SME Channels September 12 issue

PLUS

Trend Micro Partners with Nevales /24

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 07 | PAGES 76 | SEPTEMBER 2012 | RS. 20/-

LEADERS CORNER HP: Secure Imaging and Printing

/56

SME CHAT

/64

IBM: “Doing More For Less”

TREND SETTER

/32

Dell: Dell to Open SonicWall Business to its Partners

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PLUS

Trend Micro Partners with Nevales /24

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 07 | PAGES 76 | SEPTEMBER 2012 | RS. 20/-

LEADERS CORNER

/56

HP: Secure Imaging and Printing

SME CHAT

/64

IBM: “Doing More For Less”

TREND SETTER

/32

Dell: Dell to Open SonicWall Business to its Partners

BC/DR NUMBER ONE

PRIORITY FOR THE SMES

Data is power today. But the mind numbing rate at which it is exploding is posing innumerable challenges in the way of management and protection. /40

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MOBILE DEVICES DRIVE EXTERNAL STORAGE MARKET /48

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PLUS

LG Launches Display Solutions for B2B /22 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 07 | PAGES 76 | SEPTEMBER 2012 | RS. 20/-

CASE STUDY

SME TREND

/62

Tally: Indian Tea Company Runs on Tally.ERP 9

/26

Fujitsu: “Want to Take Depth and Breadth Approach”

SME TREND

/30

Shyam: To Act As An End-To-End Technology Solution Provider

MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL

FDI IN RETAIL – AN OPPORTUNITY! SANJAY MOHAPATRA editor@smechannels.com

IN THE END, the much awaited 51% FDI on the multi-brand retail has been allowed by the

government. Along with this, FDI in the aviation sector has also been allowed. When people in the political circle see it as a cover up for the Coalgate and other scams of the government, but the underline fact is that it is surely a good sign for the dwindling economic growth of the country.

From the overall finance market perspective, there is a big flow opportunity of investment to the country which will allow the market to move up. Millions of people will be employed and India could have access to the products available in global market. So the liquidity of money will be faster than before.

From the IT perspective, the FDI in retail market will open up another large avenue of products’ outlet. There will be great push in the servers, storage, peripherals, access, software and services market. Every brand of retail will have their own infrastructure including storage and server. The data centre market will get a great push. Today if we are moving slow on the cloud space, with the infrastructure development in the retail, cloud market will also have a new look. There will be tremendous growth in the supply chain management, enterprise resource planning, customers relationship management, etc. So along with the MNC companies, the home grown software and integration companies will be benefited out of it.

Secondly, FDI on the aviation is one more good news. Today, airlines industry including the domestic career AIR India, Kingfisher, etc. will have a good time. They will have funds to extend their services in domestic as well as international locations. In addition to this, many companies will foray into the aviation industry. This will have also direct impact on the growth of the IT market and over all GDP of the country.

Apart from the employment of people, the infrastructure including new airports will be set up. It will involve a lot of IT, so again the opportunity of growth. But! Yes politics is politics, the opposition party and the allies within the UPA government have started reacting strongly to the government node to the FDI citing the reason that it will hamper the interest of the domestic industry. So it all depends upon the government’s decision along with the political willingness.

One must understand that these retail chains will surely source from the Indian Farmers and MSMEs. Their produces or products will get justified rate.

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Techcom Notebook CoolerSSD LCP 769 TODAY, notebook is being used extensively – virtually every location and for a long period of time. This has necessitated the users to use accessories to keep the notebook run for a longer period. So, one can tra one of Techcom’s Notebook Coolers, the SSD LCP 769, for keeping the notebook really cool. It has 13x13 cm silent LED cooling fan to maximize notebook’s performance.

It is designed with special refinement construction and it can bear any weight of laptop without affecting the performance of the laptop. It can be powered directly through USB port and require no power adapter.

It prevents all sorts of undesired symptoms caused by overheating as claimed by the company.

SPECIFICATIONS It fits laptop size: 9-14 inches and fan dimension is only 130x130x15 mm FINAL WORDING Priced at Rs.300, SSD LCP 769 is not at all a bad deal. One can really try to see the efficacy.

OVERALL RATING

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contents

SEPT VOLUME 03 ISSUE 07

2012

ER COV RY STO

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Assistant Editor: Karma Negi Reporters: Aparajita Choudhury Executive Editor: Smruti Chaudhury Copy Editor: Neil D’Souza Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Satya Sagar Sinha Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Senior Manager: M Raj Marketing Executive: Rajat Kumar Circulation and Printing: Panchanan Bhoi SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016 Phone: 91-11-41055458 / 9313891660 E-mail: raj@smechannels.com Bangalore Subrat S NO.661, 10th Main, 5th cross, 4th Block, Koramangala, Behind Old Maharaja, Bangalore-560034 Phone: 9886107294 E-mail:info@smechannels.com Mumbai Hemal Shah B/14, Neel Ashish 92, J.P.road, Andheri (West) Mumbai - 400058 E-mail: info@smechannels.com

BC/DR: Number One Priority for the SMEs

Kolkata S Subhendu

Data is power today. But the mind numbing rate at which it is exploding is posing innumerable challenges in the way of management and protection. Hence not only does data storage have a key role to play here but so do back-up and data recovery.

EDITORIAL OFFICE

/40

BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101 Phone: 9674804389

Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 editor@smechannels.com Bangalore 136/ 9, Ground Floor, Eden Crest Apartment, Grape Garden, Ejipura

SME CHAT WD /36

“We Have Always Been Innovating Products”

ACER /60

“Acer has Customised Products to Address SME segment.”

IBM /64

“Doing More For Less”

more inside

TREND SETTER HP /56

Secure Imaging and Printing

8

Bengalore-560047 edit@smechannels.com

Editorial~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06 Snippets~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~10 Partner Corner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 34, 63 Case Study~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 62

Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mohapatra Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya

Trend Setter~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 26, 32, 68

Park, Hauz Khas

SME Trends~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 28, 30

New Delhi-110016

Security Corner~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 70, 74

Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458

Products~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 72

Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi

VDA /66

“Based on the Customers’ Pain Points we Come out with Solutions”

Vivek Nagar PS

110020, India.

PLUS

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without the prior written permission from the publisher.

FEATURE: Mobile Devices

Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues)

Drive External Storage Market /48

Media Pvt. Ltd.

All payments favouring: Accent Info

SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

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SNIPPETS PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

for more log on to smechannels.com

Dell to Offer ERP on Cloud Dell announced its strategic alliance with Ramco Systems to deliver Ramco’s ERP-as-a-service on Cloud to help midmarket businesses execute cost and operational efficiencies and accelerate revenue growth. The new offering strengthens Dell’s growing portfolio of Software-as-a-Service (Saas) solutions that help organizations

manage and grow their business.

Ramco’s ERP on Cloud supports businesses with wide functionalities across various industry segments, including production planning, asset management, and analytics along with regular corporate functionalities of HR, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM),

and financial management. The solution is designed to ensure quick adoption and time-to-value.

The Ramco ERP-as-a-service on Cloud solution allows midmarket enterprises ease of adopting evergreen, feature rich business applications with significant cost and management advantages.

Additionally, the solution offers

customers unique features like tools for personalizing applications to suit their requirements, architecture enabling co-existence and integration with other business applications, and compatibility on various mobility platforms.

“Ramco has strong expertise and a successful track record of delivering ERP-as-a-service on Cloud for the midmarket, particularly in emerging markets like India and the Middle East,” said Suresh Vaswani, Executive Vice President and Global Head, Applications & BPO, Dell Services and Chairman, Dell India. “This partnership resonates with Dell’s focus and strategy to create solutions for scale using our midmarket design philosophy and reiterates our commitment to our midmarket customers globally.”

Ramco’s Vice Chairman & Managing Director, P.R.Venketrama Raja said, “We are very excited about this partnership with Dell.

It will help us leverage our strong positioning in the enterprise segment for midmarket segments globally. Our solution has been architected on next-generation platforms and leverages latest technology trends. We are confident that its proliferation and adoption will significantly increase with this partnership with Dell.”

HP Labs celebrates 10 years in India HP is celebrating the 10th anniversary of HP Labs in India. Established in February 2002, HP Labs focuses on creating technology and solutions that help bridge the digital divide by enabling access to IT using intuitive and natural computing solutions and novel technology and business paradigms.

Some of the notable achievements include the first-ever effort to create world class handwriting recognition, speech recognition and speech synthesis technologies for Indian languages, which aimed to address the language barrier in India to IT adoption. In 2007, Lipi Toolkit, a toolkit to simplify the creation of handwriting recognition for phonetic based scripts and released by HP as open source averaged over 30,000 downloads per month.

Other key pilots and concepts announced during the last decade include Gesture Keyboard, TVPrintcast, Vayu, Personalized Video, VideoBook, etc.

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Team Computers is Google Apps’ Premier Reseller

McAfee Rewards Rakshak Partners

Team Computers announced it has become a premier enterprise reseller of the Google Apps suite of communication and collaboration tools. This new designation from Google enables customers to easily assess a reseller’s expertise advising on and deploying Google products stated the company.

The company informed that it has moved from an Authorized to a Premier Reseller based on their expertise and successes in helping customers deploy and use Google Apps. Team Computers offers Google apps products which complement the core suite to meet users’ needs, with access to dozens more Google applications as per the company’s press release.

The Google Apps Reseller program includes companies globally that sell, service and customize Google Apps for Business for their customers.

McAfee India has rolled out its latest reward scheme exclusive for partners of the McAfee RAKSHAK Retailer Program. A registered McAfee Rakshak partner can win cash prizes and accumulate points that can be exchanged for a host of exciting gifts such as Bajaj Pulsar bike, diamond jewellery, Apple iPad, international holidays and lot more.

The offer is valid until the 29th of September 2012 on any purchase of McAfee’s 2012 consumer product range: McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2012, McAfee Internet Security 2012 and McAfee Total Protection 2012. Partners can accumulate McAfee Rakshak points on every transaction and win a reward right from a minimum purchase of Rs 7500 to a maximum amount of Rs 3, 00,000.

To avail this scheme, register yourself as a McAfee RAKSHAK retailer on http://www.mcafeerakshak.com/promotions.

iValue Appointed National VAD iValue InfoSolutions has been signed-up as national VAD for Propalms Networks. Sunil Pillai, Co-founder and MD, iValue InfoSolutions, said, “We see tremendous synergy and opportunity at both customer and channel for application delivery, VDI and remote access offerings. Propalms solutions are high on relevance and affordable. This signup will help our partners maximize their wallet share at each of their customers.”

Propalms Network is a provider of application delivery and secure remote access solutions for terminal services, application virtualization and virtual desktop infrastructures.

ViewSonic Initiates Monsoon Scheme ViewSonic has announced its monsoon scheme for the channel partners/Finch club members for Projector product category.

The offer gives opportunity to the Finch club members for an oversea trip in order to reward their excellent achievement in projector sales as claimed by the company.

Kuldeep Ramaiya, Country Manager, ViewSonic India, said, “Today projectors are not only used as a Business unit but also an essential part of the Education system and a home entertainment and gaming solution.

Projectors are used in India in a big way in the education sector for schools & professional institutes. ViewSonic has been aggressively focusing on Projector business in India. That’s why we are investing in channel friendly support programs. This scheme will reward the Finch Club members with highest points acquired by purchasing ViewSonic Projectors.

The scheme will include overseas trip and lot more attractive prizes”.

Sandeep Jain, MD, Aveco and National Distributor of ViewSonic Projectors, commented, “ViewSonic has been aggressively expanding its channel base in India and we really appreciate its initiatives to support the channel partners.”

Pratik Chube Passes Away MY POINT

“India is a strategic market for Google, and we will continue to invest in other capacity building initiative through our existing Google Engage platform.”

RAJAN ANANDAN

MANAGING DIRECTOR & VP SALES, GOOGLE INDIA

Pratik Chube, GM – Products at Emerson Network Power passes away. With his demise, the Indian IT industry has certainly lost an able leader.

Expressing his condolence, Sunil Khanna, President and MD, Emerson Network Power in India, said, “We at Emerson Network Power deeply mourn the untimely demise of our beloved friend and colleague Pratik Chube. On behalf of the entire management and staff of Emerson, I extend my sincere condolences to Pratik’s wife and son as they struggle through this time of shock and grief.”

He added, “Pratik was a respected leader, trusted employee and a true champion of our brand. During his six years of dedicated service at Emerson, his intellect and ethics made him a treasured manager. He was fair and professional in his work responsibilities, and was in turn respected by colleagues, associates and peers in the industry.”

Pratik was a corporate champion for Emerson Network Power and also played a very active role in encouraging change at the workplace.

He has left behind some very close friends here at Emerson, who will deeply miss his advice, creativity and passion.

In his long career, he had worked in various roles in various organizations including Emerson Network Power, Videocon, Philips, Tech Pacific, etc.

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Smartlink celebrated Freedom Fest Every year, Smartlink celebrates Independence Day with its annual cultural program “Smartlink Freedom Fest” which ensures participation from all the functions/departments. Freedom fest is a fun-filled activity, which comprises of various physical and intellectual activities. Few of the popular games this year were Chess, Carom, Arm Wrestling, Quiz, Dart Board, tug of war and the star attraction was Smartlink Master Chef competition Other eye catching attraction was traditional day, where each floor represented one region of the country.

The main reason behind this fun filled activity is to create healthy relationships (interdepartmental and within departments) and to maintain harmony amongst all the departments. This in turn results in smooth functioning of the company.

SERVER MARKET REVENUE DECLINES 2.9% In the second quarter of 2012, worldwide server shipments grew 1.4 percent over the second quarter of 2011, while revenue declined 2.9 percent year-on-year, according to Gartner, Inc. “The slight unit growth for the second quarter of 2012 was contrasted by a decline in revenue on a global level with geographic variations continuing to be shown based on the ongoing differences in economic conditions by region,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, Research VP, Gartner. “In terms of revenue growth, only Asia/Pacific and the United States produced growth for the quarter—all other regions declined.”

From the regional standpoint, the United States grew the most significantly in shipments with 8.4 percent increase. The United States also posted the highest vendor revenue growth at 6.5 percent for the period.

HP had the lead for the quarter in the worldwide server market based on revenue. The company posted worldwide server vendor revenue of $3.7 billion for a total share of 29.1 percent for the second quarter of 2012 HP’s ProLiant brand was the most significant revenue contributor to its server product lines at 85.4 percent of its total server revenue for the second quarter.

AGC Achieves Microsoft Recognition AGC Networks has attained the ‘Microsoft Gold Partnership – Communications’ competency.

Outlining the process, AGC shared that to earn a Microsoft Gold Partnership competency, partners must successfully complete exams (resulting in Microsoft Certified Professionals) to prove their level of technology expertise, and then designate these certified professionals uniquely to one Microsoft competency, ensuring a certain level of staffing capacity. They also must submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects (along with implementing a yearly customer satisfaction study) and pass technology and/or sales assessments. All of the above was successfully showcased by AGC towards achieving this competency.

Fujitsu India to Post Double Digit Growth Japanese information and communication technology company Fujitsu India is looking at a double digit growth this fiscal as well. “Fujitsu in India last year grew by 73% in terms of revenues, and our server and storage were the main drivers of this growth. We started focusing on the client side at a later stage and saw some growth coming at the end of the year from WPS side. Our main growth drivers for that was x86 servers,” said Mark Wilson, MD, Fujitsu India. Last year the IT service giant posted revenue of US $ 55 billion worldwide.

The IT company is also trying to increase its reach and depth not only in the four metros comprising of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, but other cities as well.

openSUSE 12.2 is Now Available openSUSE Project has announced the general availability of openSUSE 12.2. The latest release delivers a reliable, modern and easy to use multi-purpose operating system with improved performance and a polished user experience on top of an evolved infrastructure. The company informed that openSUSE 12.2 is the latest Linux distribution from the openSUSE project allowing users and developers to benefit from free and open source software. Jos Poortvliet, openSUSE Community Manager for SUSE, said, “openSUSE 12.2 is the shining result of 10 months of global collaboration on Free Software. The community has again delivered an important update for this long-established Linux Distribution, finding that exciting sweet spot combining the cutting edge with dependability.”

Asian Paints Adopts SAP Mobile Platform SAP AG has announced that Asian Paints has achieved newfound business capabilities with the successful implementation of mobile solutions from SAP. Using the SAP mobile platform and the SAP Afari mobile device management solution, Asian Paints is the first SAP customer to extend the capabilities of SAP software onto the Android mobile platform to gain real-time visibility into business processes and empower its sales force with the best-fit technology to increase efficiency informed by the company.

Nevales in India’s Top 10 SaaS Startups Nevales Networks has been listed in the TechCircles’ Top 10 SaaSstartups in India.

Techcircle.in, shortlisted Nevales as India’s top 10 emerging SaaS companies. All the shortlisted companies had shown that can disrupt existing markets and most importantly they have a very high potential to make it big in the coming years as informed by the company.

The company’s press release said that softwareas-a-service (SaaS), both in terms of startup activity and as a tool for entrepreneurs to build low-cost businesses from scratch.

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*astTECS Extends Presence

EMERSON INTRODUCES ENERGY LOGIC 2.0

*astTECS is expanding operations in West Asia and its product line will be available in all the Middle East countries. The company informed that its products are feature rich, extremely versatile, flexible, customizable and scalable which would be primarily available in the Middle East region through a wide range of channel partners and VARs. *astTECS product range caters to the small and medium Call Centre operations to Enterprise wide applications. astTECS IP-PBX offers a wireless infrastructure and has GSM integration capabilities and offers features like IVR, ACD, Voice Logger, Multiparty conference, Voice mail & Inbuilt Video Conferencing system. astTECS solutions are tailored for enterprises across all categories like IT & ITES, Retail and Manufacturing apart from small and mid size companies.

Levis Wilson, COO, *astTECS, said, “*astTECS presence in the Middle East region is in line with our global expansion strategy, and this initiative is aimed at strengthening the company’s presence in markets that are growing rapidly by providing product sales and Asterisk support & solutions to an expanding base of customers and partners.”

Emerson Network Power has introduced Energy Logic 2.0, a vendor-neutral roadmap of 10 strategies that can reduce a data center’s energy use by up to 74 percent.

The approach, detailed in a new e-book, updates the original Energy Logic, introduced in 2007, to incorporate the advances in technology and best practices that have emerged in the past five years. The company also launched the Energy Logic 2.0 Cascading Savings Calculator, an online tool that allows data center managers to calculate the approximate energy savings they would capture by employing strategies in the updated approach.

With the inclusion of new technologies and best practices, Energy Logic 2.0 illustrates how the energy consumption of a 5,000 square-foot data center could be cut by up to 74 percent using available technologies.

