DCC November regular issue by Bhupinder Sharma

A 9.9 Media Publication

Channel Connect

Check out the latest HD media players blazing the market PAGE 36

Channel Connect Vol 03 | Issue 1 | November 2010 | Rs. 50

CHOOSING YOUR VENDORS

CHOOSING

VOL 03 | ISSUE 1 | NOVEMBER 2010

YOUR VENDORS Just like vendors go to great lengths to handpick partners, isn't it high time partners also took

caution in selecting their principals?

Here's what you must know in advance

PAGE 20

EXCLUSIVE INSIDE KAPIL WADHWA

on Champion Computers’ USP PAGE 18

KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN

on Western Digital’s future plans PAGE 8

SHASHIKANT D SATBHAI CMDA Pune President talks about tackling Octroi issue PAGE 26

EDITOR’SNOTE

SANJAY GUPTA

Realising Your Potential

pple’s iconic music player, iPod, is not the first portable MP3 gadget. Amazon.com is not the first online catalogue for books. Microsoft Windows is not the first GUIbased software (Okay, this one is the most widely known, but a little reminder doesn’t harm anyone). So, what is the point I’m making? Well, I’m not making a new point, really, but only reiterating that it’s not always the ‘first to market’ products that become leaders in their category. Quite often, the products that rule the roost are what I call the ‘Best to Market’. I mean this phrase in two senses. One, these are usually the best products available in the market (Don’t think of Windows, for a moment). And two, these are marketed in the best manner that anyone could (Now we can talk Windows!). Like someone said: “McDonald’s is the not the best burger maker in the world, but it does the best job of marketing an average burger”. (I’d rather that McDonald’s made the best burger as well, but never mind.) The history of the most successful products tells us that multiple factors contribute to their phenomenal success. But key among them is how they are marketed and sold. For most products, this can translate to, if I may dare say, how they are ‘channelled’. While a lot of doomsayers wrote off the intermediaries, including IT channels, at the peak of the dotcom boom, the latter have not just endured but evolved. They have

SOUNDING

BOARD

“Whenever we freeze upon any vendors, we do random reference checks and feedback from previous associates. Moreover, we analyse the strategic fit of our vendors.” — ANUP NAIR, MANAGER – STRATEGIC INITIATIVES, NEOTERIC INFOMATIQUE.

also become partners in success for many companies that were late to market with their products but who, with the channel members’ help, conquered a significant lead over those that were ‘first to market’. The channel still remains relevant – and will remain relevant – simply because no large company has the wherewithal and expertise to reach out to its end customers wholly on its own. Time and again, vendors have tinkered with the channel, often urging them to evolve but seldom being able to do without them. So, let’s make this clear: You, the channel, have the power to provide the best route to your vendor. It’s high time your realised your true worth and moved towards becoming a marketing and positioning advisor to the principals rather than be a mere conduit for sales and fulfilment. You can indeed help them realise their ‘Best to Market’ potential if you only identify and acknowledge your own.

“Since we believe in providing our vendors with excellent support, we also expect that the vendors should have a strong post sales and support policy.” — RAJ RATHI, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CYBERSTAR.

“To ensure high business profitability and less risk, we look for a clear understanding of terms and conditions, ethical business practices and a proper communication channel with vendors and customers.” — SHASHIKANT D SATBHAI, PRESIDENT, CMDA PUNE.

SANJAY GUPTA EDITOR DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

INDEX

VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 01 | NOVEMBER 2010

COVERSTORY

COVER STORY

20 CHOOSING

YOUR VENDORS

One often hears of vendors choosing their partners and giving out details of their channel strategy. But what about partners choosing vendors? DCC talks to some partners about what they look for while choosing vendors.

ASSOCIATION CONNECT

FOCUS

44 STORAGE ON

26 ETHICAL BIZ

THE MOVE

PRACTICES

INTERVIEW: SHASHIKANT D SATBHAI, PRESIDENT, CMDA - PUNE

SPECIAL REPORT

32 FRIENDS OR FOES?

Convergence of IT and telecom channel is a trend that is being backed by several factors.

BEST OF BIZ

28 LEADERSHIP

Look at failure as a source of information to improve your leadership skills and the fortunes of your company.

With the increase in digital content, the portable hard drive market is growing at a steady rate.

46 CLOUD

COMPUTING

Indian firms want to adopt cloud computing services, as per surveys. TRIED-NTESTED

36 HD MEDIA COVER DESIGN BY PC ANOOP

PLAYERS

TECHNO TOUCH

42 BUSINESS

INTELLIGENCE

32 SPECIAL REPORT

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

THEY SAID IT

It is very important to analyse and choose the correct stakeholders in a BI implementation.

A look at the advancements in HD media players in the last few months.

52 OTHERS 02 EDITORIAL 08 VENDOR CONNECT

10 UP-TO-DATE 16 PARTNER CONNECT

40 TECHNO TOUCH – SECURITY

48 EVENT

– BROCADE PARTNER SUMMIT

52 ANALYST CONNECT

Channel Connect VOL 03 ISSUE 01 NOVEMBER 2010

Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Publishing Director: Vikas Gupta EDITORIAL Executive Editor: Sanjay Gupta Copy Editor: Akshay Kapoor Sr. Correspondents: Sandhya Malhotra (Delhi), Payal Pruthi (Bengaluru) DESIGN Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Binesh Sreedharan Associate Art Director: Anil VK Sr. Visualisers: PC Anoop, Santosh Kushwaha Sr. Designers: Prasanth TR, Anil T Suresh Kumar, Joffy Jose & Anoop Verma Designer: Sristi Maurya Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi SALES & MARKETING VP Sales & Marketing: Navin Chand Singh (09971794688) National Manager - Events and Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) National Manager - Channels: Krishnadas Kurup (09322971866) Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai: Vinodh K (09740714817) Delhi: Lalit Arun (09582262959) Kolkata: Jayanta Bhattacharya (09331829284) BRAND COMMUNICATION General Manager: Ankur Agarwal Asst Brand Manager: Arpita Ganguli PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS Sr. GM Operations: Shivshankar M Hiremath Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre Logistics: MP Singh, Mohd. Ansari, Shashi Shekhar Singh Published, Printed and Owned by Nine dot Nine Interactive Pvt Limited. Published and printed on their behalf by Kanak Ghosh. Published at:

WEBINDEX www.digitchannelconnect.com

WEB EXCLUSIVE NEWS

CEOs should seize the iPad opportunity now

The Apple iPad and its ecosystem are likely to disrupt existing technology use profiles and business models, and CEOs should ensure that its potential is being seriously evaluated inside their organisations, as per a new report from Gartner. http://www.digitchannelconnect.com/ content/ceos-should-seize-ipad-oppurtunity-now-gartner

WEB EXCLUSIVE FEATURE

A Positive Growth

Printed at: SilverPoint Press Pvt Ltd D- 107, MIDC, TTC Industrial Area, Nerul, Navi Mumbai- 400706 Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur Bunglow No. 725, Sector - 1 Shirvane, Nerul Navi Mumbai - 400706

According to a recent survey by Trend Micro, viruses, trojans, data-stealing malware, and data leaks were rated as big IT concerns among small businesses. The survey included 1600 end users in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan. http://www.digitchannelconnect.com/ content/data-loss-biggest-concern-smallbusinesses-trend-micro

OPINION POLL

How do your sales numbers look in the ongoing festive season? Much better than we thought

50% Worldwide PC shipments surpassed 88.3 million units in the third quarter of 2010, a 7.6% increase from the third quarter of 2009, according to preliminary results by Gartner. http://digitchannelconnect.com/content/ a-positive-growth

NEWSLETTERS

Subscribe to web newsletters for constant updates! http://digitchannelconnect.com/content/ newsletters

Nine dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd Kakson House, A & B Wing, 2nd Floor,80 Sion Trombay Road, Chembur, Mumbai- 400071 INDIA.

Data loss biggest concern for small businesses

25%

As expected

25%

Cannot say yet

The majority opinion: A large number of vendors have had much better sales than they had expected. QUERIES

For any customer queries and assistance, please contact : help@9dot9.in

AD INDEX SAMSUNG............................................FALSE COVER EPSON............................... INSIDE FRONT COVERR SEAGATE................................................ BACK COVER SUPERTRON.....................INSIDE BACK COVER, 9 RASHI...............................................................................1 COMPUAGE...................................................................3 IBALL.......................................................................... 5,13 FENDA..............................................................................7 PRIYA LTD..................................................................... 11

PUSHPAM.................................................................... 15 JUPITER......................................................................... 17 NEOTERIC.................................................................... 19 GIGABYTE.................................................................... 25 MICROWORLD.......................................................... 29 CMDA............................................................................ 31 EMERSON....................................................... 41,43,45 INDIA ANTI-VIRUS HPC........................................ 49 SAKRI............................................................................. 51

VENDORCONNECT STORAGE

INTERVIEW WITH KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN, DIRECTOR SALES - M.E., AFRICA & SOUTH ASIA, WD

WD’s launches have created new product categories altogether “Our main focus this year has been to strengthen our firm’s channel network in tier 2 & 3 cities.” Khwaja Saifuddin, Director Sales -Middle East, Africa & South Asia, Western Digital.

Q What’s the current market positioning of Western Digital in the Indian market? A WD (Western Digital) has established itself as the leader in the Indian storage peripherals market. Business has been good, as the market registered a record growth of approximately 30 35%. We continue to command a sizeable share of the Indian market with our portable drive segment. Our new media player WDTV Live was quite a hit amongst consumers. We plan to further innovate in this segment. Q What’s your R&D strategy going forward? Will you focus on what some of your competitors have been bringing to the market? A Our product timeline is dotted with launches that have created new product categories altogether. Further, we understand the way consumers use a certain storage device and incorporate this learning into our products, thereby giving them more control over their storage devices. Our learning has helped us develop great bundled software and interfaces for our products that in turn offer newer applica-

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

tions and capabilities. Evidently, our competitors follow suit.

Q WD recently made changes to its distribution structure. Why? A At one point of time, we had nine distributors across regions and product segments. We brought this number down to seven, of which five are carrying our entire range, while the other two are more specialized. The main reason behind this consolidation is to help the partners focus on products. When you have too many partners, they tend to lose focus on the products and simply pick up the best selling products from the basket. We want to give them an opportunity to grow, vertically as well as horizontally. So, instead of increasing the partner base, we have reduced it. The partners also feel that WD has given them an opportunity to grow in terms of revenues as well as margins. Q Going forward, how do you plan to strengthen your partner network? A Our main focus this year has been to strengthen our

channel network in the country, especially in tier 2 & 3 cities. The inherent growth potential in these cities is evident, and we are confident that it will boost our sales volumes. Though there is scope for brand-building, a lot of effort will also go towards developing relationships with the channel partners. We are also ensuring simultaneous build-up of fast and effective after-sales support and service in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. WD is also trying to engage with consumers in these markets to increase awareness on storage technology and products by organising road shows in addition to supporting channel partners with ‘Select WD’ programmes and other reseller scheme programmes every quarter.

