SME Channels May 14 by SME Channels

PLUS

HP to Pump in $1 Billion /10 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 05 | ISSUE 03 | PAGES 44 | MAY 2014 | RS. 20/-

SME BIZ /33

SME CHAT /20

SME BIZ /19

HP: Helping Partners Boost MPS Business

Kingston: Position as No. 1 Lifestyle Tech Brand

Iris: Financial Backing Makes Iris Dream Big

SME NETWORKING MARKET

POISED TO GROW

The data deluge has further given a push to the networking market; and with the changing perception of SMEs towards IT the networking market in India among them is poised to grow /26 Cover.indd 1

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SMS “BUYKIS<SPACE>EMAIL ID“ to 56263

301, Tower – A, World Trade Center, Kharadi, Pune – 411 014, India.Phone No: +91-020-65111016, 65111017.

Toll Free No.: 1800-209-2012, Paid Lines:+91-20-65111011, 27012834. SMS “KSHELP<SPACE>EMAIL ID“ to 56263 [For Technical Support], www.sakri.in ,sales@sakri.in

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PLUS

Cisco to Commit $150 Million to Early-stage Firms /10 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 05 | ISSUE 03 | PAGES 48 | MAY 2014 | RS. 20/-

SME CHAT /38

SME CHAT /34

INTEL: Riding High on Big Data

WatchGuard: Improving Channel Engagement Model

SME CHAT /24 BICSI: “We Aim to Bring Some Discipline”

MY EXPERIENCE

Lenovo S860 EDITORIAL

NETWORKING ALL THE WAY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

IT HAS BEEN hailed as a historic win for BJP as it heads for a majority of its own for the first time since 1984. “India has won” announced BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi right after his win in Vadodara and Varanasi. This election has been different from the previous ones on account of the usage of the social media by all the political parties to woo the voters. Modi’s strategy to use social media from Twitter to Facebook to Google Hangout etc. has paid off in a big way. The IT sector has been waiting anxiously for the elections to get over so that the economic picture of the country becomes clear. The industry is of the opinion that once the government is formed the market will definitely pick up – policies will become clearer, boost investor confidence, bring in the investments and generate employment et al. Coming to the networking equipment market for SMEs while this segment continues to be price sensitive and more or less technology laggard but this perception is slowly changing as they realise the need to upgrade their IT infrastructure to scale up their business. Video, carrier Ethernet, and convergence of residential and business networks are some of the driving factors behind the significant growth rate that the global router and switch market is experiencing. According to a study by Zinnov when it comes to enterprise IT, SMBs in India are different from SMBs in the developed world who have a higher understanding of technology. Therefore, SMBs in India look for solutions that are easy to deploy and for vendors who spend time educating their customers on the deployment of products and solutions. The new technological trends like BYOD are empowering the SMBs to better serve their customers and enabling greater productivity. Cloud on the other hand is making services and affordable and accessible to this segment. But with the advent and adoption of these technologies constant threat also remains from cyber attacks, as it has been already made amply clear by recent studies how vulnerable SMBs are to such attacks. Nevertheless, ample opportunities lie for channel partners and they need to see how they can leverage this in these hard times.

LENOVO’S S860 COMES as a breath of fresh air in a world dominated by plastic with its brushed metal unibody exterior giving it not only a sense of style but also durability. With its 5.3-inch wide-view HD screen the phone also offers battery life of up to 43 hrs of talk time. It’s powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, running on Android Jelly Bean and 2GB of RAM. The S860 also comes with the all new Lenovo Power 2.0 application that helps uses optimize the battery usage and get maximum life on a single charge. Equipped with a flashequipped 8 MP rear camera to snap and share photos. The device has an integrated 16 GB storage and comes with a dual SIM capability. It is loaded with Lenovo Premium DOit Apps that allows to transfer data to friends, speed up device, and sync contacts seamlessly.

SPECIFICATIONS The Lenovo S860 is priced at INR 21,500 (MRP), it’s 0.4” thick and weighs 0.42lbs. FINAL WORDING It’s powerful, responsive and durable

OVERALL RATING

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No Compromises!