“Jack Pouchet, VP (Business Development) and Director of energy initiatives for Emerson Network Power said, “Energy efficiency remains a priority, and a new generation of management technologies that provide greater visibility and control of data center systems has arrived. The data center industry is better positioned than ever to make a serious impact in reducing overall data center energy consumption.”

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

INDIA PC MARKET POSTS 17% GROWTH IN Q2

SOCOMEC UPS India has appointed Olivier TREMOUILLE as Managing Director effective from 1st June 2012.

GARTNER DECLARED THAT THE COMBINED DESK-BASED AND MOBILE PC MARKET IN INDIA TOTALLED NEARLY 2.9 MILLION UNITS IN THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2012, A 17 PER CENT INCREASE OVER THE Q2 OF 2011.

Emerson’s Sunil Khanna Elevated as MD India. He will be responsible for directing and leading the organization to drive growth and

INDIA PC MARKET SHARE ESTIMATES FOR Q2 OF 2012 (% OF SHIPMENTS)

Dell

HCL

HP

profitability.

12.9

5.6

McAfee has appointed Anand Prahlad, currently VP of Engineering for Endpoint Security, to the role of Managing Director of Operations, McAfee India.

13.1 Acer

13.4

11.2

16.7

6.6 Others

38.4 12.1

43.0

16.6 10.4 Q1 2012

Lenovo

Q1 2011 Source: Gartner (August 2012)

Blue Coat Systems, Inc. has named Dr. Hugh Thompson as senior vice president and chief security strategist.

NetApp India announced the appointment of Ramanujam Komanduri as Director, Enterprise Business –NetApp India Marketing & Services Pvt Ltd.

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FIVE Ways to Boost sMB ProFItaBIlIty. Partner with McAfee and opportunities abound Millions of small and medium-sized enterprises are in search of a trusted security advisor. When you partner with the leader in digital security, you can take advantage of this tremendous growth opportunity.

Here are the top five reasons to say “yes” to partnering with McAfee: 1. Opportunity Increase deal opportunities in the growing SMB market when you partner with McAfee, the largest dedicated security technology company.

2. Flexible Solutions Offer your customers the most flexible security solutions for SMB—from SaaS to on-premise suites.

3. Profitability Start earning more, fast with up to 25% higher margins and lucrative McAfee SMB rewards programs, with quick and easy deal registration.

4. Program Address the needs of your SMB customers with a range of enablement tools, turnkey marketing programs, and exclusive profitability programs.

5. Breadth of Coverage Provide the right SMB solution for every customer need—email, web, endpoint, and mobile security—only with McAfee.

Need more reasons?

Learn more at www.mcafee.com/becomeapartner.

Copyright © 2012 McAfee, Inc. All rights reserved.

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SNIPPETS

Cisco, EMC Beef-up Cloud Offering

DIGEST

Cisco and EMC Corporation announced further collaboration to help accelerate IT transformation by providing customers with unrivaled choice and flexibility via “three paths to the cloud” — customdesign infrastructure, validated reference architectures, and pre-integrated converged infrastructure.

Building on a decade-long partnership, Cisco and EMC now provide enterprise and service provider customers with an unmatched menu of options to build cloud infrastructure. The “three paths to the cloud” include: Implement a custom-designed infrastructure with best-of-breed products, install validated, easy-to-deploy reference architectures with Cisco solutions for EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, and purchase a pre-integrated converged infrastructure with VCE Vblock System.

ODYSSEY UNVEILS 3.1 SPEAKERS

CHECK POINT SIMPLIFIES SECURITY FOR PRIVATE CLOUDS Check Point has introduced Check Point Virtual Systems that allow businesses to consolidate security gateways onto a single appliance or open server -- simplifying security, reducing costs and boosting performance for private cloud environments.

“From enterprise to large service providers, administrators often have multiple security appliances in place. Each of these appliances requires separate maintenance and management, which eventually makes security expensive, difficult to manage and inefficient. Security Virtualisation is an effective way to minimize complexity and cost,” said Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Regional Director (India & SAARC), Check Point Software Technologies.

With Check Point Virtual Systems, customers can build secure private clouds on any gateway or open server and reduce complexity by consolidating up to 250 Virtual Systems on a single gateway.

Cadyce Offers USB Accessories with No Compatibility issue With an objective of making life easier, Cadyce’s offers USB products that feature easy plug and play installation capability. The drivers have been customized to allow you to easily identify this new USB hardware in addition to features Cadyce product comes with 1- year Limited warranty on every product.

Cadyce Offers Industries finest range of USB accessories which includes, USB to Serial, Parallel (36 pin & 25 pin), Ethernet, Gigabit, PS/2 Converters, USB to DVI/VGA Display Adapter, USB 2.0 7-Port Hub, & USB 2.0 Extension Cable (12M) The company aims to provide low cost, high quality products for technically minded people. With no limitations and obstacles our products have international certifications such as CE, FCC and RoHS. Cadyce’s R&D department continuously focuses its efforts on developing the right products for the market needs.

Dell Strengthens Storage Portfolio Dell has launched the new Power Vault MD3 which stores up to 180 terabytes of data in a 60-drive, 4U rack enclosure. The MD3 dense arrays are ideal for entry-level, medium-sized, or enterprise organizations that seek high-performance computing from a small form factor to save space, power and administrative costs.

The new MD3 dense arrays include Dynamic Disk Pools (DDP) that helps to maintain affordable, high-bandwidth computing by recovering failed drives faster than traditional RAID environments. As per the company’s press release, DDP when combined with the high performance tiering on Dell’s MD3 dense storage array can deliver continuous data protection with improved productivity and lower total cost of ownership.

Odyssey has launched its new PC speaker system in the 3.1 category c- ODSP 3350 USF (3.1). It comes with a total output of 38Watts and an in-built FM tuner capable of playing bands from 87.5 to 107.9. Its built-in ports allow one to play music through a USB or a memory card.

Bhavesh Mehta, Business Director, Compuage India, said, “Odyssey strongly believes in coming up with innovative devices. The ODSP 3350 USF (3.1) is bound to get a lot of interest for both music and movie lovers and gamers.” This speaker system is available at a price of Rs. 3,999 with two years warranty.

SYNOLOGY UNLEASHES DISKSTATION DS213 Synology has launched the Disk Station DS213, a feature-rich 2-bay NAS server that delivers an optimal price-to-performance solution to share and protect data for office and workgroup environments.

With its 2.0 GHz processor and 512 MB memory, the DS213 delivers an average read and write speed of 108.41 MB/sec and 65.36 MB/ sec respectively under RAID 1 configuration in a Windows environment. As per the company’s press release, it is designed as a cool, quiet, and energy efficient NAS server with which it operates a 92 mm fan with smart airflow design to keep the system running cool 24/7.

HP ADDS VMWARE SOLUTIONS TO ITS CLOUD PORTFOLIO HP is expanding its HP Converged Cloud portfolio with new solutions for VMware vCloud Suite 5.1, enabling clients to transform traditional virtualization deployments into open private and hybrid cloud environments with less risk and complexity.

Introduced in April, HP Converged Cloud extends the power of the cloud across infrastructure, applications and information to provide clients with choice, confidence and consistency. The IT company announced that as the industry’s first strategy and portfolio based on a single open architecture, HP Converged Cloud enables the integration of any combination of private, managed and public cloud, as well as traditional IT.

ENVENT LAUNCHES A RANGE IPAD CASES Envent has launched a range of cases and covers to secure iPad. The company’s press release said that the range is styled in denims, leathers, polycarbonates and superior silicons and offers the users a range to choose from and suit their style.

This range has eight different varieties of cases and covers, which are impact resistant and protects iPad. The cases are loaded with some features like light weight, ultra slim and easy to use. The company informed that the Denim Case, Leather Case and the Steel Handle Case also have the smart cover function which allows the new iPad to wake up and sleep as per usage. Its adjustable standing angles enable the user to work in different positions of the new iPad.

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Intel to Scale ISG in Intel has outlined plans for the company’s Intelligent Systems Group (ISG) in India. Intel is looking at expanding its reach with various partners in the ecosystem and developing smart solutions to retail, automotive, energy, communications/networking, security and surveillance segments. The intelligent systems will be infused with high performance compute capabilities from the low-power Intel Atom processor to the high-performance Intel Xeon processor family.

Intel also provides connectivity solutions for heterogeneous networks, including wide area networking, Wi-Fi and cellular communications.

All the connected systems will also be secured and easily managed by adopting technologies such as Intel vPro Technology and McAfee security solutions.

The 3rd Generation Intel Core vPro processor platform offers improved performance, enhanced visual capabilities and secure manageability over the previous generation Intel Core vPro processor platform. These next-generation Intel Core processors are best suited for the retail, healthcare and industrial industries, which are key segments in the market for intelligent systems.

GIGABYTE Classic Challenge II Hosted

DIGILITE EXTENDS BURNT WARRANTY Digilite has extended the burnt warranty on new models of its motherboards. The new motherboards on which the company has extended its burnt warranty are DL-960GM-GS3-FX, DL-E35LM1, DLPV530A-ITX and DL-880GMLE-FX. Rajan Sharma, VP (Sales), Digilite, said, “Channel has appreciated and acknowledged this as unique strategy from Digilite. With several new models Rajan Sharma, VP (Sales), Digilite being launched in last 2-3 months especially for the AIO segment where integration is crucial with the LCD/LED monitor, ‘burnt warranty’ is extended on all new models. Digilite has always have focused on quality components & with price/performance strategy to ensure lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) for channel / SI partners, ‘burnt warranty’ is sure winner.”

The company informed that keeping in view of voltage fluctuation problems in India it had introduced burnt warranty on its motherboards. Under this value added post sales service, the company repairs/replace the motherboard that’s burnt due to power fluctuation. This covers PCB as well as component levels.

DIGILITE also does ‘salt spray test’ to evaluate ‘moisture withstanding’ capability of motherboards. This is useful as India has big coastline & major channel base in cities near the sea.

Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd has declared that the Gigabyte Classic Challenge II, the latest Gigabyte overclocking competition hosted on HWBOT.org.

Open from September 1st through September 30th 2012, the GIGABYTE Classic Challenge II combines two exciting stages based on classic 3DMark01 and SuperPi 31M benchmarks. The overclocker with the highest points tally from both rounds will win a recently announced GIGBAYTE Z77X-UP7, with a 2nd place finish earning a GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5 TH. Another Z77X-UP7 will be awarded as a lucky draw prize that anybody entering the competition may win; multiple submissions are allowed and will all be eligible for the lucky draw.

The company informed that open from september 1st to september 30th 2012, this competition combines two exciting stages based on classic 3DMark01 and SuperPi 31M benchmarks.

OCZ Unveils ZS PSU Series

Kingston HyperX Predator

OCZ unveils ZS line series of power supplies in 550-watt, 650-watt and 750-watt models that offers consumers superior value for home desktops and gaming systems. It provides the high efficiency, cool operation, and a compact case design, the ZS Series offers an excellent price point for system builders looking for a quality upgrade in a variety of power options.

The ZS Series is ideal for system builders and gamers, and is capable of powering dual-GPU platforms equipped for NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX modes. The PSU is kept cool under heavy usage with a large temperature and load-controlled 135mm double ball-bearing fan, and this high-efficiency PSU also meets strict 80-Plus Bronze energy saving requirements by converting up to a full 85% of AC to DC power at typical loads.

Further available in 3-Year PowerSwap warranty and it is priced at an MRP of Rs. 5,950/- for ZS 650W PSU and Rs. 8,470/- for ZS 750W PSU.

Kingston has launched the new Kingston HyperX Predator. The company informed that the new high-performance DRAM module complements the HyperX product range with the fastest speeds, lowest latencies and highest capacities. It is aimed at extreme enthusiasts and overclockers looking to push their systems to the maximum with the fastest speeds and highest performance hardware.

As per the company’s press release, with its new heatspreader, HyperX Predator offers a more aggressive design, which accompanies the look and design of the latest PC hardware, and provides great heat dissipation to optimize memory reliability. The memory part number ends with X is Intel XMP certified, and all Hyper Predator has been fully tested and validated on a top range of motherboards currently available on the market.

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WD Enters Wireless Home Networking Market WD has launched wireless home networking products in India, designed to accelerate movies, video and gaming which allow customers for entertainment accelerations.

With the My Net family of home networking products, the company has brought its fast track technology that detects entertainment traffic on the network and fast forwards it to gaming consoles, media players, smart TVs, smart phones, computers and other Wi-Fi connected devices.

My Net N900 Central comes with speeds up to 900 Mbps, integrated 1 TB or 2 TB of internal storage for automatic wireless back up. It also comes with 1 USB port for additional storage. My Net N900 is UPnP and DLNA certified and it comes with 2 USB ports for additional storage, printer and media share server use. My Net N750 features 750 Mbps and 5 Gigabyte Ethernet ports and 2 USB ports and lastly My Net N600 provides rate up to 600 Mbps and % Ethernet ports with 1 USB port.

NETAPP SUPPORT WINDOWS SERVER 2012 NetApp announced support for Windows Server 2012 with storage solutions for server and desktop virtualization, storage and availability, Web and application platform development, and private cloud deployment.

For organizations of any size and in any industry, this close collaboration simplifies and accelerates how storage is pooled, provisioned, accessed, and managed in Windows environments, said the company.

“Windows Server 2012 is the category benchmark for organizations looking to migrate rapidly to cloud-ready infrastructures for application and service delivery,” said Phil Brotherton, VP (Enterprise Software Ecosystem), NetApp. “To help organizations realize the full value of their Microsoft technology investments, we continue to align our solution delivery roadmaps to address the critical challenges our mutual customers are facing, from increasing storage efficiency to maintaining high availability of servers, applications, and services.”

Quantum Rolls-Out Q-Cloud Quantum Corp. announced a new cloud-based backup and disaster recovery (DR) subscription service, Q-Cloud, which provides business-class data protection at a consumer cloud storage price. Enterprise customers can leverage Q-Cloud’s simple, secure and flexible approach for as little as 1 cent/GB/month.

Incorporating Quantum’s patented deduplication technology, Q-Cloud provides backup of both physical and virtual infrastructures for capacities ranging from 1 TB up to 1 PB of protected data. With Q-Cloud, Quantum extends the industry’s most comprehensive range of data protection solutions available, spanning from the data center to the enterprise edge and now to the cloud.

Q-Cloud takes full advantage of DXi-Series data protection and Quantum vmPRO virtual machine protection capabilities both onsite and in the cloud. DXi appliances offer unique, patented deduplication capabilities which revolutionize cloud storage economics.

Matrix Ties Up with nexVortex Matrix Comsec has successfully completed the interoperability testing with USA based nexVortexInc., for its SIP Trunking services.

This interoperability of SIP Trunking suite will offer customers the flexibility to avail value added business services offered by nexVortex such as cost effective long distance calling, Toll-Free Numbers, E911 calls, Number Portability and Failover communication.

Sajeev Nair, Manager(Product Management), Matrix Comsec, said, “Our SETU range of VoIP gateways and ETERNITY range of IP-PBX offer advance features for businesses and help them to save over telephony costs, offer staff mobility and increase productivity. We have tested our gateways for interoperability with leading service providers in USA and Canada region and we continuously work to enhance our portfolio of service providers for these business essential regions.”

LG Launches Display Solutions for B2B LG Business Solutions has launched a line-up of highly advanced display solutions for Indian business verticals- Video Wall Solutions (55WV70 / 70B and 47WV30 / 30B), Commercial Monitors (WS10, VS20, VS10) and Hotel Interactive TV with Pro:Centric Solutions (LT740H,LT650H) and Commercial Plus (LT360C). These technologically advanced displays are slim and have super bright displays, ensuring a visual treat to the viewers.

LG has decided to further strengthen its portfolio by launching these end-to-end solutions for different business processes. These technologically advanced slim displays have narrow bezels which create powerful and impactful video walls that can easily be installed, maintained and managed.

Foxconn Sets Target for Nano- PCs Foxconn, manufacturer of computer components and systems, has raised its targets to achieve promising sale of 5,000 units/month in the coming quarters. After Foxconn’s 200% growth in its motherboard sales in last one year, it has now geared up to achieve a similar target in its Nano-PC segment.

Nano-PC is 40 times smaller than a typical Micro-ATX and it can easily be mounted on the back of a TV for media streaming, internet and PC functionality in the living room, without having to look at a PC tower. Hence one can now easily convert an existing TV into a Smart TV. Its option of supporting both Intel and AMD processers gives an extra edge to the product.

Strontium’s New JET USB Flash Drive Strontium Technology has announced a new JET USB Flash Drive which is based on the USB 3.0 standard, which it claims is a perfect option for facilitating fast, multi-stream data transfer. These are shock resistant and have textured metal casing with LED backlight.

Strontium’s new JET USB Flash Drive, weighing nearly 11.3g is ideal for desktops and notebooks with USB 3.0 ports and is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0. JET USB features a shock resistant and robust cap design.

Jet USB 3.0 Flash Drive will be available with Strontium’s authorized distributors, channel partners and e-commerce partners at a street price of Rs.650 in India.

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Panasonic India Betting Big on B2B Panasonic unveiled its next generation HighDefinition Video Conferencing (HDVC) for enterprises as a step towards strengthening its focus on the B2B business in India.

The company is banking big on their B2B segment- Panasonic System Sales Division (SSD) which plays a vital role in contributing to the overall growth of the brand in India. With a huge product portfolio including commercial displays , projectors, telephones, fax machines, EPABX, surveillance and security cameras, printers, panaboards & interactive boards, scanners, toughbooks, point of sale solutions and broadcast products, SSD will be contributing to 10% of the company’s total revenue stated the company press release.

Toru Hasegawa, MD (System Sales Division), Panasonic India, said, “At Panasonic we are committed to provide best product portfolio to our customers with innovative and finest technology.

We are expecting this growth to cross 100% by this fiscal end and close with a turnover of Rs. 655 crores.”

NEC Video Surveillance: 3x More Coverage

TREND MICRO PARTNERS WITH NEVALES Trend Micro has announced Nevales Networks as a Managed Security Services Partner. This partnership is expected to further strengthen Trend Micro’s focus and ambitions for the small and medium businesses market with Trend’s end point DLP, encryption and Worry-Free Business Security (WFBS) product lines. It will include the security-as-a-service offerings of WFBS that complements the Nevales’s managed service provider business model and also widens Nevales’s security offering to its growing client base.