Q Western Digital is tipped to barge into the 3.5 inch 3TB market? How does the channel stand to benefit from this upcoming line up? A We have announced the Caviar Green 2.5 & 3 TB drives in October 2010. These are the highest capacity internal drives available in the market till date, and we are as confident about channel partners’ profitability from them. Clearly, we are expecting the drives to sell in large numbers and benefit partners. payal.pruthi@9dot9.in

For more UPDATES, Log on http://digitchannelconnect.com/resources/ctofconnect

UPtoDATE 7.6%

is the expected increase in Asia Pacific enterprise IT spending in 2011, forecast to reach $312.3 billion, according to Gartner

CHANNEL BUZZ

Ghosh quits ViewSonic, joins MMD Phillips Gautam Ghosh joined MMD Phillips as Country Director for India Operations. He moves from his current role as Country Manager for ViewSonic India. In his new role, Ghosh will be managing all aspects of the India sales and marketing operations and will be leading the Indian management team. He will be based out of Delhi. Logitech unveils new HD webcams

Cisco’s Linkys E-series routers

Logitech has unveiled a new lineup of HD webcams. The Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910 offers HD 720p video calling, full HD 1080p video recording, Fluid Crystal technology and one-click HD-uploading to Facebook and YouTube.

Cisco has launched its latest Linkys E-series routers in India, which are designed to connect wireless devices in home. They offer the speed that addresses the productivity and entertainment needs of today’s consumer.

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

(L TO R) SUNIL BHARTI MITTAL, CHAIRMAN & MD, BHARTI AIRTEL, WITH SANJAY KAPOOR, CEO, INDIA & SOUTH ASIA, BHARTI AIRTEL

Airtel Announces New Global Identity

TELECOM MAJOR BHARTI Airtel has announced that it has surpassed 200 million customers and unveiled a new logo to celebrate the achievement. It has also launched a new identity in 19 countries in Asia and Africa. Announcing the feat, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel said, “As we expand on the global stage, this new brand identity gives us the opportunity to present a single, powerful and unified face to our customers, stakeholders and partners around the world. It reinforces our promise to deliver innovative services and a superior brand experience to our 200 million customers across Asia and Africa.” According to the company, the red colour, which is an integral part of the brand, continues to represent the energy and dynamism that has made Airtel the success it is today. The new curved addition to the logo is a symbol which will help ensure instant recognition across diverse international markets. The Airtel signature tune has also been refreshed by A R Rahman, making it youthful and dynamic in line with the new visual identity. For its customers in India, Airtel also announced that it was on course to launch its 3G services by the end of the year.

For more UPDATES, Log on http://digitchannelconnect.com/resources/news

UPtoDATE

ChannelConnect.com

QUICK LINE: EFFICIENT DATA CENTRE design will be able to provide a

Novell to be Sold for $2.2 Billion

HP Unveils New Range of Printers

HEWLETT PACKARD HAS announced the launch of its ePrint enabled OfficeJet printers. Designed for offices and users working out of home, HP’s ePrint technology, incorporated in the new all-inone printings solutions, provides users with the freedom and convenience to print from any mobile device, wherever business happens. The all-new portfolio of HP’s OfficeJet printers is available across the Indian market. Every OfficeJet web-connected and cloud print-enabled printer will have a unique email address that allows the sender to print by just sending an email message. According to Rajkumar Rishi, Director – Inkjet & Web Solutions, Imaging & Printing Group, HP India said, “With the massive growth of the internet and smartphones, and even touch technology, the new HP web-empowered printers will make access to web content and printing easier for offices from anytime and anywhere in the world.”

THROUGH THE NUMBERS

EVENT UPDATE

Cloud for Business Conference 2011: IDC is going to hold the ‘Cloud for Business Conference 2011’ in the APAC region in February and March next year. The theme of the event is – ‘Eliminating technology from IT.’

DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

NOVELL HAS ANNOUNCED that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Attachmate Corporation would acquire Novell for $6.10 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $2.2 billion. Attachmate Corporation is owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital and Thoma Bravo. “After a thorough review of a broad range of alternatives to enhance stockholder value, our Board of Directors concluded that the best available alternative was the combination of a merger with Attachmate Corporation and a sale of certain intellectual property assets to the consortium,” said Ron Hovsepian, President and CEO of Novell. “This will deliver important benefits to Novell’s customers, partners and employees,” he added. Attachmate Corporation plans to operate Novell as two business units: Novell and SUSE.

HCL Technology has inaugrated its new tech facility in Manesar, Haryana. The facility was recently inaugrated by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Chief Minister of Haryana in the presence of the Guest of Honour Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development of the Government The new facility is a “green” and “intelligent” facility which will employ over 3,200 people housed in 9,00,000 square feet of eco friendly buildings with an investment of Rs. 260 Crore.

SMC LAUNCHES NEW WIRELESS PORTABLE BROADBAND ROUTER

SMC Networks, a networking solution provider, has introduced the SMCWPBR-3G, a wireless portable broadband router. This router connects to 3G networks using a user’s existing USB wireless modem. It also connects with wireless peripherals such as smart phones, notebooks, tablets, gaming devices and other Wi-Fi devices, hence creating a Wi-Fi hotspot from almost anywhere.

14%

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HCL’S NEW TECH HUB

is the expected growth rate for Worldwide PC shipments in 2010: Gartner

40%

is the expected CAGR of the Indian public cloud computing market over next 5 years: IDC

300% growth in capacity in 60% less space than existing data centers, according to Gartner.

FOUR 1

WIKILEAKS FILES DETAIL U.S. E-SURVEILLANCE: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered clandestine surveillance of United Nations leadership, including obtaining “security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys.”

INTERESTING READS

US SHUTS DOWN FILESHARING SITES: Over 70 sites alleged to be selling counterfeit goods or pirated content have been closed by the US government. The action was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

ROME REBUILT ‘IN A DAY’ USING Flickr: 3D models of famous landmarks such as Rome’s Colosseum have been recreated using millions of pictures from photo-sharing websites such as Flickr. The images were analysed by a modified home PC and detailed models created in less than a day.

2.5 MILLION KINECT UNITS SOLD: Microsoft: Microsoft Corp has sold more than 2.5 million of its controller-free Kinect video game systems worldwide, only 25 days after launch, the world’s largest software company said, keeping it on track to hit its target of 5 million sales this holiday shopping season.

HP LAUNCHES DREAMSCREEN IN INDIA: HP has announced the launch of its tabletlike device DreamScreen - a new platform in the interactive digital display space - at a price of Rs. 19,999. India has been the first country where DreamScreen has been unveiled. It took three years for the manufactures to develop the concept, software and user interface of this new device. To offer local content, HP has partnered with Airtel and Tata Teleservices for providing internet connectivity options, Bill Desk for paying bills online, Edurite for education, Hungama for music and movies, India Games for some games, India Today for media content, Music Today for music, NDTV for news & daily astrology, Yatra for booking air and train travel. The product is available in the market through 700 large retail format stores. – Sandhya Malhotra

$1.1bn

India 3rd party datacentre services market estimated to reach by 2015: Springboard Research

UPtoDATE

QUICK LINE: CISCO INDIA HAS announced the appointment of Rajesh Rege as Sr. VP – Data Centre, for

i-nable Solutions Launches New Version of Kreeo

SUMEET ANAND, FOUNDER CEO, I-NABLE

BANGALORE-BASED I-NABLE SOLUTIONS

has announced a new release of its Kreeo enterprise software, which helps organisations tap into the collective intelligence of their employees in a Web 2.0 environment.

According to the company, Kreeo is a next-generation enterprise platform technology that addresses the challenges of knowledge management, information needs and online productivity of employees through an innovative collective intelligence paradigm and knowledge framework. The platform helps manage knowledge by providing employees, customers and other stakeholders with an easy-to-use interface for expressing, organising and cocreating practical knowledge. As per Sumeet Anand, Founder CEO, i-nable, “Improvements have been made to the core technology for better performance, usability and experience based on feedback from our customers.” i-nable will consider solutionoriented channel partners for Kreeo.

VENDORVOICE

“We continue to command a sizeable share of the Indian market with our portable drive segment doing extremely well.” KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN

DIRECTOR SALES -MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA & SOUTH ASIA, WESTERN DIGITAL

Safenet Announces New Partner Programme

RANA GUPTA, BUSINESS HEAD – INDIA & SAARC, SAFENET

SAFENET HAS ANNOUNCED the launch of a new ‘Channel Partner Recruitment Programme’ in India for partners, offering “SafeWord”, an out-of-the-box One-Time Password (OTP) two-factor

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

authentication solution, in order to help customers enable secure remote access to their organisations’ most sensitive and confidential resources and applications. The new channel programme rewards partner investment in SafeNet solutions and services. It includes innovative sales incentives for partners and full training on SafeNet SafeWord products. SafeNet has worked out a gift voucher scheme to incentivize its partners selling its SafeWord range of products. According to Rana Gupta, Business Head – India & SAARC, SafeNet, “Through this programme, we are planning to add approximately 30 new channel partners in our network and strengthening our reach and offering.”

“The increasing complexity in our product offering requires expertise. The new Microsoft Partner Network hopes to address this.” RAJEEV MITTAL

GENERAL MANAGER, SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES, MICROSOFT

India & SAARC. Earlier, Rege was working with Alcatel Lucent as VP-Global Alliance.

UPtoDATE

Fujitsu’s New Blade System Now Available Globally

FUJITSU HAS ANNOUNCED the global availability of Primergy BX400, a new blade system that is designed especially for smaller and mid-size businesses that are looking for scalable efficiencies and consolidation. The new Primergy BX400 is a fullyfeatured blade system built from the ground up as a user-friendly and versatile infrastructure designed for midsized customers with large computing and storage requirements, including branch offices. As per the company, the Primergy BX400 is a green datacentre in a box, providing an optimum combination of up to eight server or storage blades in a small enclosure, supported by a comprehensive set of solutions and services. It combines leading-edge

technology, such as a fully integrated virtual storage appliances using technology from Fujitsu’s partnership with NetApp, with good input/output flexibility and bandwidth known from the Primergy BX900 ‘Dynamic Cube’ blade system introduced last year. The Primergy BX400 allows companies to spend less time on set-up and management and instead focus on the core business processes essential for profitability. Simplified lifecycle management reduces daily operational costs by up to 60%. Like all Primergy servers, the BX400 ships with Fujitsu’s ServerView software suite, allowing easy and integrated system management and monitoring. Additional software components such ServerView Resource

BUFFALO LAUNCHES LINK STATION PRO BUFFALO TECHNOLOGY has announced the LinkStation Pro LS-VL series network storage, which offers instant storage expansion and file access on the user’s home network and over the internet. LinkStation Pro features a fast 1.6 GHz processor for maximum transfer speeds up to 76 Mbps. As per the company, LinkStation Pro makes central storage and backup easy. While on the go, the user can use Buffalo’s free WebAccess service for remote access to his files over the internet from any standard web browser and download the free WebAccess i Apps from the iTunes store to access and share files from his iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. LinkStation Pro also Includes NovaBACKUP Professional software for Windows, and Time Machine support provide a home backup solution for every PC and Mac on the user’s network. The device is available in 2 capacities - 1.0 TB priced at Rs. 12,500 and 2.0 TB priced at Rs. 16,500 with a 3 yr warranty.

Coordinator VE and Virtual IO Manager deliver uniform operations for pools of physical and virtual servers combined with cost-effective high availability. The Primergy BX400 will be available globally in December 2010.

UPtoDATE

QUICK LINE: EPSON HAS BECOME the Official Office Equipment Partner to Manchester United.