Finally, a Video Management System thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s truly amazing! Scalable: From small, single-camera systems to large, scalable deployments with thousands of cameras Integrated: Compatible with more than 1,700 IP camera models from leading manufacturers and a large number of access control systems, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and retail and video analytics Powerful Functionality: Digital PTZ from any camera using live or recorded video, client support for leading panoramic cameras, two-way audio, mapping, archiving, enterprise functionality Flexible: Windows or Linux server software. View and administrate all systems from single client interface available for Windows, Mac or Linux. Free Exacq Mobile app for leading mobile devices, or access with leading internet browsers Convenient: Choose from software-only VMS solutions or preconfigured hybrid and IP camera servers. Hybrid servers leverage existing analog cameras. Install exacqVision Edge VMS on compatible IP cameras for server-less solution Cost-Effective: All of this power, simplicity and flexibility with a cost-effective price

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contents

MAY VOLUME 05 ISSUE 03

2014

ER COV RY STO

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Associate Editor: Karma Negi Reporter: Aparajita Choudhury, Manali Misra 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 #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 Mumbai Tahmeed Ansari 2, Ground Floor, Park Paradise, Kay-Bees CHS. Ltd.,Opp. Green Park, Oshiwara, Andheri (west), Mumbai - 400 053. Ph. +91 22 26338546, Fax +91 22 26395581 Mobile: +91 9967 232424 E-mail: Info@smechannels.com Kolkata S Subhendu BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101 Phone: 9674804389 EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 /

SME NETWORKING MARKET

46151993 editor@smechannels.com

Poised to Grow /26

Bangalore Bindiya Jadhav #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near

The data deluge has further given a push to the networking market; and with the changing perception of SMEs towards IT the networking market in India among them is poised to grow

Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004

SME CHAT Kingston /20

“Position Kingston as #1 Lifestyle Tech Brand”

GUEST TALK NComputing /42

SMBs Embracing Desktop Virtualisation

Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 E-Mail bindiya@ accentinfomedia.com Skype ID: b1diyajadhav

Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mohapatra Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016

BICSI India /24

“We aim to bring some discipline”

Shamanna Park, Model House Street,

Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458

more inside

Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor,

“To add more telecom and security products”

Editorial~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 04

Snippets~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 08

tion can be reproduced without the prior

Intel /38

SME Biz~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 19, 33, 34, 36, 37

Compac /32

“Riding High on Big Data”

Products~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 40

Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi 110020, India.

written permission from the publisher. Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.

SME CHANNELS MAY 2014

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SNIPPETS PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

for more log on to smechannels.com

HP to Pump in $1 Billion HP Helion, a portfolio of cloud products and services that enable organizations to build, manage and consume workloads in hybrid IT environments, has been launched in the market. HP Helion incorporates existing

HP cloud offerings, new OpenStack technology–based products, and professional and support services under a unified portfolio to help meet customers’ specific business requirements. HP is also extending its com-

mitment to OpenStack technology and hybrid IT delivery—spanning traditional IT, public, private and managed clouds. HP plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next two years on cloudrelated product and engineering

initiatives, professional services and expanding HP Helion’s global reach. “Customer challenges today extend beyond cloud. They include how to manage, control and scale applications in a hybrid environment that spans multiple technology approaches,” said Aman Dokania, vice president and general manager, Cloud Division, HP Asia Pasific & Japan. “HP Helion provides the solutions and expertise customers need to select the right deployment model for their needs and obtain the greatest return for their investment.” HP Helion OpenStack–based cloud services will be made available globally via HP’s partner network of more than 110 service providers worldwide and in HP data centers—HP operates more than 80 data centers in 27 countries. HP plans to provide OpenStack-based public cloud services in 20 data centers worldwide over the next 18 months. HP will also enable HP PartnerOne for Cloud partners to deliver and resell OpenStack-based cloud services.

Cisco Commits $150 Million to Early-Stage Firms Cisco Investments, the corporate venture capital arm of Cisco, is allocating an additional $150 million over the next two to three years to fund early-stage companies and further foster innovation in the global startup community. The new funding allocation builds on Cisco Investments’

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current $2 billion portfolio and is focused on next horizon “themes” to accelerate the development of disruptive technology markets, including big data and analytics; the Internet of Things (IoT); connected mobility; storage; silicon; the content technology ecosystem; and India innovation.

Cisco Investments has also made three minority investments in IoT accelerators and startups Alchemist Accelerator, Ayla Networks and EVRYTHNG. The new funding increases Cisco Investments’ thematic investing to $250 million total, adding to the previously announced $100 million commit-

ment to startups focused on the emerging IoE market opportunity. “Our investments in Alchemist Accelerator, Ayla Networks and EVRYTHNG align with our focus on early-stage innovation and companies focused on the Internet of Things,” said Hilton Romanski, SVP, Cisco Corporate Development.

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SNIPPETS

Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic Launches in India Hitachi Systems has announced that Micro Clinic India Pvt. Ltd., an IT services company based in the Republic of India, has been converted to a Group company based on a share purchase agreement and a shareholders’ agreement. The company started operations as Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic Pvt. Ltd. (“Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic”) as of April 3 when the procedures for changing company names were completed.