Baburaj Varma, Head, Technical Services (India & SAARC), Trend Micro, said, “With cloud technology taking shape in India, we see an increased adoption of security from the cloud or security as a service by customers, especially in the SMB segment. The benefits to the customer are immense that include reduced cost, faster and better security, expert services to name a few. Trend Micro today is in the fore front of providing cloud based security solutions and Nevales cloud based services model makes this synergy a unique proposition to the customer.”

Ravishankar, Co-Founder, CEO Nevales, said, “Nevales is pleased to partner with Trend Micro as this aligns very well with our managed services business and our SMB focus. With Trend Micro’s portfolio of cloud-based security solutions including email, web and desktop security-asa-service added to our unified threat management services, will enable us deliver best-of-breed security solutions to our customers.”

The product lines covered under this partnership cater to some of the most crucial issues in the cyber security zone. With this association, Nevales is driving an ongoing partnership with SMBs for the above mentioned product lines of Trend Micro.

NEC Corporation has developed and tested large scale video processing technologies that can process advanced video analysis such as facial recognition and human identification three times more efficiently than conventional technologies on a single server. These technologies were tested on video surveillance systems covering large areas, which analyze information on peoples’ characteristics, including facial features, clothing features and suspicious behaviors. In these tests, NEC’s new technologies enabled a single server to completely analyze images from thirty surveillance cameras, three times more cameras than a single server can process with existing technologies. As a result, a company can utilize its existing servers to monitor approximately three times more area by adopting NEC’s advanced image analysis technologies.

Kaspersky Lab’s Whitelist database surpasses the 500 million

Fortinet Brings Hardware Platforms for SMB

Kaspersky Lab has claimed that its Whitelist database has surpassed the 500 million unique files mark. The database is actively used in Kaspersky Lab’s consumer and corporate products to provide better security and efficiency for customers and is dynamically updated to keep track of new programs.

The identification and classification of legitimate software helps to minimize the risk of false positive detections and provides an effective yet simple way for businesses to enforce security policies, by implementing functionality such as Application Control and a Default Deny scenario.

The Whitelist database keeps growing at the rate of 1 million new files per day.

Fortinet has launched new FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer and FortiMail hardware platforms designed for SMB and enterprise branch office customers in need of more scalable device management, security event analysis and email filtering capabilities. The new FortiManager-200D enables customers to centrally manage 50 percent more devices and quadruples the memory over the FortiManager-100C platform it replaces.

TheFortiAnalyzer-200D features a 30 percent increase in log processing capabilities and a 50 percent increase in the number of devices that can connect to the new platform that replaces the FortiAnalyzer-100C. And the FortiMail-200D povides more than doubles the message processing performance when compared with the FortiMail-100C.

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FUJITSU

“WANT TO TAKE DEPTH AND BREADTH APPROACH” With an impressive 73% growth in terms of revenue last fiscal, Fujitsu India is once again expecting a double digit growth for this year too.

BY: KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

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apanese company Fujitsu time and again reiterates its focus on SMB, SoHo and enterprise market. Unlike its counterparts who also have retail focus, Fujitsu says that its product offering are more for business users which align very well with its current strategy addressing SMB, SoHo and enterprise market.

Further, Fujitsu India is also looking at a double digit growth this fiscal, now that it has presence in 10 cities, with more focus on SOHO, SMBs and Enterprise. Plans are also afoot to come out with windows 8 products as and when Microsoft comes out with it, “We will have our worldwide launch along with Microsoft,” informs Alok Sharma, Country Manager (Workplace Systems), Fujitsu India.

“Fujitsu in India last year grew by 73% in terms of revenues, and our server and storage were the main drivers of this growth. We started focusing on the client side at a later stage and saw some growth coming at the end of the year from WPS side. Our main growth drivers for that was x86 servers,” said Mark Wilson, MD, Fujitsu India.

Last year the IT service giant posted revenue of US$54 billion for the fiscal ended March 31, 2012.

The IT major is also trying to increase its reach and depth not only in the four metros comprising of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, but other cities as well; it has increased its presence in 10 cities. “We are moving into more cities through roadshows etc., where we were not focusing earlier. We are now taking both depth and breadth approach,” informed Wilson.

Talking about the way technology has revolutionized our lives, he says, “I will not forget when 10 years back people talked about PC anytime, anywhere connect. Now if we don’t have access to email, SMS or phone at any given movement, we feel lost. We grab our phone before our wallet,” says Wilson.

The tug-of-war going on among tablets, ultrabooks, PCs etc Wilson feels that there will always

be demand for desktops, be it Thin client or the high powered Workstations. He confidently says that there will be space for everything in the market. Giving his own example he says that people like him who are traditionalist and loyalist, who want a small but all-in-one notebook; they don’t necessarily need to move to smart devices, there is a requirement for everything. “It’s interesting to see what evolves in the next few years because everyone forecasted that when tablets hit the market it will be the end for notebooks, for example. And evolution has happened but has it cannibalized the desktop, or the mobile phone market, it’s too early to judge,” remarks Wilson.

On the issue of price point Sharma calls its products affordable. Couple of its products, which are designed in Germany, are priced at sub Rs 24,000. Reminiscing about the days when Rupee was stronger Sharma says, “In the good old days when the Rs was still at 49, 48 we were offering a similar configured products at sub 22k in terms of price point. So we are making it quiet affordable.”

Fujitsu recently added, in its all-round-series, three 14” and have introduced 15” which is refreshed and is not a new introduction. It further expects to see more growth in its all-round-series which sells in all cities in India and is an entry level model.

As for the road map for Ultrabooks in channels, Fujitsu will offer product line through its existing partner community. At present it has no plans to come out with specific channel for Ultrabooks but will stick to its existing partner community base, and offer the entire range including the Ultrabooks through them.

Finally With the market speculating that Windows 8 and price drops to drive the Ultrabooks growth, Sharma too concedes that Windows 8 will definitely drive growth for both Ultrabooks and its other products line. But he maintains that eventu-

(FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) MARK WILSON, MD, FUJITSU INDIA AND ALOK SHARMA, COUNTRY MANAGER (WORKPLACE SYSTEMS), FUJITSU INDIA

“THERE IS NO CHANGE IN OUR GO TO MARKET STRATEGY AS WE WILL CONTINUE WITH SAME DISTRIBUTORS, SAME SUB-DISTRIBUTORS, AND SAME CHANNEL PARTNERS.” ally it will depend on the end users, on what the person wants to do with that particular device.

It will be doing launches with windows eight in the coming quarters. “Definitely the growth will be there and from what I hear from industry experts some of them are waiting for windows 8 launch to happen. As for us coming out we will work very closely with Microsoft and whenever they do it we will have a worldwide launch with them,” concludes Sharma.

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SME TREND

CISCO SYSTEMS

VIDEO SURVEILLANCE IS A BIG FOCUS AREA FOR CISCO Video Surveillance is the new norm in ensuring physical safety and security. With the increasing levels of urbanisations, single buildings accommodating people in thousands, the need for surveillance is of paramount importance.

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ccording to ASSOCHAM, corporates are likely to increase their security budgets by 35-40%. The demand for security equipment has increased by 10-15% and the private security industry in India is expected to touch Rs. 50,000 crore by 2012 (125% growth as opposed to the 25% that’s been the norm for the past five years). According to the same report, the IP-based surveillance market in India is currently valued at about $50-60 million and is expected to grow at 45% YoY for the next four to five years.

The IMS Research report, March 2012 estimates that the world market for cloud based video surveillance, or video surveillance as a service (VSaaS), was worth over $500 million in 2011, an increase of 25% from 2010.

With this in mind, Cisco has developed integrated technology solutions that include capturing data, storage and video analytics, for complete benefit.

Video Surveillance is a big focus area for Cisco and some of the activities that it is doing include building and integrating Cisco video surveillance solution with multiple eco-system partner in access Control, C3, etc.

“Video Surveillance in India is a growing rapidly in India and the opportunity amplifies with SME growing faster than large enterprises. Cisco has a focused sales/BD/technical teams to focus on these verticals,” said Devendra Kamtekar, Vice President Systems Engineering at Cisco Systems India & SAARC. Video surveillance has become a key component of safety and security groups for many organizations. As an application, video surveillance has demonstrated its value and benefits countless times by providing real-time monitoring of a facil-

ity’s environment, people, and assets as well as by recording events for subsequent investigation, proof-of-compliance, and audit.

Cisco’s solution offers software and hardware to support video transmission, monitoring, recording, and management, across the enterprise and SME is a major contributor to the same.

Video Surveillance solutions are sold everywhere today but for Cisco the highly potential markets are urban pockets like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. Tier-2 cities like Pune, Surat, Hyderabad are also showing good tractions.

Some of the key SME verticals that hold the maximum potential for video surveillance are retail, residential, commercial and industrial areas.

Undoubtedly, the maximum demand and consumption will be from the Government sector maintains Cisco. Following which will be sectors that employ a huge number of people will be the Information Technologies, manufacturing. The networking giant also sees a trend in adoption of video surveillance by the retail sector-both for safety as well as business benefits.

Cisco is also creating awareness with public and policy decision makers by conducting various roadshow, participating in various industry events, educating Cisco large SME customer database by doing regular solution updates.

When it comes to the adoption of IP technology Kamtekar adds that the key drivers for adoption in India will be the rising need for protecting life and property. Apart from this he says that with malls and huge hotels coming up the need for video surveillance cannot be questioned. The videos can also help chains analyse aspects like consumer behaviour, buying trends etc., to make the most of their business.

“It helps to prevent pilferage, arceny, carjacking

DEVENDRA KAMTEKAR, VICE PRESIDENT SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AT CISCO SYSTEMS INDIA & SAARC

“VIDEO SURVEILLANCE HAS BECOME A KEY COMPONENT OF SAFETY AND SECURITY GROUPS FOR MANY ORGANIZATIONS.” and many other fraudulent activities and to guard against armed robbery, workplace violence. To sum up create a better experience for customers, employees and people in the vicinity,” maintains Kamtekar.

Debunking some of the perceived challenges he says though the initial costs are high, however, the cost of maintenance are most affordable. He calls ‘operating technical difficulties’ a myth as once installed there is constant technical support provided with regular updation of technology.

He lists the last major challenge perceived as migration--the sheer need to migrate from analog based surveillance systems to digital surveillance based systems.

Finally With the escalating security concerns the need for real time security and surveillance has made surveillance a hot market. And in the coming times the demand will only escalate and this provides immense opportunities for players like Cisco.

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SME TREND

SHYAM NETWORKS

TO ACT AS AN END-TO-END TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION PROVIDER As security market sees a transition from analog to IP, Shyam Network is all set to make a dent in this market.

BY: KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

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ndia market is warming towards the importance of security and the transition from analog to IP systems is expected to happen at a rapid pace in the coming years. The overall outlook for IP surveillance in India looks positive and promising as it is not only creating huge market opportunity for both vendors and partners but also from a technology standpoint, a lot of innovative offerings are also available on IP platforms.

Gurgaon based Shyam Networks Ltd is a next generation data communication and surveillance and security solutions focused organization. With 35 years of expertise in telecommunications it offers end-to-end solutions for homeland security, industrial security, and mission critical, sensitive sectors. It also offers a range of products which include: access points, gateways, radios, switches, network cameras and computing solutions. It also targets telecom and enterprise space for its radio and surveillance product range.

“We at Shyam Networks believe that IP surveillance is emerging as the next-generation technology of the surveillance industry as it delivers bigger value adds and is highly reliable based on high-functioning and network cameras and video based analytics,” says Nafis Kazim, COO, Shyam Networks Limited.

The increasing awareness of the benefits of IP surveillance, as well as the growing need for real time security and surveillance in the country is not only driving demand for this technology but is also creating opportunity for the IP surveillance system integrators. The scope has widened to an extent that analog integrators are now being trained to become IP integrators.

The security of airports, banks, offices, businesses, government bodies, critical infrastructure and other public utilities is becoming increas-

ingly important. As new installations take full advantage of the benefits that operating over the network brings, and as this trend continues, it is bringing with it new possibilities of integration that can deliver enhanced functionality to a host of applications. Shyam’s security portfolio encompass to a broad range from keeping unwanted visitors outside, surveillance and monitoring of fixed and movable infrastructure and assets to finding out who is where at any time.

With its innovative approach to security system integration Shyam claims to provide intelligently designed solutions to ensure ease of management of complete solutions and deliver a proactive approach to security incidents with comprehensive forensic capabilities. “Our main focus is to act as an end-to-end technology solution provider,” Kazim maintains.

While there is still a big chunk of market that continues to use analog surveillance equipment, the IP surveillance technology has almost come at par with analog, and going forward it will be available at a cost lower than that of analog opines Kazim.

Over the past few years, video surveillance technology has evolved from being just a security tool to a tool for monitoring things like quality of service, pilferage, MIS and customer response. Besides security, the use of surveillance as a tool for increasing business efficiency has also increased.

“Shyam delivers reliable, cost effective and stateof-the-art IP surveillance solutions to the global market. It offers a comprehensive product line-up, including video analytics, network cameras, video servers, video receivers, NVR, and central management software. Developed through innovative R&D and backed by excellent service support; we offer a range of cutting edge next generation ready

NAFIS KAZIM, COO, SHYAM NETWORKS LIMITED

“WE OFFER A RANGE OF CUTTING EDGE NEXT GENERATION READY SURVEILLANCE SOLUTIONS IN A CHALLENGING GLOBAL SCENARIO.” surveillance solutions in a challenging global scenario,” elaborates Kazim.

As a segment, SME is extremely important for Shyam. And as far as surveillance is concerned, the company is actively targeting verticals such as real estate, retail, aviation, railways, education, banking, police, petroleum, mining etc. Kazim further says, “All these verticals carry huge opportunity for deployment of next generation surveillance products and solutions.”

Finally Shyam Networks also has aggressive plans to tap and firm up its hold in the telecom sector. Its growth strategy continues to hinge on addressing consumer requirements with a robust and rich portfolio of devices that rank high on innovation, user experience and functionality.

For its B2C brand – Winknet which is primarily into broadband access, Shyam recently tied up with BSNL to provide better broadband penetration for the common masses. For the IP Surveillane market, the company would surely create a similar strategy where they an reach out to the customers easily.

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TREND SETTER

DELL

DELL TO OPEN SONICWALL BUSINESS TO ITS PARTNERS Dell has completed its acquisition of SonicWall. By virtue of this, Dell enterprise and SMB customers will get network security, UTM and firewall directly. Dell is perhaps the first company to provide this value proposition whereas others depend on alliances.

BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

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ver the past three years, Dell had embarked on a major campaign to develop its software and services portfolio, particularly around cloud computing and enterprise BYOD. And it is expected that with Dell as the patron, SonicWall will flourish in the market.

However, there are questions in the market regarding the SonicWall partners and SonicWall Medallion partner programme. Giving rest to all the apprehension, Chanda Ramakrishna, National Distribution Manager, Dell SonicWall India, informs, “There will be certain changes in the SonicWall strategy. For example, SonicWall partners will now be empaneled under the Dell Direct programme. Earlier SonicWall had Medallion Partner programme but now this has been merged with the Dell programme. Therefore, SonicWall partners will get opportunity to sell Dell products as well, including PC, server, storage and other services, etc.”

The rebate will be also structured differently.

The threshold level will be different now for the partners as Dell has a different level against SonicWall’s gold, silver and bronze level.

Asked about whether there has been any drop in the SonicWall partners number, Ramakrishna says, “We have not seen anybody dropping out as it is a good opportunity for them. But if they do not want to join, it is all upto them.”

Today, security is becoming more prevalent in the IT infrastructure. Every large player likes to have solution jigsaw puzzle with security solution as a piece. Dell was selling security solution – especially from SonicWall - worldwide. They understand SonicWall products, solutions and services extremely well. Acquisition of SonicWall is therefore a good way to start their security business practice.

For end customers, it is spells good because SonicWall was big as a security vendor, but Dell is even bigger. The partners should feel satisfied

CHANDA RAMAKRISHNA, NATIONAL DISTRIBUTION MANAGER, DELL SONICWALL INDIA

“THERE IS NO CHANGE IN OUR GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY AS WE WILL CONTINUE WITH SAME DISTRIBUTORS, SAME SUB-DISTRIBUTORS, AND SAME CHANNEL PARTNERS.”

R&D centre and the merger is governed by the law of the country.

Ramakrishna maintains, “From the channel perspective, the main focus is business as usual.

There is no change in our go-to-market strategy as we will continue with same distributors, subdistributors, and channel partners. But since the market is huge, we are opening up the market to Dell partners who are not doing SonicWall. We will be more than happy to make them part of the team and get them trained, and make them aware about SonicWall products. Going forward, we will be expanding on two fronts: First will be on SMB front, and second is to get Dell Elite partners ready for SonicWall business.”

Even training programme of SonicWall and events on end-customers through partners will continue. Of course, there will be different certifications programme and rebates strategy.

With this acquisition, SonicWall’s funnel immediately increases and so does its reach, and all of a sudden the brand becomes bigger.

So, SonicWall partners should take advantage of the entire thing. Merger of SonicWall Medallion partner programme with Dell Direct programme will surely be a great environment for the channel members.

To the competition of SonicWall, this merger will surely have some impact. They will be scared as no other company in the competition is as big as Dell SonicWall. Suddenly the US$ 62 billion company is selling SonicWall!

Another change is that SonicWall was not strong from marketing perspective, but with Dell it will be more visible now.

Finally… because with Dell portfolio to carry, they have a larger portfolio now.

Of course the merger has not changed anything except SonicWall becomes Dell SonicWall now falling under its division called Global Software Group. Besides, everything else including the

With SonicWall Medallion partner programme the journey was very good. One IT magazine had rated the company as number one as far as partners are concerned. And, now the opportunity to excel in the business is much better with better gross margins and bigger product portfolio.

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K7 Security solutions for Large Enterprise: Efficient web 2.0 based end-point security management.

Provides sophisticated application control, URL filtering and device control.

Automate IT security policies globally across end-points.

Zero effect on system performance and enhances productivity.

K7 Security solutions for Small Businesses: Easy to deploy and configure.

Does not require specialized IT support.

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Advts.indd 9

18/09/12 10:54 PM

PARTNERS CORNER

TRIUMPH TEC

DS BALAJI PROPRIETOR, TRIUMPH TEC

“WE FEEL PROUD TO BE A PARTNER OF MATRIX” India made products were not much appreciated in the past but things have changed today people are taking pride of having India made products. SME Channels had an interaction with D.S. Balaji, Proprietor, Triumph Tec, Chennai to know about his impression. Excerpts.

What is the inception and growth of your company Our business started off in the year 1994 as a Partnership Venture named as “Yesbee Engineers” with 3 Partners and later in 2004, when 2 Partners retired, it was transformed as a Proprietorship Organization in the name of “Triumph Tec”. All these years our Company remained as an Exclusive Matrix Counter. Currently we have an Organizational strength of about 20 people.