Rita Soni Appointed NASSCOM CEO NASSCOM, INDIA’S PREMIER Information Technology (IT) industry body, has announced the appointment of Rita Soni as its CEO. As per the company, Soni will strengthen the efforts of the IT Industry towards inclusive growth, build strategic relationships and establish effective linkages between industry, non-profits and government to contribute to the cause of social development. She will also create innovative, effective and scalable programmes RITA SONI, CEO, NASSCOM FOUNDATION that leverage ICTs for education, health, employability and entrepreneurship for under-served communities. She would be orchestrating and catalyzing through NF the efforts of the IT industry at promoting inclusive growth. As part of this, she will further enhance relationships between NASSCOM members and NF in all its endeavors including programmes and fund-raising. “It is a pleasure to be extended this opportunity. NASSCOM Foundation is at a very exciting stage of development. I am thrilled to have been given the opportunity to drive NASSCOM Foundation towards creating a much higher and deeper impact on India’s development”, said Soni on the appointment.

Ajay Goel Appointed Symantec India MD SYMANTEC CORP. HAS announced the appointment of Ajay Goel as Managing Director for Symantec in India. In his new role, Goel is responsible for driving the company’s business strategy development and sales operations in the Indian market. “Ajay brings extensive enterprise experience across a wide range of industry sectors, which will enable us to continue to build strong customer and partner relationships in the Indian market,” said Eric Hoh, Vice President, Asia South Region, Symantec. “Customers continue to grapple with

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

how to secure and manage their information environAJAY GOEL, MD, ments,” said SYMANTEC INDIA Goel. “I’m very much looking forward to actively engaging with customers and partners to help them address these challenges,” he added. Goel brings over 25 years’ engineering and sales leadership experience with leading multinationals, including Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems and Asea Brown Boveri.

Toshiba’s New Android Laptop

TOSHIBA HAS ANNOUNCED that it has expanded its range of laptops and netbooks with the introduction of its first AndroidTM platform MID, the AC100. As per the company, the AC100 is also the first AndroidTM device with a full-size keyboard. The AC100 offers up to seven days standby under mixed use, with a rapid start-up time of less than a second. In constant use, the AC100 can provide up to eight hours of battery life. The AC100 runs on the Android platform, enabling users to customise their device to suit their computing habits. Depending on location or what the AC100 is running, Android can automatically switch to a prefigured home screen to best suit the user. For example, users can set shortcuts for work-related applications, widgets and ‘live-files’ to appear when working in the office, or personal applications and widgets to appear when the AC100 detects they are at home. Users can also manually switch between home screens as they wish – allowing them to access all of their content, wherever they are. The intuitive user interface also offers the possibility for users to further personalise the device by downloading a range of applications and widgets on-demand. The AC100 is priced at Rs. 18,721.

PARTNERCONNECT CHAMPION

DOSSIER Name: Kapil Wadhwa Designation: Director Company: Champion Computers Pvt Ltd Profile: The company has focused on products like hard disk drives, keyboards, mouse, speakers, USB flash drives, CPUs, CD ROM drives, display cards, floppy disk drives, laptops and desktop computers from vendor partners.

Q How has Champion Computers grown since its inception? A We have been into IT distribution from the last two decades. Champion Computers was established in the year 1994. Since the beginning, we have two line of businesses including parallel import and system component business. We are associated with International vendors like Western Digital, Samsung, Imation, Intel, AMD, VIA, Seagate, Samsung, Maxtor, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Pine, XFX, Zida, TIGA, Delta, Imation, LG and Compaq, etc. Q You have launched a plethora of your own ‘Champion’ brands of IT. Will you continue to focus on vendors’ businesses? A Our focus is more on establishing our own range of products in the consumer segment. However, we are also handling our distribution business in parallel. We

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

INTERVIEW WITH KAPIL WADHWA, DIRECTOR, CHAMPION COMPUTERS PVT LTD

“The ever changing distribution policies of vendors and zero commitment are forcing distributors to look for alternatives.” are not putting extra efforts on pushing other vendor’s products. Henceforth, as long as we are easily meeting other vendors’ quarterly targets, we are happy doing their business. Nonetheless, we are more interested in pushing other brands where volumes are low and no set targets.

Q How are your products doing in the market and how are you competing with large players? A Today, the Indian market is burgeoning. There is a place for all, be it large companies or start ups. We have a gamut of products at an affordable price including net books, mouse, power supplies, memory modules, USB, DVD writers, keyboards and portable hard drives etc. All our products are assembled locally at our Baddi plant. We are importing the kit from China. Moreover, we are also importing some products from China. We are not only assembling our own brand, but we have also started taking projects from other customers and assembling and building products for other brands. Of late, we have received two such projects from midsized companies, for whom we will assemble notebooks. Going forward,

we will be exploiting this OEM space as an opportunity.

Q From IT products, you are now entering into mobile phone verticals? Can you tell us about this business? A Yes, we have introduced the Champ mobile range of phones recently. It will be a completely separate business for us. Sandeep Popli from Imation has joined on board as Chief Operating Officer. He will be heading our mobile business. We have also bought a new office in Okhla. Initially, we have planned to launch eight models. Q How has been the ROI on your range of products? A So far, it is growing and we have seen acceptability of our products. 60% of revenues are coming from our own range of products and 40% from distributionship. Overall, we are growing 30% Y-Y. For A-class cities, we will be partnering with LFRs. We keep adding innovative products, which give more value for the money. We have strategically positioned our brand as compared to other vendors’ products. sandhya.malhotra@9dot9.in

For more UPDATES, Log on http://digitchannelconnect.com/resources/category/33

COVERSTORY

CHOOSING YOUR VENDORS Just like vendors go to great lengths to handpick partners, isn’t it high time partners also took caution in selecting their principals? Here’s what you must know in advance BY SANDHYA MALHOTRA | ILLUSTRATION PC ANOOP

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DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT

STRATEGY COVERSTORY

hoosing a vendor is vital to the success of every value added reseller. But selecting the correct vendor for the business and customer base of a channel partner can be quite tricky. Therefore, before signing any vendor, it is essential for partners to find out how to find the right vendors, which vendors to go with and which ones to pass? Apparently, the trade relations between principals, distributors, dealers and resellers are totally unorganised today and an unprofessional set-up is leading to many unwanted complications, strained relationships and huge financial losses. Therefore, it is imperative for any partner to choose the right kind of vendor and improve trade relations.

COVER STORY STRATEGY Look for long term partnership The first thing when seeking a vendor is to look at a long term partnership. Rajesh Goenka, VP, Sales & Marketing, Rashi Peripherals says, “We always look for a long term relationship. Most of our vendors whom we work with have been with us from more than 10 years.” Bengaluru based Raj Rathi, Managing Director, Cyberstar, who has been national authorized distributor for vendors like Adaptec, BPE, Belkin, Creative, Dell, Hitachi, HP, Lexmark vendors and many more says, “We follow the same approach for all our prospective consumers whether it is an international company or an Indian company. Our approach however varies from vendor to vendor according to the product and market demand. Overall, we look for a long term vision and commitment to the Indian market, investments in sales and marketing operations to grow the market in India and the presence of a local office in India.”

Maintaining a long partnership Sharing his experience regarding maintaining long term relationships, Pondicherry based PN Prasad, Managing Director, Micro Plus Computers and Advisor to Confed-ITA Association says, “In our IT business, we look at a long term association. However, seeking a long term association in today’s scenario is the biggest challenge. We feel there is an acute lack of trust and bonding in dual partnership. Vendors just try to push their products and accomplish quarterly targets; and thus can take the partnership on the toss. Moreover, the biggest lacuna of our business is that there is no written assurance from the vendor’s side. If a partner fails to achieve the target, the vendor simply chucks non performer partners out of the system.” Such an unreasonable attitude of vendors can hurt the business sentiments of channel partners and always put them into a dilemma. “In my view, before selecting partners, vendors should take a long time to select the right mix of partners. If a partner is not performing, the vendor should give him value inputs. Nonetheless, off late, some

The partnership agreement is the most valuable document that covers standard issues encountered in partnership situations. vendors have rationalized their policies after facing the heat; vendors have understood that they cannot take partners on a ride any longer. Hence, to remain in the business, they have to follow a long term partnership,” says Prasad. He goes on to cite an example. “Canon has recently scrutinized the performance of partners and carried out SWOT analysis on partner operations. Those inputs were very valuable and encouraging for partners’ growth and they learned about their weaknesses such as a crunch in manpower, working capital, coverage of geography, etc. Instead of throwing, demoralising and

Whenever we freeze upon any vendors, we do random reference checks and feedback from previous associates Moreover, we analyse the strategic fit of our vendors.” ANUP NAIR

MANAGER – STRATEGIC INITIATIVES, NEOTERIC INFOMATIQUE.

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STRATEGY COVER STORY replacing with new partners, Canon invested time and figured out the key issues. Similarly, other vendors should also do the same exercise to help each other’s business to grow.”

Choose as per customer base Partners should look into their existing customer base. This may seem like an obvious point, but taking a long hard look at your own customers will be vital in choosing vendors. For example, are the majority of your customers in SMBs or enterprises? Are they in selected vertical markets? Or do they operate with a particular focus on certain technologies to help them with their business; etc should also be taken into consideration. According to Anup Nair, Manager – Strategic Initiatives, Neoteric Infomatique says, “Whenever we freeze upon any vendors, we do random reference checks and feedback from previous associates. Moreover, we analyse the strategic fit of our vendors, gaps in our existing portfolio, the roadmap of vendors and India plans, product portfolio, global and Indian ranking of the vendor, marketing and service setup; distribution structure and strategy, etc. Hence, weightage is assigned to each parameter depending on the business need.”

Expectations should be met When a vendor appoints any partner, its prime expectation is to expand its footprints and leverage on the strength of the partners. On the contrary, when a partner selects any vendor, its objective is to grow vendor business vis-à-vis grow its business turnover and profitability. Also, expectations vary from national distributors to regional distribu-

TIPS FOR SELECTING VENDORS Vendors should be known worldwide and have a long term vision.

Reasonable margins.

Explore if there are business opportunities in that product segment/brand segment.

Ensure business profitability.

Understanding of vendors’ channel strategy. Long term commitment to the Indian market.

Post sales & marketing support.

Long term mutually benefiting relationships. Growth to all partners. All partners should become part of the solution.

tors. As per Rathi, “We expect that our vendors should look at the Indian market as an important area of business and show commitment through investments in marketing and sales operations to develop and grow their business and brand on a long term basis. Since we believe in providing our vendors with excellent support, we also expect that the vendors should have a strong post sales and support policy. Apart from these factors, we also look for organisational compatibility, interest in the same field, experience in the market and resources available.” Nair says, ”Vendor expectations range from good support to promoting the product from service infrastructure to marketing support, assured supplies, margins to justify ROI, etc.”

Ensure profitable operations According to Prasad, “Regional or local partners intend to grow their bottom lines and increase the annual turnover. Ironically, most of the vendors don’t care about the partner’s profitability, which in result discourages partners to not to work for the brand. The bone of contention is that whenever partners build the brand and develop the market, it is killed by the same vendor after a gap, and not by the competition. That is the sad part of our industry. Hence, we want vendors to offer a business model to their partners which can ensure profitable operations in normal circumstances.” Agreeing with Prasad, Shashikant D Satbhai, President, CMDA Pune says, “Normally, most of the partnerships ends up being more or less one sided, that too vendor driven. Nevertheless, to ensure high business profitability and less risk, we look for a clear understanding of terms and conditions, ethical business practices and a proper communication channel with vendors and customers.