In India, demand for IT services is growing rapidly due to the accelerating pace at which Japanese and other foreign companies are entering the Indian market, and the expanding investment in IT as local Indian companies grow their businesses. Hitachi, Ltd. sees India as an important region in its global strategy and is stepping up development of the Hitachi Group’s Social Innovation Business in the country

Plustek Enters Large Format Scanner Market Plustek has entered the large-format scanner arena with the launch of Plustek OpticPro A320. Designed to offer professional results, regardless of document size, the A320 includes seven one-touch scan buttons to simplify and automate the most common scanning functions (i.e. scan, OCR, copy, fax and email). With competing scanners costing more than double, the A320 is ideal for professionals who require the best of both worlds—high quality scanning coupled with speed and efficiency—at an affordable price announced the press release. Plustek’s OpticPro A320 takes the pain out of large format scanning. Microsoft Vista-compatible, this high-speed USB 2.0 scanning device can scan an A3 size document at high quality (1600-dpi with a scan area as large as 12” x 17”) in a blazing fast 8.5 seconds.

Avaya Offers Right

Solution to Midsize Businesses Avaya Contact Center Select has been released, the latest addition to its customer experience management solutions for midsized businesses. Avaya Contact Center Select offers sophisticated, multichannel contact center capabilities with the simplicity needed by a midsize organization announced the press release. With fewer resources than their large-sized counterparts, midsize companies are often challenged to provide multichannel customer care with technologies typically built for larger enterprises. Avaya says it fills the gap in purpose-built midmarket communications and collaboration solutions to enable both mid and large enterprises to equally address the needs of their most strategic assets: their customers. Avaya Contact Center Select is the first of a new category of products from Avaya — enterprise-class solutions that are optimized for the midmarket and work with the Avaya IP Office Platform. Avaya Contact Center Select is based on industry-leading Avaya Aura Contact Center. Avaya Contact Center Select is expected to be generally available globally in June 2014 through Avaya channel partners.

MY POINT

Dell Enables Vcare

Call Center to scale up operations Dell announced it has enabled Vcare India Call Centre. As per the release, Dell’s solutions will provide an agile infrastructure to enable growth and scalability for Vcare. Vcare India Call Centre had a huge server sprawl with various life cycle stages and desktop converted servers which were not reliable. This was one of the key drivers for Vcare to implement Dell’s industry leading scalable and reliable solutions to maximize business responsiveness and eliminate system downtime. Vcare was also looking for more agile infrastructure that could scale based on their growing business needs, prompting the company to opt for Dell’s end-to-end solutions that would allow them to design and run their workloads on virtual infrastructure. “The end to end products and services we are implementing for Vcare will help them improve business responsiveness and agility. Our ability to engage with customers at all levels, understand their needs and become their trusted consultant enables us to build confidence and builds a huge competitive advantage in the market. Regular technical knowledge sharing workshops with Vcare also helped build mindshare and greater understanding of our products and services,” said Ajay Kaul, Head – North Geo and Channel Head, Dell India

Rashi Honored by Schneider Electric

“Many mid-market companies in India are unlocking the true potential of big data by making investments in big data analytics...” MURLI MOHAN, GM, DELL SOFTWARE, INDIA

In a recent meet organized by Schneider Electric in Colombo, Rashi Peripherals was honored with the Rising Distributor Award for the Year-2013 for Transaction Business of APC. Rashi Peripherals has the entire range of APC Products under Transaction Business Portfolio which includes AVR, SMB, SULI, SURT and SIB with a presence throughout India. Rajesh Goenka, VP (Sales & Marketing), Rashi Peripherals, said, “Schneider Electric and Rashi Peripherals have had a great relation in the past and we are thrilled to receive this honor. We hope that with equal efforts of Schneider and Rashi Team we can set new standards of success and grow together. APC is being distributed by Rashi for nearly seven years now and we hope that this partnership reaches much higher milestones in near future.”

10 SME CHANNELS MAY 2014

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EVERWHERE YOU GO

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We are happy to inform that we have launched a new hotel booking website exclusive for customers/ members of SME Channels. The website is launched in cooperation with Hotel Express International and gives you as a customer/ member free access to book hotel rooms at exceptionally good rates for more than 85,000 different hotels worldwide. This access normally costs 25 euro per year per user, but as a valued customer/ member of SME Channels we are able to provide you with this access totally free of charge. Tests have shown that openly available booking sites such as booking.com and hotels.com are on average more than 20% more expensive for the same hotel room with the same conditions. The prices you find on our website are backed by a best price guarantee that promises to refund you the difference if you find the same hotel room with the same conditions elsewhere.

To start saving money on all your future hotel bookings go to http://ho.hotel-express.com/sme

Your access code: sme14

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SNIPPETS

Panasonic Rolls-out Video Conferencing Solutions for SMBs Catering to the video conferencing segment in India, Panasonic is offering its customers with a complete range of innovative and cost-effective solutions starting from Hardware based room end points, Android VC clients, Software VC solutions for windows users and unique software based multiparty solutions. Specially designed for the SME segment, the product range is targeted towards providing a seamless integration experience to its endconsumer. Other than this, the company is also focusing on lucrative verticals such as education and healthcare market. Ranging from hardware to software solutions, Panasonic is offering the VC300 & VC 600 models for room end-point. Designed for Android and Windows Platform, the company is offering HDVC mobile which will work on mobiles, tablets and laptops/PCs.