Why did you choose telecom/ voice business?

I started my Career in the year 1989 as a Service Engineer in the Communication/Telecom Products Division and my other 2 Partners were also from the same department which encouraged us to venture into this Trade. To be precise my entire career has revolved around this Telecom Industry only.

Apart from Matrix which other brands are you dealing in?

Ours is an exclusive Matrix counter and our association with Matrix is more than a decade. We strongly believe in “Doing justice” to the product what we know best and that is why we continue only with Matrix. We feel proud to be a Partner of Matrix.

What is the strength of Matrix against the competition? (Write

5 good things about Matrix as a brand) A strong R&D based Company Matrix offers wide Product repertoire. It is just not about Box selling, but Matrix offers total telecom solutions to its customers. With these qualities Matrix is able to compete with the multinationals like – Siemens, Panasonic, NEC, Ericsson, Avaya and Cisco. Also the Customer Support and product reliability are proven strengths of Matrix. Matrix is the Only Indian Telecom MNC which is exporting its products to 40+ countries.

What are the challenges you face in the market for Matrix?

Generally the Customer mindset is comparing our Products with multi-nationals without understanding product Quality and features.

Here we have to convince them with our product capabilities and the marketing tools like the comparison charts with other manufacturers related to hardware/software features, play a vital part in convincing the customers.

Do you have any case where there customer is very happy about Matrix and has expressed his gratitude in words?

Not one but many of our Matrix customers feel happy about the quality & after sales support. And generally we get reference enquiries through these customers and major share of our customer base revolves around these existing customers only.

What kind of opportunity you see in the market for voice products?

There are encouraging signs on the overall market for Voice products. Since Matrix offers variety of Telecom solutions in GSM/ISDN/VoIP networks we see huge potential in the Southern Market in the coming years especially for IP and GSM Products.

What kind of growth do you see in your Matrix portfolio and why?

We foresee a growth of about 20-25% during this year for which we have already strengthened our Manpower resources to go all out and achieve the results.

Which are your focused verticals from voice perspective and why?

We are mainly concentrating on SOHO and Medium sized Corporate. Generally with these customers we get reference enquiries. We have a strong base with the Nationalized Banks, and our total installations in these areas are more than 250 nos. Apart from this our tie-ups with Service Providers like BSNL, Airtel, TTSL our client base, especially with medium and large Corporate are increasing day by day.

What is your turnover and growth for this year?

Our total turnover for the last Financial Year was 2.5 crores. We expect to grow by 15% this year. SME

34 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

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19/09/12 9:08 AM

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18/09/12 10:59 PM

SME CHAT

KHALID WANI, WD’S SALES DIRECTOR FOR BRANDED PRODUCTS, INDIA, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

“WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INNOVATING PRODUCTS” WD is well identified for its HDD manufacturer. Complementing to it, for the last couple of years, its connected home segment witnessed significant growth. Khalid Wani, WD’s sales director for branded products, India, Middle East and Africa, spoke to SME Channels about the initiative. Excerpts.

What is the market size of overall wireless home networking products?

The overall wireless home networking market is a very strongly growing market in India as well as globally. If you look at the connected home development market, it is still in the range of 10-12% and that is the kind of penetration we see in the developing markets including India. But the growth that we are seeing in the connected home business has been around 28-30% year on year and we believe that this particular market will continue to see this growth on the connected home front.

Why have you decided to go into the networking market?

We are a hard drive company but if you look at product line across the board, we basically have one of the largest product portfolio to offer right now when we talk about connected home, storage, NAS or even consumer NAS. Our connected home proposition in the market has been growing quite significantly, we have seen a lot of growth coming in from our consumer and connected home segment over the last couple of years since we have launched our connected home products. There is requirement for consumers to make sure that they have much faster connected home proposition and there are some challenges that the consumers are facing like streaming live videos, audios or downloads or even to an extent on voice in video quality. That’s when we have decided that we have the right set of products to address the

particular requirement. So we thought about fast track technology and also embedding the chip on our router which helps consumers to have much faster access to their connected home environment. what will be your competitive advantage?

One of our key advantage is we have the chipset, which is built in on our My Net router. It operates as a dedicated chipsets and allows consumer to have a fast track and fast track plus rolled out in their product lines. Fast track and fast track plus as a technology prioritizes traffic on the network and it gives priority to critical application which they are currently using for example, online streaming is much more critical application than data, so it gives priority to those particular packets so that the network operates much more easier and smoothly.

What is your target in term of volume for this year?

We are not in a position to give country specific volume number.

What will be the price of this product?

It starts at Rs. 5699 around for the central 2 terabyte.

What are your expectations in term of revenue?

We don’t share country specific revenue number or we don’t really share outlook on

country specific revenue number.

Are you planning to take the help of service providers like Airtel, MTNL, Reliance etc?

We will be definitely exploring those opportunities, we would be evaluating these opportunities and see how we can address those.

What is the market strategy for this product?

We will continue to roll this product from across our LFR channels, reseller channels and we will continue to make sure that our product is available across all platforms.

What is your channel strategy?

We will continue to use our current distributors, we have four distributors currently in India. In India, we are currently having 1800 resellers that are currently working on across all platform and all WD products and we will continue to utilize our current channel partners to position the MyNet products. We have lot of initiatives out there in the market on the partner program level. We will continue to make sure that WD My Net product line is part of those partners programs How do you focus on the support of these products?

We will continue to use our WD Express service line, dedicated collection centers across India, we make sure that we positions these products in the right way.

36 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

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19/09/12 9:11 AM

Advts.indd 16

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DS-Advts.indd 3

18/09/12 11:01 PM

COVER STORY

STORAGE MANAGEMENT

BC/DR NUMBER ONE

PRIORITY FOR THE SMES

Data is power today. But the mind numbing rate at which it is exploding is posing innumerable challenges in the way of management and protection. Hence not only does data storage have a key role to play here but so do back-up and data recovery.

BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

A

ccording to ABI Research, the global business continuity and data disaster recovery market will exceed $39.6 billion by 2015. DR has a high potential in India. According to Forrester’s Q2 2010 IT budget survey, 32% of enterprises had planned to increase spending on business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) by at least 5% in 2011. A similar trend is expected to continue through 2012.

The survey respondents rate BC/DR as their number one priority for small and medium businesses and the second highest priority for enterprises. As per the research, the scope of BC/ DR programs is growing wherein mature BC/DR programs now address all sources of downtime, including mundane power outages and weather related & human induced disruptions, not just rare, catastrophic disasters. This is a clear indication of the increased focus on BC. A recent IDC Digital Universe Study estimated that the total volume of data worldwide would

skyrocket from approximately 1.3 trillion GB in 2010 to 35 trillion GB by 2020 and approximately 75% of the total is said to be duplicates. After a relatively slow growth in FY10 owing to global recessionary conditions, FY11 saw the storage market going back to normalcy especially in H2.

The overall market grew by 20% to clock Rs1, 978 crore in overall revenues, up from Rs.1,646 crore in the previous fiscal. As per IDC, India was the 3rd biggest market in the APJ region.

From an India SMB perspective Zinnov, in its latest study titled ‘Indian SMB ICT Adoption Insights’ highlights that while the overall domestic IT spending is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12% to reach USD 36bn by 2015, SMBs at the same time will grow at a CAGR of 15% contributing USD 15bn by 2015.

However, the report also states that SMB segment is still facing challenges like lack of technology know-how, unclear return on investments, cluttered product portfolio, high cost for technical support and high investments made in legacy systems.

“Smarter storage is necessary for businesses to stay ahead as data continues to explode—to 2.7 zettabytes in 2012, up 48 percent from 2011,” says Kamal Sharma, Group CIO and ITIM SBU Head, Mindlance.

IBM recently launched its smarter storage concept with much fanfare. “Storage or the requirement of data is actually doubling every two years, but our IT budgets are not. And the fact is that it is getting extremely hard to manage this data,” says Arpita Sengupta, Product Manager (High End Storage Systems, India South Asia), IBM. Its Real time Compression technology claims to compress data real time to 50% of its size.

Top Trends As the need for data storage and efficient disaster recovery plans increase, virtualisation, de-duplication, cloud, storage pooling, data tiering, disaster recovery, de duplication, thin-provisioning, capacity management and a slew of others are coming into the market. As Sharma avers, “Virtu-

40 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

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STORAGE MANAGEMENT

COVER STORY

THE TOTAL VOLUME OF DATA WORLDWIDE WOULD SKYROCKET FROM APPROXIMATELY 1.3 TRILLION GB IN 2010 TO 35 TRILLION GB BY 2020 AND APPROXIMATELY 75% OF THE TOTAL IS SAID TO BE DUPLICATES. SOURCE: IDC DIGITAL UNIVERSE STUDY

SME CHANNELS 41 SEPTEMBER 2012

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COVER STORY

STORAGE MANAGEMENT

“SMARTER STORAGE IS NECESSARY FOR BUSINESSES TO STAY AHEAD AS DATA CONTINUES TO EXPLODE—TO 2.7 ZETTABYTES IN 2012, UP 48 PERCENT FROM 2011.”

KAMAL SHARMA, GROUP CIO AND ITIM SBU HEAD, MINDLANCE

alization of both server and storage is predictable and will continue to be a biggest market for the vendors, more than any other technology.”

With faster growth rates of data, de-duplication at source and destination is catching up big time to optimize data volumes. “We see increasing trend in deployment of HA/DR for business applications to ensure business continuity/availability. RBI regulations are driving adoption of DR in BFSI vertical. With eGovernance rolling out new services regularly DR has become a basic need here too. Internet commerce is picking up steam off late which is also driving HA/DR in a big way,” responds Sunil Pillai, Co-Founder and MD, iValue InfoSolutions Pvt Ltd. Virtual environments are gaining prominence owing to the flexibility, augmented utilisation levels & TCO that they offer. Businesses can accelerate their recovery time by storing machine images & recovering the set up from the same. The cloud is becoming more real as an option recently. SaaS (Software as a Service) and from a DR perspective – DRaaS (DR as a Service) & RaaS (Recovery as a Service) are being evaluated more seriously.

Narayana Menon, Lead – Marketing, Asia-Pac and Middle-East, Sanovi Technologies, explains, “A

typical DR as a service offering has a subscription based fees that includes infrastructure and operations and a SLA associated with it and this model is quite attractive especially to the SMB/E segments though most organisations would experiment with their non-mission critical data to be put on the cloud & I believe that it would take some more time for organisations to completely base their data storage, back up & DR on the cloud.”

He also sees a clear move from tape to disk backup which is witnessing a growth of 50% yearover year, despite the fact that more than 70% of the large organisations still use tape to some extent.

It is estimated that only about 20% of disasters are natural while 80% are due to human/system error. He suggests that automating and managing back up and DR effectively would be the key to reducing dependency on large team of experts to do the job in turn benefit the organisation with heightened recovery readiness at lower TCO. While Dell-Sonicwall considers NAS appliances becoming cloud storage gateways, as one of the most important enterprise trends. “NAS filers are still as fundamental to today’s business processes as networking, phones, and printers so we

“WITH EGOVERNANCE ROLLING OUT NEW SERVICES REGULARLY DR HAS BECOME A BASIC NEED HERE TOO. INTERNET COMMERCE IS PICKING UP STEAM OFF LATE WHICH IS ALSO DRIVING HA/DR IN A BIG WAY,” SUNIL PILLAI, CO-FOUNDER AND MD, IVALUE INFOSOLUTIONS PVT LTD.

“ITS REAL TIME COMPRESSION TECHNOLOGY CLAIMS TO COMPRESS DATA REAL TIME TO 50% OF ITS SIZE.” ARPITA SENGUPTA, PRODUCT MANAGER (HIGH END STORAGE SYSTEMS, INDIA SOUTH ASIA), IBM

do not see the concept of file sharing going away this year. However there are definitely movements afoot to change how file sharing is delivered in enterprises and unstructured data is stored. This transition from NAS filers being delivered as purpose-built appliances to cloud storage gateways is the first and biggest step toward making this reality,” explains Chanda Ramakrishna, National Distribution Manager, Dell SonicWALL India Next in line is Archiving, which he says will move out of the back alleys and into the main stream. Calling it almost inextricably linked to the first trend, he mentions vendors are often convinced of the value of archiving, but continually fail to take into account is that it is the users who are the ones who have to ultimately manage archiving, not them.

Next on his list is Backup Appliances. As the consumerization of enterprise IT is well under way and organizations are becoming more inclined to buy a preconfigured appliance that has the backup software and hardware they need as one.

End of backup accompanied by the beginning of recovery forms the last trend. “Backup to disk, deduplication and the growing use of snapshots and replication software are resulting in fundamental changes to how users view the backup and recovery process.”

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COVER STORY

STORAGE MANAGEMENT

Best Practices With data becoming critical and growing at an exponential rate, while the IT budgets not increasing at the same rate, has become a major headache for the IT heads to safeguard this data within the required budget. It calls for best practices to optimize the backup process, avoid data loss and corruption and recover data reliably in case of disaster.

Here investment is crucial, says Ramakrishna, to be made in security awareness and education programmes that reach out to individuals to make them understand and accept responsibility for securing their organizations. He narrows down five best backup best practices. First he says is Optimize backup processes. As per him an ideal solution should intelligently identify, capture and preserve only unique and valuable information, while eliminating the costly backup and storage of duplicate, irrelevant or outdated data. The second best practise he suggests is to “prevent data loss and corruption”. The third is to “minimize impact on bandwidth and storage”: Data de-duplication can increase backup efficiency and performance by eliminating redundant data blocks at the source and sending only changed blocks across the network. This enables IT organizations to achieve smaller data volumes, faster backups, lower bandwidth usage and optimal storage consumption.

Ramakrishna also suggests establishing policy by business relevance and streamlining global enforcement of backup policy as some of the best practices.

Vikas Pradhan – Country Director, CommVault India, says, “As data rapidly becomes one of the enterprise’s most valuable assets, determining how to analyse, replicate, protect, archive, search and recover it whenever necessary is quickly becoming more complicated ; so much so that it adds significantly to the Op-Ex

costs of today’s organisations. Therefore it has become important for IT managers to focus on cost-reduction, reducing the backup window and a safe and reliable way to restore this data when called for.”

Dell refers to a new data and information management approach, called “modern data protection,” as the key to keeping pace with today’s changing physical-virtual-cloud environments and ensuring servers, data and applications achieve always-on availability. Augmenting or even replacing traditional solutions with modern infrastructure can help you deliver flexible, costeffective solutions for reliable protection and fast recovery.

Combining the best of traditional backup and recovery with continuity and resiliency solutions, modern data protection includes enhanced features such as compression, data deduplication, snapshots, replication and real-time backups.

Additionally, modern technologies are application and virtualization aware, with built-in intelligence to optimize protection and recovery.

“Modern data protection integrates with selfprotecting storage. Array-based snapshots, clones, replicas and mirrors ensure data is captured as quickly and frequently as your environment needs—and is recovered just as fast. This will help you solve the challenges of too much data and not enough time, while curbing storage and management costs,” maintains Amit Luthra, National Manager, Storage Solutions Marketing, Dell India.

Kumar Mitra, Regional Director - India & SAARC, Data Protection, Quest Software says that organizations can reduce overall costs by introducing solutions which are simple, easy to deploy, support heterogeneous platforms, application-aware and work in physical, virtual & cloud environments. Moreover, ensure that solutions adopted have clear roadmap to align with the organization’s future needs and business

“NAS FILERS ARE STILL AS FUNDAMENTAL TO TODAY’S BUSINESS PROCESSES AS NETWORKING, PHONES, AND PRINTERS SO WE DO NOT SEE THE CONCEPT OF FILE SHARING GOING AWAY THIS YEAR.” CHANDA RAMAKRISHNA, NATIONAL DISTRIBUTION MANAGER, DELL SONICWALL INDIA

“AUTOMATING AND MANAGING BACK UP AND DR EFFECTIVELY WOULD BE THE KEY TO REDUCING DEPENDENCY ON LARGE TEAM OF EXPERTS.” NARAYANA MENON, LEAD – MARKETING, ASIA-PAC AND MIDDLEEAST, SANOVI TECHNOLOGIES

requirements.

“Ensuring comprehensive data protection strategies by Using of Space Saving Methodologies (Incremental, Differential, Full), Choosing of archiving location either to Disk, Tape or cloud depending upon the criticality of data, ensuring solutions/technologies are in place which provide lower restore windows and “Any Point in Time” recovery,” Mitra adds.

Pradhan adds, “While many of the best practices are already known and adopted widely, data and information management requirements of tomorrow forces us to anticipate the future. A case in point, there are cost savings of virtualizing the IT environment, but it breaks into the traditional style backup that they’ve been doing in their physical environment. A modern data-management, according to me goes beyond traditional back-up and recovery. It consists of a tightly integrated blend of snapshot, replication and persistent copies – from physical or virtual servers – that are secure, deduplicated and accessible through a single point of entry.”

SMBs When it comes to planning for data storage, backup and recovery, SMBs look for cost-effective

44 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

Cover_Story.indd 44

19/09/12 10:32 AM

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An ISO 9001:2008 certified company Advts.indd 16

18/09/12 10:57 PM

COVER STORY

STORAGE MANAGEMENT

“ARRAY-BASED SNAPSHOTS, CLONES, REPLICAS AND MIRRORS ENSURE DATA IS CAPTURED AS QUICKLY AND FREQUENTLY AS YOUR ENVIRONMENT NEEDS—AND IS RECOVERED JUST AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.” AMIT LUTHRA, NATIONAL MANAGER, STORAGE SOLUTIONS MARKETING, DELL INDIA

solutions which are also robust enough to support the growth of the organization, that not only manage and store their precious data but also have the ability to reduce the TCO. With the cost reduction advantages of ‘the cloud’, businesses are increasingly adopting it for core business applications and IT services. “In fact, after successfully piloting cloud usage with SaaS applications such as CRM and ERP, many businesses are now looking to replace their traditional onsite backup and disaster recovery (DR) solutions with cloud based DR. Gartner states that by 2014, over 30% of midsize companies will have adopted DR in the cloud or recovery-as-aservice,” informs Ramakrishna.

However, there are still many challenges that businesses must consider that are unique to cloud-based DR he says. “For example, placing your backups on the cloud may create greater dependency on network availability and, subsequently, in the service levels of your providers.

Compliance can be another serious concern for many businesses looking at cloud-based DR. While cloud-based security and encryption technology has matured, there may still be grey areas when it comes to meeting regulatory standards, such as with healthcare or financial data.”