Necessary documentation The partnership agreement is the most valuable document that covers standard issues encountered in partnership situations, and ensures that the respective partners put in papers regarding the terms of their understanding. And each party should have copies of the partnership

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COVER STORY STRATEGY agreement. “However, apart from the contract, it is imperative that both the vendor and the distributor are clear of what is being expected from each other,” says Rathi. As per Nair, “We ensure that the distribution partnership agreement and other legal necessary documentation are in place.” On the flip side, partners do not follow the written agreement or are ready to sign a contract. “Majority of the business works on verbal terms. If the vendor decides to terminate its relationship with its partner, there is no written notice. However, we want that vendor should be served at least a 2 months notice period by the partner, that too well in advance. The vendor should take back all the unsold stock if the dealer prefers to return the stocks and spares. The vendor should obtain a consent letter from such a dealer before appointing a new partner. Also, it should be communicated to the local association,” says Prasad.

We always look for a long term relationship. Most of our vendors whom we work with have been with us from more than 10 years.” RAJESH GOENKA

VP, SALES & MARKETING, RASHI PERIPHERALS.

Dos & dont’s of partnership Depending upon the nature of the partnership, in some cases, it is so thick and the ownership from the distributor is so strong that the distributors own up all the aspects end to end, right from product customization, packaging, designing marketing collaterals, designing schemes, defining distribution strategy etc. On the other side, partners have to select vendor with several do’s. Kapil Wadhwa, Director, Champion Computers says, “Watch out for vendors that make a lot of changes to their distributionship. Whenever a vendor frequently adds new distributors into the network, it ultimately harms other existing distributors’ businesses. One or two changes once a year at a partner summit or conference is acceptable. But, vendors who make frequent changes throughout the year are likely to be considered unreliable in the channel.” Rathi says, “One should see whether the vendor carries viable products in the Indian environment with a good reputation, long term commitment to the Indian market, reasonable margins and post sales and marketing support.” According to Satbhai, “We prefer a company with clear fair trade policies and channel policies, clarity in schemes, the company’s past reputation and clear cut information regarding the vendor’s future growth plan.” But Prasad cautions, “A partner should ask vendors to fix sales targets for their dealers to reflect the true market size and demand. It should not result in dumping, price cuts and cross territory supplies. Vendors should review the market size of a particular town or district and accordingly fix the number of dealers which should make the operations profitable. Even in large cities, multiple partners can coexist with the areas delimited for each partner.” Rathi also adds, “We have had some bad experiences with some companies based in the Asia PAC region. The only intention of these

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companies was to dump material in India with no long term plans to grow their Indian business. Hence, we do research and gather information that is available. We do look for previous track records and when we cannot find it, we safe guard our interests through the partnership agreement.”

Conclusion However, there are a lot of options in this competitive market. But to choose and tie-up with the right vendor is very crucial, as it decides the overall business growth. In a nutshell, the IT channel is quite complex and there is an immediate need to establish a long run legal relationship between all the participants rather than the present adhoc relationships. sandhya.malhotra@9dot9.in

ASSOCIATIONCONNECT

CMDA PUNE

EVENT CALENDAR

ITTA TO ORGANISE COMPEX-2011 FROM 31ST DEC 2010 TO 2ND JAN 2011

For the ninth consecutive year, Information Technology Trade Association (ITTA), Pudhucherry, is organising a three-day IT expo, Compex-2011 at Jayaram Thirumana Nilayam, Sithankudi, Pudhucherry. The event is scheduled to be held between December 31st, 2010 January 2nd, 2011.

AKITDA to host five cities IT expo in 2011

All Kerala IT Dealers Association (AKITDA) has planned to host a five city IT exhibition in 2011. This is part of the state association’s planned projects for 2011-2012, one of which would also be rolling out a pension scheme for its members.

SHASHIKANT D SATBHAI, PRESIDENT, COMPUTERS AND MEDIA DEALERS ASSOCIATION (CMDA) - PUNE

Promoting Ethical Biz Practices Q What are the initiatives taken by the association for its members? A Over the years, CMDA has been conducting various events based on feedback from members. CMDA helps members in resolving disputes by acting as arbitrators, and we are proud that till date, we have resolved more than 45 such disputes. CMDA conducts a minimum of 20 programmes for its members in a year, which includes business related activities, family events, health activities, sports activities, charity activities and technical seminars. Q How are you tackling the octroi issue? A CMDA started the movement to promote octroi paid material in Pune market. For this, we requested all the vendors to adopt uniform pricing. Almost 32 vendors accepted our request and started adopting uniform pricing. But still, there are few vendors who have not implemented uniform pricing; we are in touch with them to support the channel call. We strongly believe that with the support from vendors, we can promote ethical business practices.

Q Can you tell us about CMDA’s future strategies and growth plans for 2010-2011? A From January 2011, we will be starting our special membership drive to add more members from Pune and

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DOSSIER

Year of CMDA establishment:

1993

Total Member: 384 Calendar events: IT Expo 2010 – scheduled during 10-13th December 2010, Management seminars (For members) – Minimum 3 in a year (1st scheduled on 19th November), Diwali mela – conducted on 31st October 2010, General body meeting – 2 nos. in a year. (1st conducted on 7th September), Annual meeting – scheduled for June 2011.

Pimpri Chinchwad region. In the near future, we are planning to build our own facility centre, where we will provide high quality training and presentations. Members can use it at very nominal charges.

Q What is your perception on the convergence of IT, telecom and retail? A Technology is driving this convergence. Retail is a bigger threat to small traders. A lot of vendors are treating LFRs with special treatment and this dual policy is creating a drift in the market. Small channel partners cannot compete on this unequal playing ground. Q How do you see the growth of channel business in the coming years? A Channel business is the key of success for all vendors. With channel partners, vendors can get a deeper entry into the market. I do not see any reason why channel business should not grow. I think channel too needs to add more value in business and provide innovative solutions to customers. — sandhya.malhotra@9dot9.in

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ROUNDUP ASSOCIATION CONNECT

MUTHUSWAMY ELECTED AS CONFED-ITA PRESIDENT FOR 2011-2012

Confederation of IT Association (Confed - ITA) has recently elected its 5 new office bearers and 36 executive members for 2011-2012. Muthuswamy, the current advisor of Confed-ITA and EC Member of CAMS, Madurai, has been elected as President. The new office bearers will take charge during the Confed-ITA Summit 2011. They will take over their responsibilities effective April 2011 to 2012.

– Sandhya Malhotra

CMDA PUNE HOSTS DIWALI MELA

WHAT THEY SAY ON COUNTERFEIT SOFTWARE “We have taken up this issue with Microsoft and educating our partners on how to detect counterfeit software.” SAKET KAPUR, SECRETARY, PCAIT

“The counterfeit software menace has been growing in our state. This is affecting our business and customer relationship.” JYOTHI SANKAR, STATE GEN. SEC., AKITD

“We have taken an initiative to inform the customer that pirated copies are not only illegal, but also harmful for the computer.” B HARI, PRESIDENT, COMPUTER ASSOCIATION OF EASTERN INDIA (COMPASS)

PCAIT Speaks Out Against Counterfeit Software A WORLDWIDE CONSUMER SURVEY has shown that people see

Top| (Left) Ahsaan Qureshi entertaining the audience with a stand up routine, and, (Right) A little dancer showing her skills. Bottom| Award presentation ceremony at the diwali mela.

a real danger in using pirated and counterfeit software. Agreeing to the results of the survey, Saket Kapur, Secretary, Progressive Channels association of Information technology (PCAIT), says, “The awareness level of buying or using genuine software are high amongst corporates and SMBs. However, in SOHO segment, it’s still laggard and they will take time to shift to genuine software, as they are more cost conscious. Nonetheless, to woo customers, Microsoft has come out with more office and windows variants at an affordable cost. For example, Microsoft Student edition and Microsoft

Security Essentials has been embraced by customers.” “Besides pirated software, partners are facing threat from counterfeiting or look alike Chinese software. Our partners have been cheated many a times. When you buy 100 OEMs packs, the vendor may mix some counterfeit software. Such software can send updates and can be activated also; hence, it’s very difficult to crack down on them . We have made this communication to all the association members and internally as well. All our 100 PCAIT members have decided to promote IPR. No channel members can take the leverage of selling pirated software,” he added.

— Sandhya Malhotra

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LEADERSHIP

The reasons for failure and success are often complex. It is the interpretation of failure that can determine how resilient you are at leading yourself through turbulent times.

When

DAVID LIM, FOUNDER, EVEREST MOTIVATION TEAM

Failure is

Good

ECENTLY, A NEWSPAPER reported the

Look at failure as a source of information to improve your leadership skills and the fortunes of your company BY DAVID LIM

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demise of a oncelauded business award called the Phoenix Award. The prize, at one time administered by a well-known publishing group, recognised outstanding business people who had bounced back from failure. Like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes, the business person awarded this accolade was praised for his resilience and ability to learn from failures. However, in recent years, the number of nominees fell to a point

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PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

BEST OF BIZ

BEST OF BIZ LEADERSHIP

when it became unsustainable to continue with the annual award. The main reason given: Asians are reluctant to talk about their failures. So, when can failure be good? There are basically two kinds of failure: ‘smart’ ones and ‘dumb’ ones. Smart failures are where you did everything right, had a great team, but perhaps, like a mountaineer, were thwarted by a sudden shift in weather patterns, or an unexpected illness. A ‘dumb’ failure is where your sloppiness and negligence contributed to the failure. In reality, though, the reasons for failure and success are often complex. It is the interpretation of failure that can determine how resilient you are at leading yourself through turbulent times. Assume, you had done remarkable planning, displayed great leadership and had a great team. However, you met with a negative response from the client owing to some people making an irrational decision. What happens next determines your ability to bounce back and thrive as a leader. A ‘good’ failure is when you have not only done all that is possible within your competencies and commitment, but also one where you interpreted the failure appropriately. Studies and research by the University of Pennsylvania’s department of positive psychology shows that people who attributed failure to external factors, tended to do better after a failure. They were also those who did not see failure as all pervasive and alldestroying. They also saw failure as a temporary state. Conversely, those who took it personally, believed the failure struck at their core as worthy people, and that they would be totally and permanently devastated, did not have good outcomes post-failure. In short, the interpretation of failure was integral to how well you did thereafter. People who avoid taking calculated risks and thus the chance of failing ‘cleverly’, can seldom learn powerful lessons that failure can bring. I was recently delivering a leadership presentation to a European private

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equity firm in the south of France. One of the challenges faced by many of the teams involved in the long and arduous process of buying out a company, was that the seller sometimes made emotional and illogical decisions and would sell to another bidder. The team would then have to regroup and start all over again with another prospective target. The people who seemed to do best at this high-stakes financial game were those who only felt sorry for themselves for a limited period, and took it in their stride.

A ‘good’ failure is when you have not only done all that is possible within your competencies and commitment, but also one where you interpreted the failure quite appropriately. In short, their reactions mirrored those subjects that Dr Martin Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania studied. Those able to bounce back from failure had these valuable attributes, and having successive failures, in my opinion, only made them even better at their game. After all, as Winston Churchill said: “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without any loss of enthusiasm.” Edison was said to have failed thousands of times on his way to creating the first incandescent light bulb. A long time ago, I had the privilege of sitting next to an Israeli innovation expert on a long-distance flight. I asked him how he came up with all his good ideas and he said: “By coming up with a lot of stupid ones first.”

