoring the behavior of a program in use. The antivirus also tracks and blocks suspicious Websites that may lead to credit card phishing and loss of data.

Other features include the ability to communicate in real-time with the cloud server and update itself after a stipulated period of time, thus ensuring complete protection from e-threats. The software keeps PCs running smoothly by cleaning the hard drive, fixing issues, preserving battery life on laptops and eliminating freezing and crashing.

The product, priced at `499 and `990 for a 1and 3-user pack respectively, is available with Intex authorized distributors. n

Fujitsu thin client

F

ujitsu has launched its next-generation thin client, Futro Z220, with a system-on-a-chip design based on ARM architecture with integrated hardware-based protocol acceleration.

It offers a choice in operating modes—either fully auto-adaptive or fully managed.

The fully managed option with Scout Enterprise provides larger businesses all the benefits of a thin client system with best-in-class management software for easy administration.

Smaller than most office desk phones, the Z220’s slim design is the result of an efficient new ARM architecture requiring lower power consumption while providing outstanding performance. This also allows for a fan-less design, providing a quiet work environment. The user experience remains easy and familiar with the specially-designed eLux RT operating system.

The product whose price is available on request, comes with a 2-year warranty, and is available with Fujitsu authorized distributors. n

The products featured here have not undergone any benchmarking or testing. The trailers contain information provided by vendors and distributors.

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

36

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

GIFT a copy of your favorite IT CHANNEL magazine If you would like your peers/colleagues from the IT channel to receive a complimentary copy of CRN please key in their contact details: Name

Company Name

Address

Mobile No.

Phone No.

E-mail ID

Please help us update your details: Last Name:

First Name: Department:

Designation:

Company Name:

Business Address: City:

Pin:

Fax:

State:

Telephone: :

Mobile:

Would you like to subscribe to our daily e-newsletter? (please 3 where applicable) Please provide your official E-mail ID:

E-mail: Yes

No Personal E-mail ID:

You can mail form to: UBM India Pvt. Ltd., Sagar Tech Plaza, A 119, 1st Floor, Andheri Kurla Road, Saki Naka Junction, Andheri East, Mumbai 400072 India.

Or Fax on: 022 67692426. Or fill it Online at www.crn.in/free For quick customer service and subscription enquiry E-mail: crn@ubmindia.com or call Deepa at 022 67692436.

Note: The people recommended above by you to receive the free copy are supposed to be a part of the IT channel industry. Their details would be verified by us, after which we would start the circulation if they meet our criteria. Complimentary subscriptions are limited to India. The publisher reserves the right to limit the number of free subscriptions, and will only accept applications which meet the qualification criteria for the publication.

COMPUTER RESELLER NEWS

54

Computer reseller News

15/01/2012 www.crn.in

01/11/2012

www.crn.in

37

shadow ram GET

Intel under investigation

Personal

T

he Competition Commission of India (CCI) is investigating Intel following allegations in a case filed against the chip-maker by its former distributor eSys Technologies. CCI is investigating whether Intel indulged in any unfair trade practices which had adverse effects on the growth of either the channels or the competition.

It is also making independent queries and has asked channel associations to provide testimony. “It’s too early for us to comment,” a senior CCI official said.

B Hari, President, COMPASS, confirmed that association was cooperating with CCI. Intel did not deny the news, and said that this was the result of a long-pending case with eSys. “We are cooperating with the regulators. We believe our business practices have been and are legal,” said an Intel spokesperson.

Earlier, in 2009, AMD had filed a complaint with the Commission against Intel, levying charges including Intel’s alleged tactics of influencing government tenders.

Intel had been earlier investigated by similar bodies in Europe and North America, and in Europe anti-trust regulators had fined the company $1.4 billion. n

“Theater is my passion” Pankaj Gauba, National Channel Sales Manager, Autodesk, has more than 15 years of experience in different industry verticals.

He has worked with HCL, Arvind Mills, Godrej Pacific and Samsung, to name a few.

If not in the IT industry: I would have been a surgeon.

Pankaj Gauba

Biggest passion: Theater.

Behind the wheels: I drive a

Mahindra XUV 500.

Gadget I can’t live without: My iPhone.

Weekends are for: Family, a game of squash with my friends, and relaxed evenings.

Favorite holiday destinations: Goa and Maldives.

Hate the most: Arguments for the sake of scoring points rather than thrashing out the issue at hand.

Favorite movies: I prefer slice-of-life movies on the lines of Gangajal and Gangs of Wasseypur.

Total PC Protection 2013 Call :

098 22 88 25 66 092 72 70 70 50

Favorite stars: Naseeruddin Shah, Manoj Bajpai, Raghuveer Yadav and Annu Kapoor.

Role models: My children.

Ultimate ambition: To master the art of being at peace with oneself.

Wildest thing I have ever done: Written a letter to Anupam Kher during my college days requesting him to give me a chance in his theater academy.

Thing I most want to do in life: Pursue my passion— theater.

If I became the PM: I’d focus to execute what I believe in.

Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Amitabh Bachchan—there is a lot to learn from him.

One person I would like to meet and why: Sachin Tendulkar to understand how he has stayed away from any controversy.

Deepest and darkest fear: The day my daughters decide to move on with their life partners. n

38

Computer Reseller News

01/11/2012 www.crn.in

— CRN Network

Registered with Registrar of Newspapers under RNI No. MAHENG/2011/39915 Postal Registration. No. MH/MR/NORTH EAST/193/2010-2012 Posted at Patrika Channel Sorting Office, Mumbai-400001. Posting date 2nd, 3rd & 16th, 17th Of Every Fortnight.