Quest Software while issuing caveat says that One should not bring in too much complexity into the environment, acceptable backup and restore window should not be compromised, recoverability of applications is not degraded and a reliable disaster recovery strategy is kept in place.

“When SMB’s move to cloud, they need to ensure that they are within the acceptable levels of SLA in terms of Backup & Restore window. They also need to ensure that they are not sending huge amount of data over public cloud which would increase the backup window and look at compression technologies like de-duplication,” informs

Mitra.

Adds Menon, “It is more of ‘what I need’ as opposed to ‘what others are doing’. Though virtualisation of DR is powerful with its own set of pros & cons, I would say that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to having an effective, robust & agile DR strategy. IT heads of SMBs need to look inwards to align the DR strategy to facilitate business objectives of resilience & con-

“ORGANIZATIONS CAN REDUCE OVERALL COSTS

BY INTRODUCING SOLUTIONS WHICH ARE SIMPLE, EASY TO DEPLOY, SUPPORT HETEROGENEOUS PLATFORMS.” KUMAR MITRA, REGIONAL DIRECTOR - INDIA & SAARC, DATA PROTECTION, QUEST SOFTWARE

tinuity seamlessly and chose technology options commensurate to this.”

How Prepared are SMBs? The fear of losing data, compromising data or the inability to retrieve data from backup/archive in reasonable time and deliver business continuity sends shivers down the spine of any organisation.

Midlance cites a survey study which reflects that once an organization looses 90% of its major data they are prone to shut down in 18 months.

“This statistics clearly showcases the gravity of the data backup and the fear which comes when there is no data backup in place. The data backup fear comes when there is absolutely no or less data backup. A managed and well thought data backup strategy brings along a lot of security and confidence for the organization,” maintains Sharma.

“DR drills have become very popular to test readiness of DR periodically. With fast data growth, increasing backup window is becoming a serious worry for many IT managers,” informs Pillai.

But if such a situation does arise how well prepared are the SMBs. According to Symantec India findings of its 2012 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, more than 90 percent of Indian SMBs are not prepared for disasters even as they grapple with instances of disasters. The survey also revealed that Indian SMBs are adopting technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing and mobility with improved disaster preparedness as a goal.

As a result of this lack of preparedness among SMBs, 40 percent of small businesses that are forced to close due to natural disasters never reopen, according to the US Insurance Information Institute.

Dell SonicWALL reveals that for years, small organizations — particularly those with limited or no designated IT resources (i.e., people or dollars) — have struggled to find products that enable them to easily and cost-effectively protect their data as well as meet today’s new regulatory requirements. As a result, many SMBs have either ended up implementing data protection solutions over the years that have been too big for their environments, with the hope that they will grow into them, or that have been grossly inadequate, given today’s increasingly demanding business climate.

“And, as unwise as it may seem, still others have had no real data protection strategies in place, putting their critical business applications and data at potentially significant risk in the event of a corruption, virus attack or some type of regulatory or legal inquiry,” replies Ramakrishna.

He further points out that many SMBs still

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STORAGE MANAGEMENT

rely on traditional tape-based products for data protection. The problem is that these products generally fail to address three persistent backupand-recovery challenges— shrinking backup windows, data protection gaps and long recovery times.

In spite of the fact, some vendors agree that for SMBs the task of managing and keeping their data secure has become more critical than ever.

And with the cutbacks in IT budgets there is even greater demands for solutions that will help companies manage data more efficiently.

“SMBs are slowly picking up and have a focus on daily backing-up their data; they now understand the need of protecting their company and customer data. And hence, are now focusing on having systems like the tiered storage in order to best optimize the records they have and increase their business productivity,” says Luthra.

SMBs have started looking for IT solutions beyond traditional approaches; they do not want to get into the headache of buying hardware for databack and are choosing to store the data with safety on the vendors’ setup.

“Cloud service providers are filling a niche for cash conscious SMBs by providing a combination of private cloud, public cloud, traditional hosting and colocation cloud services. This hybrid model

COVER STORY

“DATA PROTECTION SYSTEMS ARE SUBSTANTIALLY EASIER TO USE (E.G. “APPLIANCES”) AND WITH THE ADVENT OF SERVICES LIKE QUANTUM’S Q-CLOUD, NO CAPEX IS REQUIRED.” GUNA SEKARAN R, COUNTRY MANAGER (INDIA & SRI LANKA), QUANTUM

is now becoming more common due to increase in virtualization and cloud technologies adoption,” informs Menon.

Quest is still not confident that SMB’s are still not fully geared up to face the challenges. He cites the reasons to rapid changes in the technology and also a lack of understanding on how these newer technologies/solutions will work in their respective unique environments.

While countering him Guna Sekaran R, Country Manager (India & Sri Lanka), Quantum says, “It has never been a better time to be an SMB. Data protection systems are substantially easier

to use (e.g. “appliances”) and with the advent of services like Quantum’s Q-Cloud, no CAPEX is required since backup over the cloud provides business-class data protection at consumer-class costs on a pay as you go basis.”

Conclusion Today, enterprises, big or small, are awash with data, which is not only being referred in terabytes but even petabytes. This data is important for every organisation, no matter what the size, and managing it well so as to maximize its value is of the utmost importance.

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MOBILE DEVICES DRIVE EXTERNAL STORAGE MARKET The growth of the devices like smart phones and tablets has triggered the growth of flash memory market. This market is going to grow multiple times in coming times as still the portable devices have a long future.

BY APARAJITA CHOUDHURY aparajita@smechannels.com

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FEATURE

R

egardless of the awful HDD market scenario created by the floods in Thailand in 2011, the external HDD market witnesses 30 percent growth. In fact, demand for storage products in India increases due to the growth in digital information. Current value of the entire storage market in India stands around Rs 1500 crore and is expected to double by 2016. Hence, in India, this market grows every year at a very high pace.

“The HDD industry worldwide has also reached a major milestone an all-time high for the market. Demand for HDD’s, Flash drives and other products in the storage verticals have risen up. Consumers aim to demand more and more innovations so that this technology can cater to their needs easily.” says, Susumu Kobayashi, Country Head, Buffalo.

Seeing a steady growth in storage devices for mobile phones and tablets, Kingston decides to create devices to support the mobile workforce and contingent staff. Nathan Su, sales director (flash memory for the APAC region), Kingston, informs, “We in fact soon plan to launch the new Kingston DataTravelers Workspace USB flash drive. This amazing device is fully bootable and incorporates SSD technology in a small USB form factor so users can access their enterprise system from a portable device.”

External Storage market becomes an integral part of the gadget storage industry in India because most of the sleekest devices like smart phones and tablets depend on flash memory.

Flash memory is a driving force behind this trend because it offers fast, convenient, high-capacity, portable digital storage.

Now-a-days, consumers intend to take more pictures, listening to more music, recording and watching more videos, so to store this valuable data in a secure way becomes the major concern. “The explosion of digital content is driving the need for more memory and SanDisk is well positioned to serve the large, fast-paced Indian market. Our goal is to continue offering Indian consumers high-quality products that help them do more with their digital devices.” announces Manisha Sood, Country Manager & Director, SanDisk Corp, India & SAARC. Demands from all sectors and the implementa-

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tion of IT across everywhere are also considered as the key factors which amplifies the needs of storage. Further, with the availability of wide range of products in storage space, the market for external storage products is definitely growing.

“We are seeing greater interest in devices that have personal cloud or wireless streaming capabilities, which provide enhanced utility for buyers.” explains Khalid Wani.

Market share of Individual Product The external storage market encompasses HDDs, SSDs, Flash cards and USB drive. HDD’s and

a growing market, so the need of the consumers in terms of storage requirements never comes down. “With the growing amount of digital data and increased need for mobility in daily lives, the demand for portable storage devices is everincreasing.” explains Manisha.

The usage of USBs are not only restricted to the domain of PCs, it is also being used in the in cars, computers, living room plasma TVs, car audios etc. Further the adoption of USBs among school children for projects, assignments etc also lead to the expansion to newer market. While mobile computing plays a critical role in consumer electronics landscape because Smartphones, tablets

“WE ARE SEEING GREATER INTEREST IN DEVICES THAT HAVE PERSONAL CLOUD OR WIRELESS STREAMING CAPABILITIES, WHICH PROVIDE UTILITY.”

“SEAGATE BACKUP PLUS PRODUCTS ARE THE WORLD’S FIRST EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES TO PROVIDE BACKUP FOR CONTENT ON SOCIAL NETWORKS.”

KHALID WANI, SALES DIRECTOR, BRANDED BUSINESS FOR INDIA, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, WD.

RAJESH KHURANA, COUNTRY MANAGER (INDIA & SAARC), SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY

USB Drives seem to have the major market share because more people are now demanding huge storage area for storing their personal data. While on the other side, SD cards are more prominent in camera and mobile phone industry. But Buffalo with the good response from the market and end user focuses on external HDDs. According to Kingston, the largest sales volumes are seen in the micro SD cards category and are followed by USB flash drives, SD cards and SSDs respectively. From the OCZ’ point of view, SSD is the product which is growing over two & half folds month over month & it is predicted that SSD in India market will consume a larger pie in coming days.

With convergence causes exponential growth in digital content, demand for external storage devices including hard drives and portable flash memory products are always on the rise. India is

and ultra-thin notebooks have digitized the whole world as it allow consumers to create, share and enjoy digital content anytime, anywhere and flash memory is a key enabler of these thin and powerful devices. Commenting on the market share of individual storage products, Mannan adds, “Market share of SD cards and memory cards are more than other storage medium due to the sales of mobile phone which accompany with card option for memory storage, next in line comes pen drive or USB followed by HDD and SSD etc.”

According to the recent market reports, the usage of storage peripheral devices like flash drives, flash memory cards and sticks, external hard disks, MP3/MP4 players and digital cameras increases and global SSD shipments are set to reach 160 million units by 2015 from today’s 22 million units. Additionally, with the growing needs of consumers to create, store, consume and

share more and more content, external HDDs are set for massive growth because of the cost per GB benefit to end users.

Key Trends In pen drive category, the customer looks for trendy products and wants to use latest technology like SSD and with trend of ‘always online’ phenomenon, consumers become more aware about backup and opt for external HDDs with faster interfaces, higher storage capacities and seamless connectivity between devices.

Evolution of technology basically takes place due to the influence of digital lifestyles and shar-

“TODAY SSD, HAVING ITS PRICES DROPPED OVER 50%, HAS BECOME THE PRIME CHOICE FOR THE END USERS AS THE STORAGE SOLUTION.” ANKUR SARKAR, SALES MANAGER (SOUTH ASIA), OCZ TECHNOLOGY GROUP.

ing of personal content via social media. Khalid Wani commented, “NAS based storage and dualband routers, such as our new My Net range are finding many takers in families that want to create home entertainment setups wherein movies and music are stored in a central location, from where they can be streamed to any Wi-Fi enabled device inside the home or accessed outside the home on the cloud.”

Now-a-days, data are moving into the cloud which allows users to access files from dedicated iPhone/iPad, Android smartphone application, or Web browser. Uploading photos and videos becomes easier in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter by smartphone to share files and enjoy them with friends and family anytime and anywhere. Besides, the portable HDD equipped with thunderbolt technology delivers the fastest interface speed and is 2X faster than

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USB 3.0 It has been observed over the last few years that consumers demand portable USB flash drives with larger capacities. Even the demand for 2GB flash cards or drives diminishes, but the significant requirements of storage among consumers’ boosts the demand for 16GB flash drives, USB 3.0 and SATA III. Moreover, in terms of value additions to the product lines, pen drives become water proof and shock proof.

SSD technology also becomes a key trend in India with the consumers increasingly opt for SSDs over HDDs for better performance and faster speeds. Besides, with the upgradation of

“OUR GOAL IS TO CONTINUE OFFERING INDIAN CONSUMERS HIGH-QUALITY PRODUCTS THAT HELP THEM DO MORE WITH THEIR DIGITAL DEVICES.” MANISHA SOOD, COUNTRY MANAGER & DIRECTOR, SANDISK CORP, INDIA & SAARC.

read and write speed of the devices, SSDs take over the market share of HDD due to its read and write speed of the data. “India is a price oriented market.

Going back to 6-9 months old history, SSD was a high cost storage solution for customers. And today SSD, having its prices dropped over 50%, has become the prime choice for the end users as the storage solution.” says, Ankur Sarkar, Sales Manager (South Asia), OCZ Technology Group.

Consumer devices like high-definition TVs, portable game systems, home media servers, car navigation and entertainment systems and multifunction cell phones basically fuels the growth of storage products because consumers now-a-days are aware of the advantages of digital lifestyles be it music, videos, photos or games.

In order to maintain the huge digital content, consumers always seek for hard drives with the combination of capacity, speed and reliability and

when it comes to generating personal content such as photos and videos, they require simple to use, comprehensive, secure storage solutions that can protect the content.

Total digital information in the world touches 2.7 zettabytes, where maximum information are user-generated video, music and pictures including several data on social networks. Rajesh Khurana, Country Manager (India & Saarc), Seagate Technology explains, “Backup Plus hard drives external storage work with both Windows and Apple computers and deliver new features to protect, share and save every aspect of one’s digital life. These products come loaded with the new

“KINGSTON DECIDES TO CREATE DEVICES TO SUPPORT THE MOBILE WORKFORCE AND CONTINGENT STAFF.” NATHAN SU, SALES DIRECTOR (FLASH MEMORY FOR THE APAC REGION), KINGSTON

viding our consumers innovative and high-quality products that help them enjoy a smart digital lifestyle.” briefs Manisha.

Market Drivers The increasing need of consumer devices trigger immense demand for storage solutions among the end users with which the consumer electronic market across the world flourishes. In India, the growing digitization of content transforms the customer demand which in turn creates opportunity for channel partners. As Seagate sees tremendous potential in the emerging markets like India, so they closely work with the customers and chan-

“DEMAND FOR HDD’S, FLASH DRIVES AND OTHER PRODUCTS IN THE STORAGE VERTICALS HAVE RISEN UP. CONSUMERS AIM TO DEMAND MORE AND MORE INNOVATIONS.” SUSUMU KOBAYASHI, COUNTRY HEAD, BUFFALO.

hassle-free Seagate Dashboard software. Seagate Backup Plus products are the world’s first external hard drives to provide backup for content on social networks, such as Facebook and Flickr.”

With media becoming the key component of any mobile devices like tablet and iPad, Seagate brings satellite mobile wireless storage which provides real value to the multitude of tablet users by delivering a seamless connection to local storage.

Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite allows people to carry their entire media library with them without the need for wires or the web.

For the last few years, the trends of technology have been transformed a lot in India with the technology companies launching consumer products in televisions, laptops, cameras or tablets markets.

“As part of SanDisk’s strategy to augment its reach in emerging markets, we continue to pioneer new developments in flash memory. We believe in pro-

nel partners to deliver the best in class solutions.

Khalid Wani maintains, “Supporting our partner community at every step is also a key ingredient of our market strategy. In India, Seagate sales are driven through our channel partners. Our efforts are focused on assisting the partners in every way and help them grow their business.”

Kingston believes that quality and reliability are key components to grow in storage market, so they always do quality test for all products.

Further they facilitate toll free number for any tech queries, provide free technical support and offer warranty on all products. In case, if a product needs replacement during the warranty period, they happily replace the products.

According to OCZ, price again is the key driver of SSD market, whereas features & applications also play a substantial role in driving the market.

Western Digital considers demand for more stor-

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TECH CORNER

SUNIL KRIPALANI, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT – GLOBAL SALES & MARKETING, ESCAN.

IMPORTANCE OF PATCH MANAGEMENT

SMBs, Enterprises, or consumer segment, all alike are users of wide range of applications. However, there lies a vast difference within these sections when it comes to deployment of patches.

W

ith continued evolution in technology landscape, newer innovations are being introduced and adapted at a much faster pace than ever before. Applications are developed, good amount of resources are invested into their security, and the resultant product is then made available for general use. Internet Explorer, Java, Adobe Acrobat are few such applications which have been a part of the technological advancements and have been integrated into products which we use on a daily basis, such as Smart Phones, Desktops, Servers, etc.

Rarely, there is an application developed which does not need any correction, upgradation or modification. There can be issues with the design, configuration, functionality, or compatibility of the application that may lead to vulnerabilities.

The number of vulnerabilities in the applications or systems is increasing predominantly as their designers and users have failed to detect or rectify them. This in turn, has created opportunities for skilled cyber criminals that discover these vulnerabilities at a significant rate and implement automated attacks on them not only just to exploit vulnerabilities, but also spread them via the exploit kits they peddle. This has led to significant risks to the overall global computing environment.

Development of an application and vulnerability research is a cyclic process. Technological advancements have led to an increase in vulnerability research in them and regularly innumerable vulnerabilities are being disclosed. With every new release, researchers dive into the internal

workings of the applications to trace vulnerabilities that can be exploited. Once any vulnerability is detected, security researchers unlike their evil twin, disclose the vulnerability to the vendors, who in turn issues an update to patch up the vulnerability.

SMBs, Enterprises, or consumer segment, all alike are users of wide range of applications.

However, there lies a vast difference within these sections when it comes to deployment of patches, which are critical in keeping a computer system safe.

A patch management strategy strives for consistency across an organization’s systems, even if that means delaying the deployment of key software updates. It might sound counter-intuitive to postpone the installation of a software patch.

Business continuity may suffer when either it is under a network attack, or the supplied patch has undesirable results on the business application, effectively rendering it useless. Many such instances have occurred in the past, which forces us to deploy - test before use policy.

Deployment of a central patch management system calls in for huge amount of dedicated resources. It includes testing of patches before being applied into the production environment in order to ascertain, whether a server will function properly or will it be rebooted, which may hamper its availability. Patching of servers is dependent on various factors such as requirement of stopping of services and restarting of server OS, which in turn affects the availability.

For example, in case of MS Exchange Server, if the patches have to be updated, the application server needs be shut down in order to apply

patches. Hence, timing of applying a patch also plays an important role in patch deployment.

Moreover, the size of patches may vary from a few KBs to MBs, and this in turn affects the bandwidth availability. Without a central patch management system, this would clog internet traffic as every individual system will try to update itself from Internet.

Security researchers, alike malware authors are toiling day-in and day-out for conducting in-depth research of applications that are used regularly and are continuously trying to find ways to exploit them. Security controls are only effective if there are no means of circumventing them.

If any existing vulnerability enables someone or something to bypass one set of security controls, then potentially all other security controls around that system could then be rendered ineffective.