So here, perhaps, is a practical guide in using failure effectively in your organisation: Calibrate the fear of failure by picking projects and goals where failure will not be fatal to the organisation, but where a great pay-off could be an outcome. In short, pick the long-shot goals that may make the risk worthwhile, but with a modest downside. Fail quickly and early. Prior to my first Everest expedition, we chose stretch goals that would boost our learning curve prior to the Everest climb. In the three preceding years, we tackled peaks that were often a bit harder than our perceived abilities at the time. When we failed, we studied the failure, always taking the stance that failure provided valuable information. The quicker you fail, the more time you have to recover before your actual main event, or goal. Reward success, reward the ‘smart’ failures, and punish inaction. It is stultifying to have people always playing it safe when an organisation has to take calculated risks to grow and succeed. And yet, many companies have compensation structures which punish failure, and reward inaction. Treat failure as information allowing you to succeed better the next time. Remove, as much as possible the emotional content of failure (read: fear, sadness, anger and resentment), and look at what were some of the best things you learned from it on a purely factual, objective basis. These could be certain structural weaknesses in your plan, unproductive behaviour of a team member, or even weak teamwork. Remove the emotions and you will be left with valuable data. If your organisation is not failing fast enough, you are not winning fast enough.

1 2 3 4

David Lim is a leadership and negotiation coach, best-selling author and two-time Mt Everest expedition leader. , Courtesy: CFO India

SPECIALREPORT CONVERGENCE

FRIENDS PHOTO IMAGING ANOOP VERMA

The current IT distribution landscape in the country is witnessing the convergence of IT and telecom channels. Whether it is a sustainable business model or something which will lead to conflicting interests between partners, is something which most wish to wait and watch.

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FOES

BY PAYAL PRUTHI |

For more UPDATES, Log on http://digitchannelconnect.com/ resources/category/30/readmore/news

CONVERGENCE SPECIAL REPORT

STORY ROI The converging channel concept is not merely a topic of debate or just looking good on paper, but is being backed by several factors which seem to catalyze its adoption.

HE PAST FEW months have witnessed a

change of sorts in the IT distribution landscape in the Indian market. The much talked about move by PC major HP, where the vendor changed its distribution model for consumer PCs on the lines of telecom channels, thereby realigning the portfolio of existing distributors and adding regional telecom distributors, has spurred reactions on the convergence of IT and telecom channels. While many industry observers predict it as a practical and inevitable way of distribution, there are a few who fail to find it a fundamentally sound strategy because of the many challenges involved. “The coming together of the IT and telecom channels is no doubt one of the possible business models; however, it will be an oversimplification or merely a conjecture to mention that this will be the way going forward. An ‘en-masse’ deployment of telecomspecialized channel partners for all IT products will certainly not fit the bill for the vendor. However, it is definitely one of the future business models,” says Kalyan Banga, Senior Research Analyst, Ami-Partners, India.

Best of both worlds The converging channel concept is not merely a topic of debate or something that looks good on paper, but is being backed by several factors which seem to catalyze its adoption. Been in the news for sometime now for bringing together both IT and Telco channels for its consumer business, HP India’s PSG General Manager and Vice President, Sunil Dutt feels that distribution is an evolving phenomenon. “As newer product categories emerge, it is logical to add new distributors to take products quicker, faster and effectively to the market. In the consumer business, expertise lies in terms of distribution knowledge; hence, we roped in a few telecom partners to reach widespread retail partners,” says Dutt. Acer India’s Chief Marketing Officer, S Rajendran too shares similar views, attributing the overlap in the distribution channel to the new form factors. “With new devices like smart phones and tablets coming in, both the telco and IT channels will find a play in the distribution

“If a company has both PCs and hand phones as part of their product portfolio, combining the channels will always be beneficiary.” VISHAL TRIPATHI, PRINCIPAL ANALYST, GARTNER INDIA.

set up. In the next two to three years, the impact of such form factors will be profound on the channel where both the IT and telco channels will have to do some retooling to make a meaningful sales pitch,” says Rajendran. While convergence is pushing at both sides of the channel, driving IT solution providers to embrace what have been traditionally telecom offerings and vice versa, industry experts feel it would

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SPECIAL REPORT CONVERGENCE

not be possible to keep the channel of these two interrelated, mutually dependent markets and technologies separate. “PC distributors are looking to increase their reach, as they were losing on the channel market share. Many a times, the owners (dealers) are same, so it’s a pragmatic approach and makes business sense. If a company has both PCs and hand phones as part of their product portfolio, combining the channels will always be beneficiary,” says Vishal Tripathi, Principal Analyst, Gartner India. Commenting on the same, Ranjit Yadav, Director-Mobile & IT , Samsung India, says, “The new age convergence products require new approaches to selling and that is why we are seeing a convergence in channel as well. It is also a way by which companies are strengthening their penetration levels in the market, tapping the existing channel plus reaching out to new channels.” According to Banga, when a vendor wants to venture into innovative fronts and emerging technology arena like unified communications, they can take assistance of traditional telecom partners to push their communication related products to all communities. “Logically, the advent of telecom channel partners in a domain that has been covered by traditional IT vendors is a big step and is justified to some extent, since no vendor should follow a purely restraining policy that limits a certain class of vendors to a set of products,” says Banga. “One should however also take into account the skill sets and capabilities of the channel partners to handle a new class of product,” he adds. However, Swaminathan Sethuraman, Technical head of Ahemdabad based distributor Virtual Netcomm Private Limited, feels that convergence of IT and telco channels is not new. “The Indian IT policy egged BSNL to broadbase IT/ broadband proliferation by introducing sub-10K PCs with a leading Indian PC player. Microsoft / Apple battles are no longer in the PC market alone, but have extended to the

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plans to come out with netbooks. In such an environment, it’s difficult to define boundaries, and convergence at the distribution level is bound to happen,” he says.

Not without challenges

“It will take minimum two to three years before this business model becomes common practice.” S RAJENDRAN, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER , ACER INDIA

Mobile/ Gadget market. Apple clocked its highest revenues and profitability in the last quarter because of the iPhone. The future growth directions for both IT and telco channels is hence quite visible,” says Swaminathan. Manish Agrawal, Director, Priyanka Communications who is also one of the telecom partners appointed by HP, firmly believes in the benefits of the new distribution model. “HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo are all coming up with smartphones, a $125 bn market which is probably as big as the personal computing market already. Nokia too

Though the converging channel concept may have appealed to many, the coming together of IT and telco channels is something which is riddled with challenges. Many in the industry feel that both operate from different perspectives, where the IT channel is fixated on technology while the telecom channel focuses more on service delivery. “Telco channel works with a more predictable margin within a specified territory or domain. They are used to shorter product life cycle, faster moving inventory - hence low inventory levels, lower credit extensions, and therefore, shorter cycles resulting in high ROI. Also, the major factor between the IT and telecom channels is the expectation of support like pre-sales, training and implementation, application support, etc. which the telecom partner has to adapt to. This may also act as a challenge for the telecom partner to adapt to slow speed of IT business,” says Paras Shah, CEO, Neoteric. Banga believes that one of the primary challenge faced by telecom channel partners will be the restricted cash flow, in addition to some other problems like – meeting customer service needs, difficulty in identifying and marketing to new customers, lower customer demand for ICT solutions, increased competition, lowered prices/ margins and managing inventory. “The above set of problems may not be unique only to telecom channel partners. Even IT channel partners are not immune to these,” says Banga. He further explains that if a channel partner is appointed for marketing a set of specialized IT products, then the key criteria should be his distribution expertise, level of technical capability, willingness to learn and upgrade and availability of technical personnel

CONVERGENCE SPECIAL REPORT

with some experience in handling such products. “Expecting channel partners with expertise in basic telecom products like hand-sets / cellular phones to market blade servers and virtualisation products will leave both the partners and customers in the dark – since the partner may not be in a position to inform the prospective customer about the efficacy of the blade server and also answer their technical queries. It may not be possible to fill up this knowledge-gap area with mere training sessions from the vendor,” he adds. Although highly optimistic about overcoming the shortcomings involved in working with both the IT and telco channel, Dutt also maintains that telecom partners are used to a more disciplined distribution system and are used to working with more working capital investment, and may face some challenges in this regard while operating in an IT scenario.

Mixed response from the channel Within the partner ecosystem, there has been a bitter sweet response towards the coming together of the IT and telco channels. “It is difficult for both the channels to co-exist. Those dealing with IT products understand the industry better and the pain point of the customer better. Also, on site support service and post sales support is something that the telco channel is not equipped with. In the long run, this will affect our sales and also the relationship with the vendor. The situation will worsen in smaller cities,” says PN Prasad, CEO, Microplus Computers. Many IT partners also feel that their telco counterparts lack the required technology skills needed to cater to the customer needs. “Whether the telco channel has the ability to understand, design, deploy, configure and support complex systems of integrated networking, storage, security and applications is yet to be seen,” says Toshi Mathew, President of the Kerela Channel Association AKITDA.

FIVE KEY REASONS FOR CHANNEL CONVERGENCE

1 2 3 4 5

There is a retail boom in the country, with Large Format Retail stores (LFRs) offering consumers a completely new shopping ambience and experience. This boom is attracting a slew of IT vendors to tap into the footfalls at LFRs. The success story of mobile phones, which are sold in great numbers through snazzy retail outlets, is making the traditional IT sellers follow their cue on sales and display strategies. Many large corporations and budding entrepreneurs are getting into technology retail and offering the same platform to mobile as well as IT products. This is changing the dynamics of how IT products are sold. There are more and more lifestyle-oriented IT products available on the market, which lend themselves to easy selling, based on style or fad quotient rather than solution orientation. This is a far cry from early days when the very word ‘computer’ evoked images of nerds hunched over their machines. With organised retail offering larger economies of scale to vendors and distributors, price differential of products sold at LFRs compared to the ones available at IT hubs like Nehru Place and Lamington Road will come down significantly. This will further fuel the trend towards convergence of IT and telecom channels, as more people are weaned away from these hubs to the malls.

Many partners also feel that in case of this new business model, assuming that telecom channel partners are appointed for new ICT products, their key challenge will be to increase their own familiarity and learning about new class of products – so that they can be in a position to talk to customers and convince them. Not willing to be named, one of the channel partners says, “Many a times, it’s the vendor himself who creates a sense of competition between telco and IT partners by favouring one over the other. Also, the traditional IT channel is already faced with lot of competition with large format retail,” says the partner. However, Rajiv Mehta, CEO, Innovative Enterprise, feels that a converged distribution model is required because of the changing market and customer dynamics. “The conventional system has been around for many years now. But the Indian market has evolved, and so, old should make way for the new,” says Mehta.

Looking ahead Call it collision or collaboration, most of the vendors, industry experts and many of the channel partners feel that it’s just a matter of time when the convergence of IT and telecom channels becomes a common phenomenon. “It will at least take two to three years before this business model becomes a common practice. Also, every vendor must see to it that this percolates from the metros to B&C class cities gradually, so that even the channel gets used to it,” says Rajendran. But, the new business model is being viewed by skepticism even as many follow the wait and watch approach to see how factors, relationships, logistics, margins and volumes affect the distribution network. Going forward, the market might see more convergence of the channels where multiple channels will co-exist, benefiting the end user. payal.pruthi@9dot9.in

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TRIED -N-

TESTED

57%

The growth in the combined serial inkjet and laser printer, copier and Multifunctional Product (MFP) market in India in the third quarter of 2010.