Businesses must implement a process to prioritize critical security updates on their networks in order to remediate critical vulnerabilities in the minimum time-frame. It should also be understood that though patch management plays a pivotal role in ensuring secured business networks, however it is not a complete solution for all kinds of security vulnerabilities. In addition to multiple security controls, patch management is just one part, though one of the most effective means of securing networks against evolving cyber threats.

Unlike enterprises, which have dedicated resources to handle patch management, SMBs can manually implement patch management or opt for a MSP that will help them implement both an automated service and a remote service. This will not only reduce cost of IT infrastructure but also ensure that task is performed efficiently.

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age, backup & data sharing in consumer storage peripherals as the biggest driver. Sales of handheld devices like smart phones and tablet PCs also bring growth in this segment and smart phones with option of 16-32 GB expandable memory also drives the storage market. Sanjay Kathuria, Group Business Manager, neoteric infomatique ltd, explains, “Popularity of brand is driving this business along with trendy looks, easy usage and most importantly, low cost of ownership.”

which is in tune with customer’s needs for creating or buying digital content in HD quality for home entertainment, streaming or social media.

Mannan comments, “All the available storage medium are in demand and every product have its own utility. A micro SD card compliments with mobile phones, tablets etc, whereas HDD, SSD are used for external storage of desktop and laptop data and help to transfer and store huge GB’s of data.”

Demand for external storage

Challenges towards market growth

Today, consumer requires huge storage area for their personal data such as videos, songs, games,

“MARKET SHARE OF SD CARDS AND MEMORY CARDS ARE MORE THAN OTHER STORAGE MEDIUM DUE TO THE SALES OF MOBILE PHONE.” M. A MANNAN, COUNTRY MANGER, CORSAIR MEMORY INDIA

personal photos, MS files etc and the size of the storage devices getting smaller, so the demand for portable HDD with large capacity upgrades.

Besides the end users’ demand for storage capacity moves from 500GB to 1TB and 2TB because of the higher availability size in market and price gap.

As the sales volumes of cell phones are very high, so micro SD cards become the most popular in India. According to OCZ, SSD as a storage medium sees high demand in India in the current scenario and grows over 2 & half folds month over month.

Realizing the youths’ need for elegant and stylish storage devices, Seagate continues to innovate to go along with the current trends not only in technology but also in product designs. Owing to the shift in the general trend from USB flash drives to portable HDDs, sales of 1 TB and 2 TB units are set to go up. Western Digital claims that it is the only brand with an established high capacity 2 TB portable drive offering in the Indian market,

Some of the key challenges that affect the market growth encompass price fluctuations, new innovations in technology, emergence of cheap and local brands and lastly consumer’s unending requirement for storage. OCZ considers product education as one of the major challenges, so they design next phase of marketing activities and roll out the program to address the product education concept at end user level.

Demand of data storage continues to grow because cloud computing, virtualisation, consumerization, mobile and wireless technology, growth of personal media content like videos, pictures and music, all indicate more opportunities for storage. WD informs that from an infrastructure point of view, complex logistics and longer leadtimes into cities are the biggest challenges and the awareness of concepts such as Cloud, NAS, DLNA and web-based OS among consumers also seem to be low.

Growth of broadband allows consumer to download and store more data on the external storage device with access to high speed, alwayson internet at home, office or while on the move.

Moreover the growth of smart phone and tablet doesn’t pose any threat to the SSD market, but brings more opportunity for SSDs in small form factors, such as the mSATA SSD, the enterprise and SI market. Ankur adds, “Currently OCZ is growing at a much faster pace in India market & holds the 1st position here in terms of market share, across consumer as well as the enterprise business verticals.”

Besides, due to the increasing usage of mobile phone and smart phones in emerging markets and rising affordability, market for external storage devices go up. Understanding the consumer’s requirement to access personal data on the move, WD brings products like My Book Live and My Book Live Duo which offer personal cloud solutions that allow users to access their personal content on the go.

Further consumer’s need to stay connected boosts the sales of smart mobile devices whether it is via traditional voice calls, mobile instant mes-

saging, e-mail or even via social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Hence broadband along with cloud technology can end up the storage market in the long run but the affordability of smart phones fuels the growth of storage market.

Counterfeit on Product’s Designs There are some small companies who try to copy the designs of other brands but still they are way behind in terms of technological advances and other innovations.

SanDisk considers counterfeiting as serious issue for consumer product companies. So they are actively engage with law enforcement and anticounterfeiting organizations to minimize these crimes and prevent consumers from receiving counterfeit products. It is very easy to dupe price sensitive consumers with the fake products available not only in the gray market but also on the e-commerce portals.

With the aim to defend this counterfeiting issue, every manufacturer initiates certain measures and lets potential buyers verify the unique serial number of the product they purchase on its website. Every genuine product has a hologram or other unique marks as an assurance of quality.

Potential As more and more enterprise depend upon NAS and SAN for storage of their data and even portability of HDD enables corporate people to carry data with them while on travel, so enterprise segment see good potential in this segment for external drives. With the SSD and secure flash drive product ranges, Kingston offers a lot to the enterprise segment. Its secure USB flash drive features hardware encryption system, which provides best protection for drive users. Sarkar, maintains, “Following the success of being the no. 1 SSD brand in India in consumer segment, we have been consequently able to strengthen our footstep in Enterprise Product Group as well.”

Growth of enterprise markets drives demand for flash storage solutions. Along with enterprise market, mobile market experience robust growth in feature phones, smartphones and tablets. Sood, SanDisk says, “SanDisk is well-positioned to capitalize on this growing market. As a company, we touch across end-to-end in the value chain from R&D to manufacturing, retailing and OEM.”

Finally, With the digital information ruling the world and consumers increasingly uploading photos and videos in social networking sites from their smart phones and tablets, the entire external storage market will experience immense growth.

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GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. Toll-Free No: 1800-425-4945; Tel: 022-40633222; Website: www.gigabyte.in Gujarat 99677 18653; Mumbai, Goa & Chhattisgarh 99677 18653; Maharashtra 98509 60003; Madhya Pradesh 93027 80368; New Delhi, Haryana: 99583 72672; Himachal Pradesh 99100 86976; Punjab 97818 33433; Chandigarh 84377 07773; Rajasthan 88907 31111; Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh 99353 21222; Bihar, 90075 45577; Jharkhand 90405 06080; North East 98642 30150; Orissa 90405 06080; West Bengal 98319 90308; Andhra Pradesh 86860 37899; Karnataka 96867 16443; Tamil Nadu 98409 66725; Kerala 98200 50207 *Co nditions apply

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LEADERS CORNER

SECURE IMAGING AND PRINTING In networked imaging and printing technology, it is very easy to attack the mission-critical business information of any large or small organization, but HP’s multifunctional printing device have built-in print, copy and send authorization controls to restrict usage and protect vulnerable functions

BY APARAJITA CHOUDHURY aprajita@smechannels.com

A

s the traditional definitions of printing are on the verge of extinct with the explosion of digital content, SMB is becoming the fast growing segment in India for enterprise level printing solutions.

So to address the needs of this segment, HP brings imaging and printing solutions which are designed to manage print environment, reduce cost, increase productivity, while lowering the environmental impact at the same time.

Some of the key driving segments of HP in the Indian imaging and printing market comprise consumer, SMBs and large enterprises. In consumer segment, the company caters to the students and home-users’ need to print study materials with HP Ink Advantage printer series, which presents an innovative solution with highcapacity ink, allowing for high-quality and reliable printing at affordable prices.

With the intention to deliver cost effective printing solutions to the SMB segment, Nitin Hiranandani, Director (Printing Systems, PPS), HP India, comments, “With the SMB market growing in India, we at HP is helping SMB customers reduce costs, improve their environmental impact and drive additional value to their customers with products and tools that are easy to implement and use.”

Along with all these feature rich printing solu-

tions, the company also offers managed print services (MPS) to SMBs through channel partners which help to reduce energy costs about 30% to 80% by managing and optimizing office printing environment.

Apart from SMB, the company increases focus on large enterprises also to mitigate their printing costs and paper usage through effective printing solutions. Assuming that the print consolidation and green initiatives are driving corporate to relook at their printer deployment and explore opportunities for savings, HP provides MPS to those organizations for balanced deployment and print fleet management, manage work flow and help them adopt eco friendly methods to save printing costs. In addition to that, the company introduces a range of printing solutions for large businesses that help them manage and optimize their imaging and printing infrastructure.

Being an undisputed industry and market leader, HP offers industry’s broadest and most comprehensive portfolio of imaging and printing products and solutions to fulfill the needs of every customer. As per the IDC report, market share of Laser printers witness 49% growth in Q1, 2012 and the market share of inkjet printer posts 64% growth. So all these statistics indicate that the company is leading in the printing segment.

HP has a huge range of LaserJet and inkjet printers with single and multi-functional capa-

bilities to address the SOHOs, micro businesses, SMBs, large and enterprise businesses. The company also comes up with Deskjet Ink Advantage range, an affordable printing solution which sees a lot of traction from the home consumers who needs to print assignments for school, college purpose.

Speaking about the additional product lines, Hiranandani informs, “In the office space, we have an industry leading and truly competitive range of Office jet printers and MFDs starting from Rs. 5,499.The range is available at various price points with varying features like ppm, duty cycle etc., and suiting needs of the end customer. The latest entrants to this segment are HP Officejet Pro 8600 e-All-in-One and HP Officejet 150 Mobile All-in-One.” Again for the laser conscious customers, HP possesses broadest range of laser printers and MFDs in laserjet series. The series starts from HP LaserJet Pro P1108 Printer, which is world’s most energy efficient laser printer and is available at a price of Rs. 6,599. Hence, HP laser printers and MFDs dominate the entire commercial print market.

Basically HP printers incorporate energy saving feature, called HP Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology that automatically turns off the printer when the works are done triggering low impact on environment. Hiranandani maintains, “We recently

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“HP helps its customers explore all of the authentication options in the vast portfolio to find the best solution for their environment. “ NITIN HIRANANDANI, DIRECTOR (PRINTING SYSTEMS, PPS), HP INDIA

unveiled a new portfolio of Laser printers and solutions, HP LaserJet Pro 400 MFP printer series and HP LaserJet Pro 100 Colour MFP features a host of new improvements like wired and wireless networking, automatic two-sided printing and ePrint, a unique service from HP that allows consumers to print directly by sending an email to the printer’s email address.”

Lack of security in business critical mission information poses threat for large organizations and developing SMEs because networked imaging and printing technology have the same functionality as a computer or server and it is very easy to attack. As a result, printer-based security breaches have the potential to expose an organization and its employees, customers, and partners to myriad risks and unexpected costs.

So to widely address all these security issues, HP brings Access Control Printing Solutions which delivers powerful authentication, authorization, auditing and accounting capabilities. On the user authentication front, most HP multifunction printers (MFPs) have built-in print, copy and send authorization controls to restrict usage and to protect vulnerable or valuable functions. The company’s printing solutions features wide range of authentication methods like PIN code, proximity card or smart card. Hiranandani affirms, “HP helps its customers explore all of the authentica-

tion options in the vast portfolio to find the best solution for their environment. “ Gartner published its Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services, Worldwide (MPS) and Magic Quadrant for MFPs and Printers, Worldwide, where HP was named a “leader” and recognized for its “completeness of vision” and “ability to execute.

Right kind of technology investments is one of the key factors which now SMBs realizes will help them in today’s challenging and competitive environment. Adoption of technology in SMEs is directly dependent on bringing down the total cost of ownership, safeguarding investments and increasing ease of use. “Gone are the days when SMEs just considered one or two key parameters before buying an MFD. Now the SMEs prefer to consider the total cost of ownership while zeroing in on buying an MFD.” Says, Hiranandani.

Now-a-days, SMB customer considers some fundamental features before buying a printer or MFD which comprises of Print Speed, Copy Speed, Scan Speed, Cost per Page, Energy Saving, Network Supportability, ePrint and Web Connectivity, Toner Yield, Ease of Installation and Compactness. In addition to that, there are some other features which can influence the decision making of SMEs like, USB drive print support,

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business apps availability, environment friendly, ease of use etc.

Realizing the needs of the SMB segment, HP develops a 3-part strategic approach to enable their business goals. First, ‘starting Simple’ which help SMBs start with just the printing basics of keeping their business running with easy-touse, quality and affordable imaging and printing products. Secondly, ‘working smarter’ which save money and improve productivity with imaging and printing products and solutions and lastly, Growing Faster which helps to prepare for future growth and enable greater differentiation where HP can help simplify their business processes and improve their marketing communication.

Further Hiranandani informs, “As a part of our ‘go-to-market’ strategy, we are targeting small businesses in key verticals like logistics, design agencies, architects, travel houses, photographers, exporters and self-employed professionals through focused market development programs.

We are also strengthening our channel engagement efforts through channel road shows and training across the country to educate channel partners on the new product portfolio and technologies.”

HP is actively present in all regions of India with over 6,000 partners and 4,000 retail outlets

across 178 cities and towns. Channel enablement programs and policies are part of the company’s channel strategy which encompasses direct engagement model with tier-III channel partners, Partner Managed Print Services programs which are designed to help skilled partners to offer solutions and services to their customers and boosts their profitability.

As a part of its strategy, the company offers innovative promotions and initiatives to help its channel partners sell better, backed by strong marketing support. Moreover to address the challenges faced by the partners, HP organizes PAB (Planet Advisory Board) Meeting for its top 25 partners from India. Along with all these major initiatives, this year, channel partners receive award and recognition by HP IPG senior leadership in a special event in China. In this event, partners earn points on each unit of printers, MFDs and solutions sold.

With the aim to enable partners in selling solutions, HP develops channel partner solutions selling program to help train channel partners in selling and implementing the solutions. Besides, the company provides free pre-sales technical service, sales tools on how to position and sell solutions, face-to-face sales & technical training and certification, Post-sales support and upgrades.

Hiranandani explains, “It is HP’s constant endeavor to design solutions for easy adoption by the SMB market & delivery through its channel partners.”

The company informs that channel partners with their service skill -sets and large access to SMBs are positioned to cater to the growing needs of SMBs. HP is partnering with channel partners to address the smb & mid-market space to offer its Managed Print Services to SMBs. Further Hiranandani comments, “Our focus is to have partners with a robust services and sales infrastructure, preferably with presence in multiple cities with the mindset to invest in managed print services as a business model. We are imparting training on sales model, software solutions, and even structuring the financials of the contracts for enabling our partners offer MPS in a better way.”

Finally, HP emphasizes on SMBs in various verticals including manufacturing, BFSI, retail, and IT/ ITES. Moreover, the company targets about 350 listed mid-market accounts for MPS in metros including Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru and plans to extend the services in other tier-1 and tier-2 cities also.

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19/09/12 9:39 AM

SME CHAT

JEGANATH, SENIOR DIRECTOR SALES, ACER INDIA

“ACER HAS CUSTOMISED PRODUCTS TO ADDRESS SME SEGMENT.” Over the period of time, Acer has made a very good progress in the market. Not only has it gained good share in the consumers’ space but also has garnered good support from the retail market. Today, when the SME market is making contribution to the national economy, Acer is all set to tap the market. SME Channels spoke to Jeganath, Senior Director Sales, Acer India. Excerpts.

What is your perception of SME market potential in India?

The Indian economy is growing manifolds, with the sheer number of entities operating in the SMB space and with the relatively lower penetration of IT, we believe this segment offers a huge potential for any vendor to explore the Greenfield areas.

With the right approach and a comprehensive range of offerings, backed up by robust aftersales support, a vendor can maximize the growth opportunity and capture a sizeable market.

How is Acer focusing on the SME market in India?

SME will be one of the focus areas for Acer in 2012. With the growing requirement from the SME community Acer has customised products to address this segment. Acer will primarily focus on verticals such as Pharma, IT/ITES, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) and Wealth Management companies. Acer aims to proactively approach the SMB’s in these verticals to provide a wide range of product offerings from its staple of computing and display products.

Which products you are promoting among the SMEs?

We will continue to penetrate deeper and wider with our existing product portfolio of Veriton and Travel Series in SMB space along with display products (TFTs and Projectors) that are specifically targeted for the commercial segment.

We have also seen good acceptance for our Netbook and ICONIA tablets in the commercial space. With increasing broadband connectivity we expect these products to have a wider range of acceptance amongst our customers. Along with a strong after-sales support network we are confident and well equipped to address the needs of the SME segment.

tap business from SMB’s through enhanced partner engagement. Through its select partner programme, Acer plans to ramp up its existing partners base to more than 500 by the first half of 2012. Acer has identified 12 key locations across India where it will focus its efforts to drive SMB business.

What is your GTM strategy?

As mentioned earlier, Acer will primarily focus on verticals such as Pharma, IT/ITES, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) and Wealth Management companies. We have also put in place resources to engage regularly with our customers via tele calling to sustain top of mind recall.

How do you empower the partners to focus on the SMEs? We constantly engage with our channel force to educate and train on our new product launches.

We train our partners to be fully equipped to address the need of the SMB space. We train them on consultative selling than merely being just box sellers. In addition we also have both monthly and quarterly schemes and programs to boost their confidence. We ensure our partners gain from the complete portfolio of products from our stable that includes Desktops, Notebooks, Netbooks, Tablets, Servers, Projectors and TFTs. This also helps them in getting additional revenues that add to their profitability.

What is your channel strategy?

Acer aims to increase its market share in the SMB space through restructuring a dedicated team and deploying additional resources for partner relationships. In the year 2012 the company aims to

How do you focus on the brand promotion among the SMEs? We maintain a vast database of SME clients and on a regular basis share direct mailers (eDM) with them that include details on Acer’s product port-

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SME CHAT

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folio for the SMEs. Moreover, we also conduct regular events for our customers to sustain the momentum.

How do you reach out to them?

Acer aims to increase its market share in the SMB space through restructuring its dedicated team and deploying additional resources for Partner Relationship. In the year 2012, the company aims to tap business from SMB’s through enhanced partner engagement. Acer has designed a strategy to work on a large database to generate relevant leads through effective tele-calling support.

Pls. elaborate on your cluster specific strategy, if you have any?

We understand the need of our customers and are in talks with many vendors to offer vertical specific software tie-ups that will add tremendous value to our customer offering.

What is your geo presence strategy?

Acer has identified 12 key locations across India where it will focus its efforts to drive SMB business. Through our branch offices in the top 12 Tier I and II cities, the company will ramp up its operations and reach out to customers across the length and breadth of the country, except North East.

What kind of growth are you expecting from SMEs this year?

Currently the SMB sector is contributing 11 per cent to our overall revenue. With our new strategies in place we expect the SMB contribution to go beyond 15% on 2012. This is one of growth engines for Acer; we are looking at 40% growth from the previous year, considering the focus and initiatives planned for this segment.