Reinforcements W Have Arrived BY TEAM DIGIT | PHOTO IMAGING ANOOP VERMA

A look at the advancements in HD media players in the last few months

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E TESTED HD media players in May this year, and there were some clear winners. Since then, there have been many new contenders. New features have been added or have become the norm for these players. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve tested some of these new players over the last couple of months. We tested them to see if there were any new features and performance benefits that are worth your money. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what we thought.

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Buffalo launches new wireless adapter

The AirStation N-Technology Wireless-N150 Ultra Compact USB 2.0 Adapter offers high-speed wireless connectivity to the Windows laptop or desktop through an available USB port.

HCL Infosystems launches educational computer for kids

This computer has been launched for kids of age-group between 3 to 12 years, with special education content designed for learning through fun for children.

Xtreamer Pro The new player is somewhat taller and wider than the older Xtreamer. The old one could only accommodate a 2.5inch internal hard drive, which then seemed like a neat feature. This new one can hold two 3.5-inch drives easily. This makes the product slightly bulkier than most of the media players in the market today. The chassis is well built. A metal front panel instead of the plastic one would have made it look even more attractive. There is a USB port and an eSATA port in line with the status LEDs at the front. The rear end of the product has an additional USB 2.0 port to connect external drives and one to connect the player to a PC. The player has HDMI, and Composite but no Component. For ideal resolutions, you absolutely need a display supporting HDMI. Bootup time is somewhat long at 19 seconds. The interface has changed a

One of the features of the Xtreamer Pro is the NAS mode, which allows other devices on the network to access drives connected to the player. The Compro VideoMate 950 is a full HD media player with network connectivity and storage options.

Digisol launches new wireless broadband router

Digisol has introduced its new wireless broadband router DG-BR4000N for communication between wireless and wired notebooks/desktop computers in the network.

Buffalo LT V-100 The LT-V100 is a compact looking, jet black HD player with a smooth upper surface. The build quality of the product is not impressive. The body is made of cheap plastic. The remote control bundled with the player is dull colored, flimsy and unimpressive. There are two USB 2.0 ports and a HDMI connection on the back panel. We wish they had provided us with an HDMI cable though. The nice part Xtreamer is that the remote control works from Pro any angle. It has a LAN port for home network connection. However, it does not feature Wi-Fi. The user interface is user friendly, but it does not segregate little bit. The use of background wallpaaccording to their format. pers is new, but not something everyThe noise reduction feature is not one will like. The content is sorted well. very effective in reducing the amount Navigating the menus is a breeze. The of noise in the image rendered on use of space on the remote is good. screen. An important thing to note is One of the features is the NAS mode the ability to play almost the file forwhich allows other devices on the mats including MP4, MPG, RMVB, MOV, network to access drives connected MKV, AVI, but it fails to play FLV. When to the player. Live internet streaming, connected to the network, playback RSS feeds support, Picasa and Youtube lags and files take time to open. File are some of the other features availtransferring is quite slow. able. Streaming performance is good At Rs. 12,000, it is highly overpriced with both wired and wireless connecfor its build quality and features. tions. Video quality is good, and we Instead, opt for the Xtreamer Pro with experienced absolutely no lag media streaming and other outstandwhile trying the playback of ing features. Buffalo LT all formats. Format support is V-100 still excellent when compared to most of the other players. Costing Rs. 13,500 for just the player and an additional Rs. 1,000 for Compro VideoMate 950 the USB Wi-Fi adapter, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s definitely The Compro VideoMate 950 is a full HD much more expensive than the older media player with network connectivity Xtreamer player. At Rs. 8,990, the older and storage options. It comes in an all Xtreamer product gives you most of black body and has a nice brush metal the features. October 2010

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TRIED -N- TESTED HD MEDIA PLAYERS

BRAND

AMKETTE

O!Play HDP-R1

Link Theatre LT -V100

Videomate NMC950

ScreenPlay Director

FreeAgent Theater+

Flash TV

O!Play Air HDP-R3

Model

ASUS

BUFFALO

COMPRO

IOMEGA

SEAGATE

TV Live

Price (`)

`2,995

`10,000

`9,000

`12,000

`7,000

`12,000

`9,500

`6,500

`8,500

Overall (On 100) Features (On 50) Performance (On50) FEATURES

27.23 7.15 20.08

60.00 24.40 35.60

57.16 22.40 34.76

53.47 21.25 32.22

64.41 31.15 33.26

69.97 36.50 33.47

67.86 32.50 35.36

49.43 15.90 33.53

62.01 28.05 33.96

3 1 2

Max resolution supported Ports (USB / eSATA) Network support (Wired/Wireless) Video (MKV / FLV / Real video / MOV / MP4) Audio (FLAC, WMA / AAC)

1080p (upscaled) 1/0

1080p

2/1

2/0

3/0

2/0

10 (u 1

N/N

Y/Y

Y/N

N/N

Y/N

N/N/Y/N/Y

Y/Y/Y/Y/Y

Y/Y/N/Y/Y

Y/ Y / Y / Y / Y

Y/Y/Y/Y/Y

Y/N/N /Y/Y

Y/Y/ N/Y/Y

Y Y

N/Y/Y

Y/Y/Y

Y/Y/N

Y/Y/Y

Web content support Youtube / Google Videos Flickr / Picasaweb RSS feeds / Weather / News

N/N

Y/N

N/N

Y/N

N/N

Y/N

Y/Y

N/N

Y/N

N/N/N

Y/Y/N

Y/Y/Y

N/N/N

Windows shares / FTP Remote web access

N/N N

Y/N N

Y/N Y

Y/N N

N N

Bittorrent / NAS

N/N

Y/Y

N/Y

N/N

N/Y

HDMI / Component / Composite

N/Y/Y

Y/N/Y

Y/Y/Y

Y/N/Y

Y/Y/Y

8.1

9.6

11.62

114

9.03

5.12

7.09

Connectivity

PERFORMANCE (OUT OF 10) Startup time (sec) AVI (480p) (Performance) AVI (480p) (Quality) MKV (720p) (Performance) MKV (720p) (Quality) MKV (1080p) (Performance) MKV (1080p) (Quality) Build and Aesthetics

Zebronics ZEBMP1000HDMI

6.5 8

6.5

5.5

7.5

6.5

5.5

7.5

NA 6.5

7.5 6.5

7 6.5

5.5 5.5

7.5 5

6.5 6

6.5 6.5

6.5 6

N 6

finish. The front panel is made of plastic with a USB port positioned in the bottom left hand corner. There is a string of LED indicators as well. The body is somewhat bulkier to accommodate either a 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch SATA hard drives. VideoMate 950 comes with a range of connectivity options like an HDMI port, a component, composite audio and video ports, two USB ports, a mini USB port and a LAN port for network connectivity. The player can be opened up to to attach the HDD within. The interiors are pretty compact in the sense - there is no noticeable gap once you plug in the drive in the chassis. Provisions are made for a 2.5 inch drive - there are some clips provided to hold it in place.

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The GUI is one of the most impressive user interfaces we have seen among all the media players tested up until now. The main home screen shows three options like File Copy - which allows you to copy files among your network, HDD and USB drive; Browser - which segregates the various input media like HDD, USB, Network etc and finally Settings which allows you to tweak the audio, video, network settings. It takes 11 seconds to startup, but movie loading time is a quick 4 seconds. Navigating through the menus is quite intuitive. It does not segregate

HD MEDIA PLAYERS TRIED -N- TESTED

XTREAMER

ZEBRONICS

need an external computer for activating the BitTorrent client in the player. At a price point of Rs. 9,000 we feel it’s a tad over priced, but it is completely worth the cost. We would definitely recommend this player.

Xtreamer Xtreamer Pro `8,990 `14,500 (WiFi) (WiFi) 69.13 79.35 33.15 41.30 35.98 38.05

ZEB – MP1000HDMI

1080p

720p

2/0

2/1

1/1

N/N

Y/Y

Y/N

N/N

Y/N/Y/ Y/Y

Y/Y/Y/ Y/Y

Y / Y /Y / Y/Y

N/N/Y/Y/Y

Y/Y/Y

N/Y/N

N/N

Y/N

N/N

N/Y

N/N

N/N/N

Y/N/N

Y/Y/Y

N/N/N

N/N N

Y/N Y

N/N N

N/N

N/Y

Y/Y

N/N

N/Y/Y

Y/N/Y

Y / N /Y

N/Y/Y

7.8

50.5

6.5

7.5

6.5

7.5

6.5

Is there a new winner?

NA 6.5

8 6.5

6 6

NA 5.5

We liked the Xtreamer the last time we tested HD Media players. This time around, the Xtreamer Pro beats the last winner – the Iomega Screenplay Director. It’s much better built, and the ability to connect two internal drives totaling up to 4 TB is a nice feature to have. The product becomes much more than just a media player, and for a little more than the Iomega player, it makes good sense. We’ve seen all kinds of players over the last year, and it looks like manufacturers are watching the growth of the HD TV market with new features. There are still some features we’d like to see. For example, getting e-mail alerts and updates on your Twitter and Facebook accounts would be nice. Audio and video conferencing could be another great possibility. Now that internet connectivity is getting more popular, manufacturers ought to plug in a fully-functional browser as well. All these things are bound to happen sometime or the other. It’s definitely not the last we’ve seen of the HD players.

TV Mini `4,500

31.08 10.15 20.93 1080p (upscaled) 1/0

`2,600

27.75 9.00 18.75

media though. The bundled in remote is decent but the navigation pad in the centre requires a hard press since the entire control is made of poor quality plastic. The location of the Return key is also unconventional. This player is quite versatile in the sense that it plays anything you throw at it. It played 720p and 1080p videos brilliantly. DVD quality videos appeared stretched on the big screen, but setting the TV system to 480p gave a good output. But then, this player is meant for HD videos. Connecting to the network does not take much time, but you will

Zebronics ZEB-MP1000HDMI Zebronics is somewhat of a local brand in comparison to all the other big names or popular devices on the internet. Their player comes in a compact form factor with black plastic body. The buttons on the front panel are of poor quality. Component and composite video ports are on the side whereas the USB and HDMI port are on the rear side. The main menu comprises of options like photos, videos, music and settings. User interface is quite intuitive and straight forward. Media is not segregated according to its type and you have to go to individual folders, which makes it a pain to use. It takes 10 seconds to start up, while movie loading took a mere 6 seconds. It can play DVD quality movies flawlessly. We encountered problems while paying back 720p videos. As it does not support all the video formats, you will have to convert non compatible files beforehand. It plays RMVB videos pretty well, but loading images takes very long. This player is ideal if you have a huge collection of standard Xvid and DivX AVI files. The player does not support many formats such as MKV and WMV. However, it is one of the cheapest players at just Rs. 2,600, but the lack of video format support makes it hard to recommend.

Zebronics ZEBMP1000HDMI

Courtesy: Digit, www.thinkdigit.com

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TECHNOTOUCH INFORMATION SECURITY

CARVING

ENTERPRISE

STANDARDS Business objectives point to some information security concerns, while regulatory compliance necessitates others. Security standards facilitate both and fill the gap BY DOMINIC K | ILLUSTRATION JOFFY JOSE STORY ROI Security standards provide a benchmark against which an organisation can assess its information security implementation and analyze risk.

very enterprise follows a methodology for risk management and measurement. The acceptable risk level is defined by the security council or the corporate risk management group who analyses it, based on several factors that determine their enterprise risk. It is derived from all aspects such as threats, vulnerabilities, probability, impact analysis and their own perception of the threat. Whether a particular set of information security and risk criterion can be used not only depend on their applicability but on the effort and costs

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INFORMATION SECURITY TECHNO TOUCH

KEY CHALLENGES

associated with its use too. These can be different in specific cases, but standard values can be helpful for assessment in typical scenarios. Standards help the corporate team define these.

Compliance Successful management of information security processes in the enterprise requires control over an assortment of documentation for compliance and regulatory demands. Efficiently managing the documentation is not easy and usually requires a systematic approach. Information security standards aid CISOs in streamlining the risk, regulatory and compliance demands. According to Burgess Cooper, AVP, Information Security, Vodafone Essar, “Compliance means putting the right systems and processes in place and the ability to respond faster during any crisis. It’s also worthy to note that most of the compliance will have around 40-50% of parameters and aspects common among them. A unified compliance framework that will handle mandatory and obligatory compliance needs will make the security processes much easier and efficient for the enterprise.”

Future of Standards So what does the future hold for security standards? Some of the standards that CISOs and the Indian industry need to watch out for are ISO 38500 for IT governance, ISO 31000 for risk management and ISO 27005 for security risk management standard.

An ever-increasing reliance on IT based information systems, which are becoming more complex and integrated A significant increase in the number and scale of threats to applications, computers and networks, which are in turn often based on rapidly changing technology Continual discovery of vulnerabilities in existing and new technology, which if exploited, can have significant business implications Organisations’ requirements for improved effectiveness and productivity of systems and staff, while reducing costs Increased focus on the need to comply with increasing legal and regulatory requirements (such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Basel II and Privacy or Data Protection legislation) The growing drive to meet major information security-related standards, such as ISO/IEC 27002, ITIL, PCI-DSS, COBIT A general lack of awareness and key skills, expertise and other resources in many important areas of the organisation.

ISO/IEC 38500:2008 or ISO 38500 standard draws upon a number of sources, which defines six principles (establish responsibilities, plan to best support the organisation, acquire validly,

ensure performance when required, ensure conformance with rules, ensure respect for human factors). It is intended to provide guiding principles to any organisation, regardless of size or sector. It provides guiding principles for directors of any organisation (including owners, board members, directors, partners, senior executives) on the effective, efficient, and acceptable use of information technology within their organisations. Sameer J Ratolikar, CISO, Bank of India, suggests that CISOs should have rationale in implementing any standard. If securing processes for some critical department is the objective, then ISO 27002 should be the way to protect card holder information opt for PCI-DSS. Similarly, for call centers and helpdesks, setting up ITIL will add value. Finally, to the know value of IT investment, dashboard of IT project implementation, opting COBIT is the way out. The point is that either ways, following one or multiple standards as such does not take an enterprise towards zero risk or incident. It is in practicing correct risk and incident management processes and procedures irrespective of the standard used that add and contribute to the enterprise brand value. While it may be true that some standards may improve compliance and risk levels but it is the effectiveness of implementation with continuous and relentless review and improvements that will finally lead to control various incidents and threats. Courtesy: CTO Forum

TECHNOTOUCH

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

STORY ROI Based on the experience from the initial BI rollout, companies should plan for a business-unit and cross-function projects.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Implementation Framework

It is very important to analyse and choose the correct stakeholders in a BI implementation BY ALEC SMITH

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intelligence tools to help “enlighten” businesses enough to purchase their products. However, a software solution is only as good as the implementation process conducted to leverage the full functionality of the BI tool. The road map for a BI solution, much like any other IT solution, is to start with who has issues that a new solution can address. The ‘who’ needs to be specifically identified. BI tools are successful in providing insight to operations, hence, functional areas or business units. If the BI rollout is the first of its kind for a company, it’s best to focus on functional areas rather than business units, as they tend to perform specific operations and are easier to define, conceptualise and measure. Based on the experience and lessons learned

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PHOTOS: PHOTOS.COM

OLUTION PROVIDERS POSITION business

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TECHNO TOUCH

from the initial BI rollout, plan for a business-unit and a cross-function project, as this level is more about decision making and strategy than process improvement. After the functional area(s) have been identified, the next level is to determine who will use or has use for a BI tool. Generally, the lower the job position, the greater the need for operational transactional data. As the job position moves up organisationally, the greater is the need for summarised information. Companies need to determine which level of the organisation will benefit from a BI tool. Basic inquiries should be examined at each level to discover BI opportunities. Determining what information offers the most value is fundamental to the process. This step is crucial to finding value in a BI tool. It needs to be patiently performed, diving into the details, asking lots of questions and is best conducted by people with deep understanding of the business. BI reporting is broken down into three distinct segments of measures, dimensions and level of detail. Measures are the quantifiable values of a business such as total sales and volume of product sold for a given period. Dimensions describe measures. A common way to describe dimensions is to think of measures by something such as sales by product line, sales by region, sales by quarter and so on. Consider which dimensions are critical and then associate measures with them. Each functional area has its unique dimensions. Take the time to identify all potential dimensions. Identifying measures and dimensions is a business exercise to gain insight into the business to look for opportunities,

If the BI rollout is the first of its kind for a company, it’s best to focus on functional areas rather than business units, as they tend to perform specific operations. Business questions are important while implementing BI. to improve, to pinpoint inefficiencies and to spot trends both positive and negative. Therefore, business questions need to be asked such as what are the margins for a particular product line? What is the ratio of won deals to lost deals for a particular sale rep? Once the list of business questions has been documented, translating them into measures and dimensions is relatively easy. Depending on the completeness of the business questions, a library of measures and dimensions will develop. It might be surprising how creative business questions will bring to surface more measures and dimensions then thought possible. Don’t dismiss any metric as irrelevant, as they might lead to new measures and dimensions that might not have been thought of without making that left turn. The preliminary list of measures and dimensions should be documented in a spreadsheet so to allow the ability to rank and sort each combination as each metric is reviewed and prioritised. Once the combinations of measures and dimensions have been identified, the next step is to screen them and grade their plausibility. At this point, its time to bring in the technical team to transition theoretical wants to practical terms, as some metrics may not be programmatically possible. For example, can data from different

sources be joined where a single data source does not contain the necessary fields? Grading the library of metrics for a given functional area should be based on the degree to which the library is actionable, materially impacting and whether the metric is tactical or strategic. Based on being actionable, will the BI tool generate a material impact if actions are preformed from the information provided by the BI tool, and finally - will the BI tool impact short term operational results or generate competitive advantage for strategic planning? As the library of measures and dimensions were listed in a spreadsheet, the three criteria as well should be entered into a spreadsheet to facilitate grading. List the criteria across the columns with the functional areas on the rows and apply a ‘high,’ ‘low,’ ‘strategic’ and ‘tactical’ value to each applicable column. Depending on the outcome of this grading, the proposed BI tool may or may not generate the expected value. If not, additional brainstorming sessions can be held with a new set of participants with a fresh point of view or the initiative can be canceled if the stakeholders warrant it. Alec Smith is VP- Projects at SWK Technologies, Inc. US Courtesy – CTO Forum

FOCUS PORTABLE HARD DRIVES

15-20% The growth rate of the portable hard drive market (which is 1.5 to 2 times the PC growth).

“We’ll expand in 2.5 & 3.5-inch segment.” - Ramesh

Raajamani, Business Development Manager, Hitachi India

Quick Take

Evolution of hard disk drives - A timeline

In 1956, IBM invented the first computer disk storage system, the 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control). In 1980, Seagate Technology introduced the first hard disk drive for microcomputers, the ST506. In 1997, Seagate introduced the first 7,200 RPM, Ultra ATA hard disk drive for desktop computers. In 2007, the first 1 TB hard drive was launched by Hitachi GST - Deskstar 7K1000.

“Consumers want things faster. They don’t want to spend forever accessing their content.” KHALID WANI, SALES DIRECTOR, WESTERN DIGITAL

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STORAGE ON THE MOVE

With the proliferation of digital content, the portable hard drive market is moving ahead at a steady rate BY SANDHYA MALHOTRA THE HARD DISK drive market in India is experiencing a substantial growth, with 3.5-inch drives continuing to make up the majority of shipments. Increasingly, consumers are opting for high-performance drives with extremely high capacities. The industry is maturing and moving away from a low-capacity, price-conscious market to greater demand for higher capacity, performance and throughput from HDDs. According to Rajesh Khurana, Country Manager – India and SAARC, Seagate Technology, “We are focusing more on bringing hard drives that provide the best combination of security, data protection, simplicity, capacity, speed and reliability.

Besides this, the product design is also very important. Consumer products are very personal. So, the external hard disk drives should look good and stylish, so that it represents a personal style statement.”

Market size As per an industry analyst, the portable hard drive market has been growing at a steady rate of 15-20% growth (1.5 to 2 times the PC growth), but it still remains under served. Penetration of external HDD is too low at less than 10% of the annual market of PC shipment. In fact, the market has a huge potential, as consumers’ awareness about

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PORTABLE HARD DRIVES FOCUS

data backup has increased. For these reasons, manufacturers have drastically brought down prices of personal storage devices over the past couple of years. All these factors have resulted in an ideal market for Indian buyers, thereby driving demand and consumption of portable hard drive.

storage product line. There is a specific focus to build business volumes with LFRs and help them deliver on this new category of business which has a promising potential in the future. We are currently working closely with LFRs like Croma, Reliance Digital, etc.”

New innovations

Portable storage is a robust market and is set for continued growth. As USB 3.0 becomes available on more and more 2.5” products, both are slated to become industry standards. Wani points, “In the long run, leading brands will consolidate their distribution structure and start interacting with the end consumer more directly. Also, improved features and functions such as auto-back up, recovery, cloud connect, etc., as well as allowing end users the ability to easily access and share their stored media, will be a major differentiating point for consumers, which will become increasingly important as time goes by.” Consumers are looking for what the storage product can do for them beyond just raw storage capacity. Network Attached Storage (NAS) and connectivity will be the main area of focus for manufacturers. The adoption of Ethernet ports on electronic devices like TV, gaming consoles, etc will provide a way to store and access this data from different locations and with different devices. Moreover, cloud storage for consumers will also take a positive turn, storing data online, preventing data loss and many more such technological changes that will create space for the utility of external hard drives.

Innovation is not just focused on higher capacities in smaller form factors. Key innovations that are shaping the portable segment are in the area of ‘utility.’ For instance, newer interfaces like USB 3.0 and FireWire are being offered in portable drives that make them suitable for Mac users, creative professionals, or for any consumer who demands faster data transfer. According to Khalid Wani, Sales director, Branded products, India, Middle East & Africa , Western Digital, “Consumers want things faster. They have more and more content that they want to share and use, and they do not want to spend forever accessing it.” “We plan to capitalize on the growth anticipated in 3.5 inch consumer electronics areas like DVR/set top boxes and surveillance applications. Hence, we will expand in the 2.5-inch segment and continue to grow our presence in the 3.5-inch segment,” says Ramesh Raajamani, Business Development Manager, Hitachi India. “Partners need to keep them abreast of the latest trends. Today, a number of partners are taking an interest in selling portable hard drives, since the drives are very easy to deploy, with management and backup features,” says Delhi based Manoj Gupta, Director, and Fortune Marketing.