SME CHANNELS 61

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SEPTEMBER 2012

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CASE STUDY

TALLY

INDIAN TEA COMPANY RUNS ON TALLY.ERP 9

L

ahejjat Group was established

by Shri Kalyanjibhai Dedhia in 1971. Initially started with one shop in Mumbai, later, next generation Mr. Anand Dedhia, Mr. Dipen Dedhia and Mr. Tejas Dedhia have expanded the group to a chain of 9 outlets in Mumbai. In the Lahejjat group, professional and trained tea tasters have produced a perfect blend of tea. They have always been upbeat with the modernization and technological progress and even own an upgraded tea processing and blending unit. They also started distribution of Packed Tea in the name of “Peeo G Chai”. This tea is available in all small and big stores in Mumbai. They have appointed distributors to distribute Peeo G Chai in entire Mumbai. They also have a division which supplies tea and coffee vending machines and tea and coffee premixes to their corporate and multinational Customers.

Earlier they were using cash register machine at their retail outlets for billing. Accounting was done in Tally 7.2 at Head Office and this resulted in duplication of work. Managing day-today activities of each outlet became a challenge for the owners. Their major challenges were managing order and deliveries to their corporate customer and home segment, transfer of inventory from one outlet to another outlet, maintain minimum inventory levels at each outlet and avoid over stocking.

They also have distributors. Therefore managing outstanding and inventory levels at distributors is a big challenge.

Towards managing and monitoring these activities, two directors are fully engaged.

The owners of Lahejjat Group wanted some immediate solutions to the above challenges. They came to know about

“Tally software allows us to simplify our business processes.”

MR. KALYANJIBHAI DEDHIA DIRECTOR, LAHEJJAT GLOBAL BEVERAGES PVT. LTD.

CONTACT Tally Solutions AMR Tech Park II, No. 23 & 24, Hongasandra, Hosur Main Road, Bangalore – 560 068.

India.Tel +91 80 66282559; Fax +91 80 30228775; www. tallysolutions.com

BENEFITS

l Makes business

easy l Simplifies our business process l Gives fast and easy services to customers

Vertical Solutions - a Tally Solution Provider in Mumbai from their Chartered Accountant. So they called in Vertical Solutions and installed Tally Software at 9 locations. POS Invoicing was started at all the outlets. Delivery notes, sales invoices, credit note, stock journals, price list, negative stock control, customer credit control, auto batch number generation and multiple location inventory control was implemented with the help of Tally.ERP 9 default features and with some customization.

Mr. Tejas Dedhia, Director, Lahejjat Global Beverages Pvt. Ltd., said, “Data synchronization feature of Tally enabled fast exchange of data from outlets to Head Office. This helped in quick decision-making.”

They also have Customer Royalty Program for their Regular Customers, they reward customers with free gifts based on their purchases. Customization in Tally.ERP 9 also accommodates this provision. So today, Lahejjat Group is very happy.

Mr. Tejas added, “We also have future

plans to install Tally at the distributor locations, providing tablet PC with Tally Mobile App to the entire sales staff to record orders from customers. We also have plans to integrate weighing scale with Tally at all outlets and blending unit for smooth transfer of material from one location to other location.”

Mr. Tejas maintains, “In this dynamic business scenario Tally makes business easy and simple. Tally software allows us to simplify our business processes.

It helps us to give fast and easy services to our customers. Emailing of documents and reports, remote access and audit features further has improved the software.”

Vipul H. Gala, Director at Vertical Solutions and a Tally Partner and Tally Integrator, says, “Successful implementation of Tally at Lahejjat Global Beverages Pvt. Ltd. gives us pride, successful feeling & confidence to work in retail segment with multi locations. We are committed to providing our best technical support to improve operations.”

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PARTNER CORNER

TALLY IS GIVING US THE OPPORTUNITY TO GROW PROFESSIONALLY AND PERSONALLY VIPUL H. GALA, DIRECTOR, VERTICAL SOLUTIONS (TALLY PARTNER AND TALLY INTEGRATOR)

“TALLY IS SIMPLE, FLEXIBLE AND RELIABLE SOFTWARE WITH RICH FEATURES AT A VERY REASONABLE PRICE.”

When Mr. Vipul H. Gala jumped into the market in search of fortune in 1996, he ended up being a customer support executive in an IT company where he developed software and supported business in the domain of accounting and inventory management. But it did not satisfy his inner quest. He was getting jittery about doing something of his own than serving others. So in 2004, he started his own company by the name of Vertical Solutions and succeeded in bagging all the customers of his previous company.

However, Mr. Vipul was not able to service the customers to his satisfaction, since there were not many affordable and good software available in the market. In 2007, he decided to go for Tally partnership. With his domain knowledge in software development and support, he could realize that with Tally, he could really do justice to his potential. He found that Tally is simple to use and easy to integrate with software designed on other platform. Customization is also easy, Tally also keeps providing fast updates for statutory changes and it permits incremental implementation which provides facility to use the modules. Besides, Tally is reliable and reasonably priced.

He said, “When we took Tally Partnership, our first target was to convert our existing customers into Tally Platform. Initially we started Integration of Tally with our customized Application; later started

customizing Tally as per the users’ requirement. Our first customized solution on Tally Platform was for Grocery Traders considering all their requirements.

Same solution has now been implemented at more than 20 customers.”

Today, Vertical Solutions is specialized in Retail, Garments Manufacturer and Grocery Market Solutions, etc. He maintained, “Launch of Tally.ERP 9 with POS Module is Big Breakthrough in our Business, after this, we have concentrated more on Retail Business. We have also given Barcode based solutions on Tally Platform to some of our clients.

Tally Synchronization facility allows us to develop solutions for the Customers with Multi Location Business.” Today, Vertical Solutions’ client list is endless but names like Lahejjat Tea, S.L.Raheja Hospital, Mumbai, etc. have given them much satisfaction as the company is able to do a lot of customization for them.

Mr. Vipul added, “We have also developed Solution for Garments Manufacturers on Tally Platform, these solutions allow customers to generate Invoice based on Product, Size & Color, also maintain inventory in same manner. Customer can also generate Barcode Labels, Agent-wise sales and outstanding reports, Agent Commission report. We have also provided technical support to Integrate Tally with Hotel Reservation software, same software is used in more than 98 countries.”

A happy person, Mr. Vipul said, “The best thing for Tally as a company is that they consider customer as First and Foremost. This principle has made Tally Solutions Market Leader since last 2 decades, we feel proud to be associated with Tally Solutions.”

On the professional front, Tally has given Vertical Solutions a lot of happy and satisfied customers.

Personally, Mr. Vipul has been able to showcase his expertise at the higher level. He has been able to work with some of the top companies in the domestic as well as international market.

He states, “Every year our business is growing by more than 60%. We expect to double the turnover this year and increase the customer base.”

Finally…

Continuing his support to Tally, Mr. Vipul has pinned his hope on Tally.ERP 9 Series B. He expects this version will further expand his business horizon by creating opportunity in larger companies. In his final quote Mr. Vipul says, “Tally is giving us the opportunity to grow professionally and personally.””

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SME CHAT

ARPITA SENGUPTA, PRODUCT MANAGER - HIGH END STORAGE SYSTEMS, INDIA SOUTH ASIA, IBM

“DOING MORE FOR LESS” As data churns out with mind boggling speed managing this workload has become a headache for the IT teams. In the mid of this year IBM came out with a Smarter Storage, which it termed as efficient by design, self optimizing and cloud agile. Arpita Sengupta, Product Manager - High End Storage Systems, India South Asia, IBM, spoke to SME Channels about this whole “smarter” platform and more.

Recently IBM came out with this whole Smarter storage concept.

Tell us more about it.

This year has been really big for IBM, the reason being the launch of smarter storage. And what I mean by that is finally storage has qualified as a part of this bigger story which essentially means that there has been significant investment from our R&D but wherein storage is also being made smarter. This year on June 4, we officially launched the full smarter storage forum and the platform with products with specific technologies which come along with. So in a nutshell, smarter storage and backup also integrates into the smarter storage story.

We have mainly three pillars for smarter storage: design efficient, self optimizing and cloud agile system.

In smarter storage when I say design efficient it means a technology, an intelligent algorithm, which we call Real Time Compression, which have been built into our system. The day you integrate your SAN with the IT infrastructure it automatically lets you compress the data real time to 50% of its size. So what it essentially means is that usually for SAN you have the disks which are expensive. Most IT heads would like to go for a

mixed workload or a mixed kind of environment, where they can split their IT budget accordingly.

So what I am trying to say is that if your machine is installed that saves you significant IT budget from day one and that too without even thinking about your system admin to manage it so that’s the kind of technology we have come up with, though our competitors too have something similar.

What kind of growth do you foresee in this market?

There is a projection that by next year there will be a significant 10-15% increase. We are already looking at over US$2 billion in terms of the infrastructure which is storage, networking and equipment put together. From storage perspective we are looking at a good 30% market share which we are at and this will further increase moving forward.

What I would rather like to elaborate upon is the fact that the 30% to 50 % is no more the case.

In fact, storage or the requirement of data is actually doubling every two years; but our IT budgets are not doubling every two years. And the fact is that it is getting extremely hard to manage this.

As your competitors also have the same technology, how is it

better than them?

With our competitors it’s for passive workloads.

That means less active data, which means that whenever it’s not the peak time of the month or the year that kind of data is easily compressed by our competitors. However, for IBM the reason our investment has gone a long way because we managed to achieve the same technology but for hot data or active data, which we call it production data.

What I mean by hot data is data whenever there is a peak in performance, data is compressed while you are working on it, and increases the response time to 2x faster then what it used to be.

How has it been received in the market?

Traction for this technology has been huge. Compression, de-duplication, these are the technologies which are moving forward. And the reason people keep harping about it is mainly because couple of issues have been identified by the industry. First is how these emerging technologies can like virtualization, de-duplication, compression and the cloud intersect with storage. The second point is, what are the best practices on improving storage strategy and storage management.

But how each vendor is doing it differently is probably the key question. We need to understand

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SME CHAT

Number two is usually the analytics kind of startups and even major organisations. For us these are the typical analytics and BI kind of customers, where usually they are more CPU intensive as opposed to IO intensive situation. When I say CPU intensive we are talking of lot of data crunching and things like that. But again solutions differ according to that environment.

And the third workload is business process management, which is neither IO intensive nor CPU intensive. Here again there is a different approach to optimize their environments.

“WE HAVE MAINLY THREE PILLARS FOR SMARTER STORAGE: DESIGN EFFICIENT, SELF OPTIMIZING AND CLOUD AGILE SYSTEM.”

how is the technology is being used differently.

One of the key technologies here is definitely compression because that what has made the algorithm better. We are very confident from IBM that compression is which is already there and adopted big time in the market, is definitely the futuristic approach because disks are getting more expensive, people don’t have time, IT budgets are getting really flat. You need something to make a system efficient from the day you install it.

How do you target the verticals for your products?

We don’t usually differentiate our customers by verticals all the time. It’s completely based on their solutions requirements, and environment.

We actually cater to startups equally as we do to enterprise customers. Today’s startups or the SMBs are the next big thing the reason for me saying so because the Indian market especially is very dynamic. The growth rate is huge. To me it’s exponential and that’s where we actually do that projection. So when we cater to these markets it depends on the nature of the solution they are after. We chalk it out accordingly, take lot of inputs from the key IT contacts to ensure that we put in all those projections in mind and that‘s how we usually propose the technology and infrastructure.

Price point does play in important role for the SMB. How does IBM address this?

We have managed to have a complete storage portfolio. So what it really means is that we managed to build in key technologies which were initially being used for our higher end enterprise system, to actually be also included maybe in a smaller version. These technologies have now been seeped into our mid range systems as well as our entry level systems; and is made available for the mid range SMBs and startups as well. So startups can definitely have started investing as well.

How do you help them in choosing the right technologies?

Depending upon the kind of industry they are in, we approach our solutions. Usually we look at workloads. We have three workloads that we look at: first is transactional, second is analytics and the third is business process management workloads.

The reason why I emphasize on workloads is because inn most of the storage systems the technology is weaved around the type of workload, the nature of workload and the speed required around it. Transactional means that if a customer has lot of users then it’s IO intensive and not CPU intensive kind of scenario. They need very quick response time. For example banks.

What do you say are the trends in storage today?

For me it’s “doing more for less”. This again refers to compression. You can store more data for less because we are compressing it for you. You are not using as much disk space anymore and are saving 40-50% of your admin time and reducing your space requirements by 80%. That’s why I was harping about compression because we are cheap and this is pretty much the industry trend. There is a huge competition about how to give more to customers, because customers are extremely IT savvy. They don’t move one inch when it comes to increasing IT budget, which is understood because of the competitive environment of the industry overall.

What new products do IBM plans to come out with in the coming quarters?

We are again significantly investing in the whole smarter storage, smarter computing drive. One optimization which I missed earlier talking about is we are coming up with one of the key area of concern for SSD and for all organisations as it’s extremely expensive. Hence we have come up with a technology called Easy Tier, which means that in your storage system the algorithm will run in such a way that it will only use 3% of your SSD. Whenever there is a peak in performance and those who need data straight away will be able to benefit from this very fast moving disk, which doesn’t even have a mechanical component.

Technologies like easy tier, compression, virtualization, vendor agnostic virtualization have already announced this year so it’s a very big year for us and we are trying to keep growing on it. We are also trying to integrate significantly into the cloud environment and that to me is a very exciting part again, as storage plays a very big role in the whole cloud computing arena.

To put it in a very simple way cloud is the next big thing happening and storage will play a huge intersection in that whole cloud game.

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SME CHAT

DEEPAK JADHAV, DIRECTOR, VDA INFOSOLUTIONS

“BASED ON THE CUSTOMERS’ PAIN POINTS WE COME OUT WITH SOLUTIONS” The growth of IBM in India is no doubt a contribution of its channel partners. But as a principal, IBM also responds to the call of the partners with innovative products and solutions. Deepak Jadhav, Director, VDA Infosolutions, informed SME Channels about his role in IBM business. Excerpts

Pls. brief us about the inception and growth of VDA Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd. VDA Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd., (VDA) was incepted in Jan 2010 started by Deepak Jadhav, Vikas Save and Ashutosh Deuskar who are also the managing body at VDA Infosolutions with having 20+ years of experience in the IT industry we had an aim of being one of the respected system integrator in the Industry offering best in class IT solutions to various customers using products from technology leaders. Though initially we had a difficult task at hand of convincing customers with vendor neutral approach, with in short span of 3 years customers have liked the idea and have become more acceptable towards listening and respecting our views and solutions. Now more and more customers are approaching us to engage with

them as consultants and give them road map/ architecture to transform their IT setup, phase wise approach and building blocks for achieving desired results. In short span of over 3 years we became most favoured vendor with some of the large enterprises for supply and implementation of IT solutions.

VDA has head office in Mumbai & corporate Office at Pune apart from that has support centres located at Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Goa, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Ahmadabad with over 400+ support personnel’s involved in Infrastructure services.

In short period VDA won major customer orders based on innovative approach, better ROI and won prestigious awards in various categories from technology leaders, customers as well from media. With the rich in-house technical expertise

available VDA additionally extends its services in IT Infrastructure support, Data Centre operation, capacity planning, performance management, IS audits & complex system Integration. Most of our solutions are in the area of data centerconsolidation, Disaster Recovery, Data Life-cycle management and data security, testing tools used for application Load-testing etc.

What is the turnover of the company?

Last year we have crossed about 42 crores in Rupees and 3 million in Dollars.

Do you have any specialization or strength?

Our strength lies in Storage, Data-center consolidation, Data protection, data life cycle manage-

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SME CHAT

Systems to all customers. At VDA Infosolutions we do not deal with SMBs, we only deal with medium or larger enterprise organisations. The customers who are due for technical refresh or looking for consolidation are the ones whose compute and storage and related n/w requirement is likely to come together. Therefore these are the potential customers for IBM’s PureSystems. Also, Greenfield projects wherein the customers are setting up new IT setup are great candidate for such solutions.

“IBM PURESYSTEMS IS MORE OPEN COMPARED TO OTHERS. IT IS HAS TAKEN OUT THE LACUNA SINCE IT HIT THE MARKETS A LITTLE LATE COMPARED TO OTHERS.”

ment area, based on the customers’ pain points we come out with solutions equipping them with our core competencies based on their need. Also we put together roadmap for 3 to 5 years based on the customers’ vision and help them in implementation as well hand holding. This will help them to overcome their existing problem with efficient use of existing setup and manage technology refresh gradually.

You must be dealing with multiple brands as far as infrastructure are concerned, how IBMPureSystem is different from HP Gen8 servers or Oracle’s Exadata and Dell solutions?

IBM PureSystems is more open compared to others. It is has taken out the lacuna since it

hit the markets a little late compared to others.

Therefore, IBM’s PureSystems understands the need of the customers in-depth. Especially when you are trying to consolidate everything into one box then you need to be well equipped in terms of flexibility to meet various demands . IBM’s PureSystems comes with improved bandwidth and more importantly huge list of industry best applications are tested on the same where implementation time gets reduced drastically. IBM gives a choice of Hypervisors, OS compare to others and manage them all under one management umbrella reducing cost of operations drastically.

What strategy have you put in place to position IBM PureSystem?

There is a catch here as one cannot position Pure-

What kind of traction are you seeing in the market for PureSytems because it is not been long since the product has been launched?

Like mentioned earlier not all customers are potential candidates for IBM’s PureSystems. There is a lot of curiosity among customers, yet they do not plunge into adoption of new technology rapidly. They wait for others to adopt before following the trend,this essentially also means the market is ready for change and is taking onto new technologies slowly. Yet it’s just a quarter that’s gone by since the launch the real traction will start now. IBM PureSystems is seeing a positive traction and acceptance in the market.

What kind of migration path are you offering to the partners?

There are migrations tools- that help potential customers migrate from old setup to new setup.

That is not a concern lately with availability of various tools.

How many customers do you have? Which are the major customers?

We have about 100 customers out of which around 25 are enterprise customers and in approximately 5-6 customer place we already entered the 2nd stage discussions that is next to concept stage and actually discussing sizing etc.

What kind of growth are you expecting?

We are expecting about 20-30% growth in the market going forward.

Which are the domains that you want to expand your strength and why?

VDA has varied skills to provide technically viable & cost effective solutions to the customer in different industry segments such as BFSI, Manufacturing, ITeS etc. and would like to penetrate more also would like to explore Testing tools (Load-testing) vertical.