Future roadmap

“WE ARE FOCUSING MORE ON BRINGING HARD DRIVES THAT PROVIDE THE BEST COMBINATION OF SECURITY, DATA PROTECTION, SIMPLICITY, CAPACITY, SPEED AND RELIABILITY.”

RAJESH KHURANA, COUNTRY MANAGER – INDIA AND SAARC, SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY

Scope for channel partners The growth of the portable hard drive sector has made it an extremely competitive market, with resellers and retailers having to think carefully about which brands they back. According to Praveen Sahai, Director of Sales - India & SAARC, Iomega, “We have 4 distributors in India – Venktron, Neoteric, Beetel and Redington. While Beetel is focused on the B2C segment, Redington helps us in the B2B segment with a specific focus on the network

sandhya.malhotra@9dot9.in

FOCUS CLOUD COMPUTING

WELCOMING BY DHIMAN CHATTOPADHYAY

Three different surveys indicate that CFOs and CIOs across Indian firms are keen to adopt cloud computing services even if it means increased spends.

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The Cloud ONE BILLION DOLLARS. That is what crystal ball gazers expect the size of the nascent cloud computing market in India to be by 2014. While the billion dollar figure may sound disconcerting to those heading the finance functions of their firms, since this will mean a not so insignificant re-organisation of the annual budget, studies and surveys carried out by at least three independent agencies seem to confirm that Chief Financial Officers (CFO) and Chief Information Officers (CIO) of over 70% of Indian companies are keen to see this new technology being adopted. Surveys carried out by Ernst & Young, Gartner and Zinnove Management Consulting over the past two months, have come to more or less the same conclusion: that an overwhelming majority of CIOs have given a thumbs up to the platform where software applications and related

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CLOUD COMPUTING FOCUS

EYEING THE CLOUD PIE 81% of Indian CIOs are familiar with cloud computing concepts. 72% of of Indian CFOs and CIOs cited data privacy and security issues as a concern area for their business while adopting cloud computing services. 58% consider the ability to focus on core activities and usage based payments as the top business benefits of cloud computing services. 92% of India CFOs and CIOs want to buy cloud services from data centre service providers and IT systems integrators. 39% of finance function heads said they allocated IT budget to cloud computing as a key initiative for their organisation.

resources can be shared online. Interestingly, the surveys also come to another similar conclusion - that cost is not the decisive factor for adoption of cloud computing in a company. “India’s cloud computing market is expected to be around USD 1 billion over the next five years,” a spokesperson for consulting firm Zinnov Management said, commenting on the study findings. The cloud computing platform is expected to mainly benefit enterprise SMBs, SOHOs and consumer segments. The results of an unrelated survey, carried out this September by Ernst & Young, agreed that over 72% of India’s IT infrastructure companies are set to adopt cloud computing in a big way over the next 2-3 years and that at least 81% of CIOs were already familiar with cloud computing concepts. The study, titled “Cloud adoption in India - Infrastructure as a Service

(IaaS)”, is based on interviews with 50 CIOs and CFOs from leading SMBs, enterprises and IaaS ecosystem players. According to Milan Sheth, Partner, Technology Advisory Practice, Ernst & Young, “Virtualisation, often seen as the first step in a cloud strategy, has begun to be more widely implemented across data centres, and this could contribute to a rapid implementation of IaaS in India. The ongoing impact of open source, the whole concept of IaaS meeting the cloud, will prove to be a major trend for cloud adoption in India. High awareness levels and the positive perception of cloud indicate a market that will see robust growth rates in the next two years.” While moving to a cloud computing platform will mean greater efficiency and accuracy in data storage and address security concerns, it will also obviously mean higher costs, at least in

the short-run. A global survey published in August by Gartner noted that cloudcomputing services consumed from External Service Providers (ESPs) are estimated to be 10.2% of the spending on external IT services for firms. From April through July 2010, Gartner surveyed 1,587 respondents in 40 countries to understand general IT spending trends and spending on key initiatives such as cloud computing. 484 respondents participated in the drill-down on cloud computing and were asked how their organisation’s current budget for cloud computing was distributed, as well as what their estimate was for spending next year. “The cloud market is evolving rapidly, with 39% of survey respondents worldwide indicating they allocated IT budget to cloud computing as a key initiative for their organisation,” said Bob Igou, Research Director at Gartner. “One-third of the spending on cloud computing is a continuation from the previous budget year, a further third is incremental spending that is new to the budget, and 14% is spending that was diverted from a different budget category in the previous year,” he added. 46% of respondents with budget allocated to cloud computing indicated they planned to increase the use of cloud services from external providers. Gartner analysts said there was a clear shift toward the “utility” approach for non-core services, and increased investment in core functionality, often closely aligned with competitive differentiation. With both the manufacturing and the service sectors doing relatively well in the previous two quarters and with India’s growth story on track, CFOs should set aside a tidy sum in the budget for this purpose, so that they are part of the ‘cloud revolution’ when it finally does happen. Courtesy:- CFO India

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EVENT NETWORKING Channel initiatives

Offering New Opportunities

Brocade announced a host of new partner initiatives and services during its annual Asia Pacific Partner Summit 2010 in Bali, Indonesia BY JATINDER SINGH

MEDIAPERSONS GEARING UP FOR THE SUMMIT

KEEPING IN MIND the rapid shift in technology and rising demand of service driven purchase from buyers, Brocade—a networking solution provider, has unveiled a slew of new services and support programmes to boost the profitability of its channel partners across Asia pacific. The announcement was made during its second Asia Pacific Partner Summit 2010 hosted at Bali, Indonesia, recently. The summit saw the launch of the APAC version of the newly updated Alliance Partner Network Programme (APN) along with the revamped professional services (PSP) and Support Delivery Programmes

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(SDP). The company said that the changes are in line with its strategy to better the support and needs of partners, so that they could help their customers make the transition towards network convergence.

PSP programme has been launched to enable channel partners to retain all potential revenue generated from the sale of professional service offering.

Among the new initiatives, the PSP programme has been introduced to enable channel partners to retain all potential revenue generated from the sale of professional service offering. The company informs that the programme is open to all of its APN partners of Elite or Premier status who fulfill a set of programme requirements that include completion of standard industry certifications and compliance with on site audits. Also, the revamped SDP programme has been transitioned to a value based model with simplified discount and rebate calculations that operate on a pay-for-performance scale. The SDP programme is designed to aid partners to deliver scalable support services for IP products. Brocade expects that its revamped programmes would attract core specialization and certification from its partner base. “The certifications would assist partners to deliver a better service to the end user, hence creating a differentiating factor from all of our competitors,” said KP Unnikrishnan, Marketing Director, APAC for Brocade. The networking player has further declared to reward those partners who will develop and invest in practices to address new technology trends such as virtualisation, network convergence and cloud computing, under its optimized APN network. The company though emphasized that it will continue to provide direct support in all the major implementations, to all of its clients. “The qualified partners will also receive access to Brocade’s tools and resources, which will help them promote and sell these offerings,” informed Unnikrishnan. The company is expected to launch a series of collaboration tools, including Global Partner Locator, a product configuration tool and a partner syndication tool within the next five months. The tools will aid and assist partners to sell and share information about Broacade’s products and services with customers in a cost effective way.

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NETWORKING EVENT

Driving new goals The company expects to pump in significant investment in its India R&D efforts to improve its market share in IP based products. “In India, we have a high focus to build a portfolio of SAN partners and have an interest in another group of larger IP partners, largely Cisco houses,” said Unnikrishnan. It is important to recall that in its effort to expand the data centre capability, Brocade, in 2008, had acquired the US based network switching and router player Foundry Networks. “We are now in a much better position to address the customer’s demand than any of our competitors,” said Deb Dutta, Brocade Communications’ Vice President – APAC. In June this year, Brocade had introduced Brocade one, the unifying network architecture and strategy that simplifies the complexity of virtualising applications and enables the migration to a world where information and

DELEGATES AT THE SUMMIT

services are available anywhere in the cloud. “Our tagline is - ‘The entire network is your data centre’. If you think about that statement, it has two implications: one is that the entire network is actually impacted by this transition that is happening and ultimately, we’ll

have to deal with how well customers’ solutions operate and how agile their IT system is,” said John McHugh, the Chief Marketing Officer for Brocade Communications. jatinder.singh@9dot9.in

ANALYSTCONNECT

Desktop PC sales accounted for nearly two-thirds of total PC sales at 16.7 lakh units, representing a 15% increase year-on-year.

IDC: India overall PC sales grow to 27.9 lakh units in Q2, 2010; high growth indicates strong economic recovery 27.9 lakh units during the July-September 2010 quarter, recording a 27% year-on-year (July-September 2010 over July-September 2009) and an 18% quarter-on-quarter (July-September 2010 over April-June 2010) increase. Desktop PC sales accounted for nearly two-thirds of total PC sales at 16.7 lakh units, representing a 15% increase year-on-year (July-September 2010 over July-September 2009). The sales of notebook computers grew at 52% year-on-year (July-September 2010 over July-September 2009), to cross 11.1 lakh units for the quarter. In the overall PC (notebooks and desktops combined) market, Dell retained the market leadership with an increased market share of 16.7% while both HP (13.7%) and Acer (10.6%) retained the second and third spots respectively, albeit with reduced market shares. In terms of desktop PC sales, Dell clinched the top position for the first time in the Indian PC market, with a

ILLUSTRATION: ANIL T

OVERALL INDIA PC market sales touched

share of 9.8%, followed by HP and Acer in second and third spots, respectively during 3Q 2010. For the notebook PC, Dell retained its position on the top with a market share of 27% in 3Q 2010; HP and Acer remained at the second and third places, respectively. “Normally, the July-September quarter shows a sales growth driven by both the consumer and commercial segments. A double-digit sequential

INDIA PC SALES (LAKHS OF UNITS) BY FORM FACTOR* AND GROWTH TRENDS Form Factor

3Q 2009 (Jul-Sep 2009)

2Q 2010 (Apr-Jun 2010)

3Q 2010 (Jul-Sep 2010)

Growth (3Q 2010 over 2Q 2010)

Growth (3Q 2010 over 3Q 2009)

Desktop PC’s

14.6

15.6

16.7

15%

Notebook PC’s

7.3

8.1

11.1

38%

52%

Total PC

21.9

23.7

27.9

18%

27%

Dateline: July-September 2010 vs. April-June 2010 and July-September 2010 vs. July-September 2009 *SOURCE: IDC’s India Quarterly PC Tracker, 3Q 2010, November 2010

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growth of 18% in overall India PC sales in 3Q 2010, points to the strength of the economic recovery and an increasingly positive consumer sentiment,” states Anirban Banerjee, Associate Vice President, Research, IDC India. “Large enterprises responded to the improving global economic cues by ramping up IT infrastructure spending, resulting in overall improved traction, particularly for desktop PCs. With the momentum likely to continue in 4Q 2010, the release of revised rate contracts for government sector buying should further bolster the prospects of the commercial PC segment”, states Sumanta Mukherjee, Lead PC Analyst, IDC India. “However, the rate of growth of mini notebook PC shipments dipped marginally in 3Q 2010. This points to the need for vendors to add more functionalities to cater to evolving consumer demand”, Sumanta concluded. editor@digitchannelconnect.com

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