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TREND SETTER

CANON

CANON TO LEVERAGE THE POWER OF INKJET

For some time now most of the vendors had put aside the inkjet printers for the occasional users, especially the consumers, due to its high running cost. But now, all of a sudden realization has dawned that consumer market is on a very high growth path, and vendors are again rediscovering value in the Inkjet printers and thus realigning their strategy.

BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

T

RAJEEV TIWARI, DIRECTOR, CSP GROUP, CANON INDIA

“BY MAKING INKJET PRINTERS MORE RELEVANT AND VALUABLE CAN ONLY CHANGE THE BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF THE PEOPLE. THEN THERE WON’T BE ANY QUESTION OF INKJET OR LASER. IT WILL BE THE APPLICATION DRIVEN PRINTERS.”

he growth of Canon India is visible to everyone who belongs to this trade.

But most of Canon’s growth has come from its Camera and Laser jet printers and MFDs. Like other IT vendors, this company too had ignored the Inkjet printers for some time, but with the enterprise market showing signs of weakness the company has again turned towards the Inkjet printers and the consumer business aggressively.

Canon has restructured its CSP strategy this year with Rajeev Tiwari at the helms as the Director of CSP Group. The biggest restructure is separating the Inkjet and Laser pipeline. He adds, “We had four regional managers handling printers, now there are eight regional managers. Similarly, each division has been turned in to a complete business unit by itself. So, they have their own marketing and sales set ups. There are again two divisional heads compared to one divisional head in the past.”

Since Inkjet is separating its track towards home buyers, Canon is realizing the distinct role of retail chains and possible applications around it for the home segment. The company has added Wi-Fi feature in most of the Inkjet printers and also an application suite - Creative Park premium with each of the printers so that it becomes more active and meaningful for the home users – specially the school going kids.

Rajeev maintains, “By making Inkjet printers more relevant and valuable can only change the buying behaviour of the people. Then there won’t be any question of Inkjet or Laser, it will be the application driven printers.”

He adds, “Printer is more a plug-n-play device.

Therefore, it is gradually falling in the category of consumer products. People are realising that it is no more a devise to be installed by the engineer.

This attitude change is reflecting on the sale of the retail counters.”

So far as CSP is concerned, the BU of Canon

is trying to focus on the consumers and applications. The BU wants to see a better growth figure for the Inkjet products till 2015, which means, the consumer will be the driver of their business. And, by the end of this year, Rajeev predicts a share of 20% in the overall Inkjet market.

Asked about why there is a change of heart for Inkjet, Rajeev says, “As per the recent studies, Inkjet technology will surge ahead because there is a lot of research going on globally now. To give you an example, Canon has come out with a product called Dream Labo, which is a highinvestment machine for printing photographs on a production basis and that is an Inkjet product.”

Rajeev believes that the channel is the biggest pusher of Canon printers. So before leveraging the brand power, Canon first enables the partners.

Canon India is aiming at achieving its target of US$ 1 billion by 2015 or in rupee terms Rs.4,500 crore. This year the company has a target of touching Rs.2,300 crore and wish to grow 30% y-o-y.

Rajeev says, “If we are thinking of 30% growth year over year, it does not mean that we are over wishing because if you look at our growth from 2006 onwards till 2011, we have touched Rs.1600+ crore from Rs.380 crore. So we are marching on to achieve the requisite number by 2015.”

He adds, “We have been growing very fast and to maintain that momentum we are bringing in new ideas. Canon has the advantage of having so many divisions and professionals from one division to another move and bringing fresh ideas and creativity. So that is the key to success for us.”

With the separation of Inkjet and Laser, the company has realigned its support for partners, but there is no change in the channel strategy.

Finally…

With Creative Park, Canon plans to take the campaign to various schools and malls where they will run small programs to get the kids glued to the activities around the printer.

68 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

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19/09/12 10:05 AM

SECURITY CORNER

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL: A NEW ERA OF COMPUTING To take advantage of all the possibilities of big data and this new computing era, organizations must build systems where each piece works in concert, each playing a differentiated role that feeds the operation.

VIVEK MALHOTRA Territory Executive – North & East, IBM General Business, India/ South Asia.

BRIEF PROFILE Vivek Malhotra is the Vice President and Regional Territory Executive, North & East, IBM General Business, India/ SA. Vivek has over 21 years of sales experience and has held multiple leadership roles within the IT industry.

In his over 16 years in IBM, he has been instrumental in driving a culture of sales eminence and client value for the success of IBM clients. Vivek has done his BE from BITS Mesra.

THE WORLD is entering a new era of computing where trillions of interconnected things will generate more data than ever before. By 2015, all these interconnected things will produce seven zettabytes of data around the world. For those counting, a zettabyte is a one followed by 21 zeroes. This big data creates an increasingly complex computing environment, but also opens the door for incredible innovation – if we can find ways to use it to our advantage.

The future success of organizations relies on their ability to unlock greater intelligence, insight and visibility by tackling big data and better utilizing structured data as well as unstructured data, such as videos, blogs and tweets.

The most common issue is that these are commodity computing systems, meaning they are built from basic parts, made for basic work. They do not recognize that not all computing tasks are created equal, and the same goes for computing systems. Technology leaders need to adopt a comprehensive systems approach where each component, and therefore the system at large, is highly tuned to the task and optimized to make the most of data.

Computing systems are not unlike vehicles. There are many different types – pick-up trucks, sports cars, mini-vans, etc. – but each serves a different purpose.

No one has tried to sell a single type of vehicle since Henry Ford began production of his Model T vehicles more than 100 years ago. One size does not fit all.

Consider the following points when weighing which type of system can best help enterprises: Only efficient parts make up an efficient system While each computing system as a whole needs to achieve one specific goal, each part can only do a portion of the work. The better each part performs a particular task, the better the system will run altogether.

In a commodity system, each part can only reach a certain level of efficiency, so many more parts have to work to get the job done.

On the other hand, if each part is specialized, it

can perform one task at ultimate efficiency. Instead of harnessing the power of three standard cars to tow a mobile home, use one powerful truck. By allocating resources as needed, a smarter system performs tasks quicker, using less power, and ultimately costing less money.

Short-term investments can have longterm costs Shortsighted IT investments based on immediate cost-savings results in systems that cannot adapt to meet changing needs over time. By making the right kind of investments, computing systems can have the capacity to benefit from innovations that come up tomorrow and many years from now. Otherwise, the expense of additions and upgrades will cost more in the end.

For example, cloud computing virtualizes data, making it easier to store, share, and analyze. Cloud computing makes technology services available anytime and anywhere, benefits that will soon make it a common practice. It is unlikely that a commodity system can deliver on these benefits because they require a highly sophisticated, highly tuned system Quality of service relies on specialization Commodity systems lack the attributes important to specialized tasks. Would you use a standard economy car to travel off-road for emergency rescue or transport large amounts of hard cash? You would have to discretely add features across the board, which opens the door for errors.

To address specific work, a part needs specific accommodations, otherwise it can do many things, but none of them very well.

To take advantage of all the possibilities of big data and this new computing era, organizations must build systems where each piece works in concert, each playing a differentiated role that feeds the larger operation. In doing so, they will create smarter computing systems that do more with less, use data to drive innovation and deliver results faster than ever.

70 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

Guest Talk-Vivek Malhotra of IBM.indd 70

19/09/12 10:09 AM

PRODUCT

REVIEW

ZYXEL SMART MANAGED SWITCH- XGS1910

NETGEAR N750 PREMIUM WIFI ROUTER

ZYXEL’S BRAND-NEW Smart Man-

BY MANAS RANJAN / SATYA SAGAR SINHA info@smechannels.com

NETGEAR N750 DUAL Band Gigabit WiFi Router - Premium Edition (WNDR4300) is a wireless solution that combines a feature-rich set with blazing fast 750Mbps (300 + 450 Mbps) speed to stream HD video, support multiplayer gaming and handle large file transfers. Featuring secure NETGEAR ReadyShare Cloud service and compatibility with Apple Time Machine, the NETGEAR N750 is a cost-effective router that makes home networks faster, more reliable and easier to manage in medium-to-large homes.

The NETGEAR N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Premium Router includes NETGEAR ReadyShare Cloud service, which enables the creation of a highly secure private cloud for easily accessing and sharing files wirelessly.

NETGEAR ReadyShare Cloud keeps all your files stored securely at home but available to transfer, edit or share anywhere, anytime remotely via your smartphone, tablet or PC. Simply and securely drag and drop files and folders without the hassle of using multiple file sharing sites or uploading.

The NETGEAR N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Premium Router’s compatibility with Apple Time Machine provides automatic wireless backup to a connected USB hard drive for Macs. The router also offers expanded TiVo Storage via a connected USB drive for saving your favorite programs and NETGEAR ReadyShare Printer for sharing USB printers on the network. Simultaneous dual band (2.4 and 5.0 GHZ) and four gigabit Ethernet ports ensure an ultra-fast connection and stronger WiFi connections for medium-to-larger homes.

FEATURES n Faster WiFi speed – up to 750 Mbps n Easily turns any existing USB printer

into a fully functional networked printer n NETGEAR Genie is a free utility for

PCs and Macs n Makes any printer compatible with

Apple AirPrint n Enables to quickly find and play

media files in your network n Supports the DLNA standard for

streaming media to DLNA-enabled consoles n Advanced Quality of Service (QoS) n WPA and WPA2 protocols for WiFi n Live Parental Controls offer central-

ized, flexible and reliable parental control n Easy to Install, Set Up and Use

PRICE INR 15,000/-

WARRANTY 2 years

CONTACT NETGEAR TECHNOLOGIES INDIA 21, Paharpur Business Center Software Technologies Incubator Park Nehru Place Greens New Delhi- 110019,India Phone: 011-41207446

OVERALL RATING

aged Switch– the XGS1910 is powered by the industry’s most comprehensive L2 features: high-speed GbE to desktop, 10GbE uplink, PoE (Power over Ethernet) technology and IPv6 compatibility delivers outstanding performance and efficiency in network traffic management, QoS (Quality of Service), security management and power management at a competitive price-performance ratio.

As bandwidth-intensive IP-enabled applications and devices continue to evolve along with cloud services, mobile connectivity and the new Internet Protocol, businesses need smart networks with dynamic mechanism and manageability to sustain future growth.

Designed with a variety of VLAN features such as MAC (Media Access Control), protocolbased VLAN and guest VLAN, the new ZyXEL XGS1910 provides a more comprehensive set of network management capabilities on top of general Web managed switch features. The comprehensive range of the series comprises of six models that provides 2/4 10GbE ports for uplinks and/or stacking links (XGS1910 models), 24/48 PoE (Power over Ethernet) ports (GS1910-24HP/48HP) and Gigabit connectivity. The complete, advanced feature sets and extensive model options allow businesses to flexibly choose the performance level according to the requirement of organisation growth of SMEs with growing desktop users and needs for advanced Internet applications.

n Price: Rs. 79, 300 for 24 Port and 145, 400 for 48 Port, Warranty: 5 years, Contact: ZyXel Sales, Email: sales@zyxel.in

72 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

Products pages.indd 72

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WINKNET

HP

WINKNET 3G POCKET WI-FI ROUTER

HP’S SMALLEST AND lightest weight Elitebook – the Elitebook 2170p is only 11.6-inch diagonally and weighs only 1.31-kilos, yet supports enterpriseclass connectivity, security and management features. With up to eight hours of battery life, the HP EliteBook 2170p is also compatible with the common docking stations used across the HP business notebook portfolio for maximum efficiency.

The Elitebook 2170p offers a full-sized keyboard – with optional backlit capabilities – encased in a business-rugged design that protects against the bumps common with mobile use. It also features an optional integrated HP Mobile Broadband featuring, allowing for access to the Internet, corporate networks, email and mission-critical information in more places. This business notebook delivers Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) graphics and is powered by Intel’s third-generation ultra-low-voltage processor that enables long battery life All of the new HP EliteBooks also employ HP’s design framework, which embodies a timeless construction. Precision-engineered durability features are designed with the environment in mind, and the four systems also sport thirdgeneration Intel Core processors.

TARGETED AT THE young professionals who are always on the move, Winknet’s next generation MF50 3G Pocket Wi-Fi Router allows them to easily remain connected and be socially active anytime, anywhere through various access devices. As it is a High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) USB Modem with a LCD display, it provides high speed internet with the USB interface of a computer or Wi-Fi to the users. It works with GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/HSPA and is multi-mode wireless terminal for SOHO and business professionals. It allows multiple users to connect up to 10 devices simultaneously.

It has an inbuilt signal booster with an download speed of 14.4 Mbps and an upload speed of 5.76Mbps. Weighing at just 80 gms, the bar shaped sleek device with slim and compact design makes it extremely convenient to carry and use. With simple user-friendly web-based interface, easy installation and activation, switch on and start surfing as the higher spectrum efficiency make users to connect and share wifi with upto 10 consumers. With its powerful 1500mAh, the device has an expandable memory of upto 32GB for consumers to stay connected.

n Price: Rs. 69,000/-, Contact: HP Sales, call 866-625-0242, Website: www.hp.com

n Price: Rs.5, 800/-, Warranty: 1-Year, Contact: Gaurav Bali, Email: gaurav.bali@shyamnetworks.com

HP ELITEBOOK 2170P

BUFFALO

BUFFALO’S HIGH PERFORMANCE TERASTATION 5000 SERIES BUFFALO’ TERASTATION Series of Terabyte NAS offers powerful storage, server and multimedia solutions designed for SMB and SOHO users. Combining advanced fault tolerant data solutions, robust file security and Gigabit Ethernet networking; TeraStation allows users to deploy a simple, cost-effective data or media server to their office or home network in literally minutes without cutting corners on features or expandability. TeraStation 5000 Series is high performance NAS available in 2-drive, 4-drive, 6-drive, 8 drive model ideal for business and demanding users requiring a reliable RAID based storage solution for larger networks and business critical applications. With powerful Intel Atom D2550 processor, TeraStation 5000 Series provides exceptional performance during file transfers and everyday NAS functions. They run many services simultaneously and the dynamic combination of the dual core 1.86 GHz processor and 2GB DDR3 RAM enables the acute ability to focus on concurrent tasks and minimal performance degradation; experience maximum throughput while a replication job runs in the background, surveillance video is recording from multiple IP-based cameras. n Price: MRP for 2 Bay Model with 2TB, 4TB,and 6 TB is Rs. 91,000/-, 1,17,000/- and 1,43,000/- respectively, Warranty: 3-Year, Contact: www.buffalo-asia.com Email: sales@buffalo-asia.com

SME CHANNELS 73 SEPTEMBER 2012

Products pages.indd 73

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SECURITY CORNER

THE SHOW MUST GO ON Over the past year, a series of natural disasters has emphasized the importance of good business continuity planning. Mark Dixon, CEO of the Regus Group plc, suggests ways to disaster-proof your business.

MARK DIXON CEO, Regus Group Plc.

BRIEF PROFILE Chief executive and founder, Mark Dixon is one of Europe’s best-known entrepreneurs. Since founding Regus in Brussels, Belgium in 1989, he has achieved a formidable reputation for leadership and innovation. Prior to Regus he established businesses in the retail and wholesale food industry.

Recipient of several awards for enterprise, Dixon has revolutionized the way business approaches its property needs with his vision of the future of work.

IN AN urbanized, industrialized world, it’s easy to think that man controls the working environment.

Flick a switch and your office gets cooler. Flick another and any information you want is at your fingertips.

But then the unexpected happens. Earthquakes.

Volcanic ash blocking the airspace. H1N1. Such events remind us that economic cycles are not the only cause of uncertainty in business life.

When such disasters occur, many organizations find out – too late – that their business continuity planning was not up to the mark. So how can you make sure that your own business could continue to function during or after a crisis?

1. Plan before, not during, a disaster. The results of neglecting disaster recovery planning can be dire.

Faced with a major incident such as fire, floods, crime, terrorism or IT failure, a high proportion of businesses never re-open, or they close within two years.

2. Plan properly, and formalize your plans. According to Ernst and Young, 34% of companies cite ‘workplace recovery’ as their greatest technical challenge in creating a business plan. So, many procrastinate.

But even if disaster doesn’t strike, the lack of a robust disaster recovery plan can harm a business.

Increasingly, large companies’ tender procedures require suppliers to give details of their business continuity planning; an inadequate plan can cause you to fall at the first hurdle. Lack of planning can also arouse the disapproval of audit committees and regulators, in the financial services industry especially.

3. Think about the space you need. A common solution in business continuity planning is to use ‘hot sites’, particularly to ensure continued access to business-critical information systems. But this may not cover the overall issue of where all your staff would go to work.

At one end of the scale, you may not need a hot site – just access to desks or meeting rooms. At the other end of the scale, an organization with a wide or global footprint needs to replicate that footprint in its planning. You need access at short notice to suitable workspace all over the world – even when many busi-

nesses in the same area are scrambling for emergency space. This space should be near to where your staff work and live. At a time of crisis, a business should not sap staff morale even further by making people travel long distances to a replacement workspace.

4. Look for quality and capability. Equally important in workplace recovery planning is to find space of a consistently high standard. Your back-up space and facilities should be of the same high quality, whether they’re in London, Tokyo, Manila or hundreds of other locations.

5. Be flexible. Another way to simplify workplace recovery is to change the way you use space. With a mobile, flexible workforce, with staff working at different locations close to their homes or the customers, there is less reliance on centralized locations. With less reliance comes less vulnerability.

Flexible and mobile working has other major benefits too, such as the potential to reduce real-estate costs by up to 60%; and the potential to create a more motivated and productive workforce.

6. Be green. Traditional working patterns and traditional business continuity solutions often involve long commutes for employees. But a lengthy journey to a centralized office -or back-up office - does not make environmental sense when people can work flexibly .

Even less green are the continuity plans that see employees commuting to a centralized pick-up spot, and then being bussed to a back-up location elsewhere. Such scenarios are bad for employee morale, bad for productivity, and bad for the environment.

Flexible and mobile working - where employees use internet and wireless technology to work across convenient locations closer to home - renders those wlong commutes unnecessary. It therefore reduces the company’s environmental impact; reduces its vulnerability to site-specific emergencies; and can reduce real-estate costs as well.

As we see it, any solution that addresses three of the great business challenges of the twenty-first century – sustainability, costs and business continuity planning as well - has to be worth considering.

74 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2012

Guest Talk-Mark Dixon of Regus Group.indd 74

19/09/12 10:18 AM

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Advts.indd 4

Chennai Office: #400, Hot Desk, 3rd Floor, Apeejay Business Centre, Apeejay House.

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20/02/12 8:37 PM

RNI No.: DEL ENG / 2010 / 3192 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-1/4145/10-12

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