AMD LAUNCHES NEW PARTNER PROGRAM AMD Partner Program – aimed to strengthen and reward its global channel partners in India. The program is based on three cornerstones: Aspire, Motivate, Design – AMD. The AMD Partner Program provides well-defined and transparent criteria through a tiered program offering a broad range of attributes including: financial, access, marketing, referral/recognition, technical, and material benefits announced AMD Unveils New Partner Program the press release. The AMD Partner Program recognizes distributors, system builders, retailers and etailers as Elite, Premier, Provisional Premier, and Select partners, based on criteria outlined within the program. “Under the leadership of Amy McFarland, we examined our channel program and have made significant improvements to it. We now have a program that reflects the new AMD and which will hopefully surprise and delight all of our channel partners worldwide,” said Roy Taylor, corporate vice president, Channel Sales, AMD.

Toshiba Unfurls HDD for Surveillance Market

*astTECS Opens

Toshiba has released the MD03ACA-V series, a high-capacity hard disk drive (HDD) for surveillance applications. Toshiba’s purpose-built line of 3.5-inch HDDs is available in capacities up to 4 TB. The 6Gb/s SATA drives spin at 7200rpm and support the industry-standard 512n sector lengths with RV compensation to keep performance under multiple HDD configuration, making the MD03ACA-V series best suited for customers looking for 24/7 video surveillance storage announced the press release. The robust design of the MD03ACA-V series provides storage to various video recorders, including surveillance digital video recorders (SDVR), surveillance network video recorders (SNVR) and Hybrid SDVR, delivering 24/7 operation with a mean time to failures (MTTF) of 1 million hours.

Offices in Cochin & Coimbatore

Kaspersky, Comguard To Hold 30-city Event

for SMBs Kaspersky Lab India along with national distributor for enterprise products – Comguard Infosol jointly announced a 30 city event for SMB’s and mid-level enterprises in India. Spread over three months, this multi-city event is conceptualized with a view to create awareness about security concerns faced by the SMB sector announced the press release. According to Altaf Halde, MD, Kaspersky Lab – South Asia, “At Kaspersky Lab, we believe that creating awareness and the need for security is very critical at this juncture since we are looking at a steady increase in our SMB footprint in the endpoint security space. This is in fact a great platform for us to showcase our solutions and services too. We thank Comguard for partnering with us and are confident that initiative will help address security concerns across the SMB segment.”

Foxconn Establishes JV with HP Foxconn is establishing joint venture with Hewlett-Packard (HP) exclusively to manufacture servers for cloud computing and offering related supporting services. The partnership came into effect on May 1, 2014. Terry Guo, President, Foxconn said, “Development of cloud computing has thoroughly changed the global server supply chain, for suppliers should be able to provide total solutions with design capability to respond to client’s demand and ability for global production, shipment and complete after-sale services..

*astTECS has opened its offices in Cochin (Ravipuram Road), Coimbatore (Ramanathapuram) and Hyderabad (Kamalapuri colony). The opening of these offices further demonstrates *astTECS commitment to the Indian market; with advanced portfolio & product capabilities and enhanced support facility, *astTECS will be offering a broader array of Open Source Enterprise Communication Solutions and improved delivery times. Demand for Open Source IP PBX solution in India has considerably increased, particularly among the SMEs in industry verticals like: IT / ITES, Manufacturing, Retail, Education, Hospitality, Automotive, Govt undertakings and Healthcare. The company’s expanded presence will position *astTECS exceptionally well to collaborate with its partners and customers. *astTECS remains committed to making investments in the Indian market to further accelerate innovation and collaboration to best serve its customers & partners. “Cochin, Coimbatore and Hyderabad has been fast emerging as leading technology investment destination especially for IT and ITES companies and SMEs across a wide range of verticals,” said Sanjay GopalKrishnan, City Manager, * astTECS.

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SNIPPETS

Cyberoam Eyes More Biz through NICSI and NIC Alliance

Jagannath Patnaik Opens Own Venture

After over a decade of experience across IT security solutions, Jagannath Patnaik has launched his own venture ‘NNR IT Solutions’. The Company will be the Global Distributor for Max Secure Software’s Anti-Virus and Mobile Security range of products. This agreement to distribute Max Secure range of products in India and Overseas was signed on 2nd May 2014 during the inauguration NNR IT Solutions head quarters in Pune. Via this agreement NNR IT Solutions will help Max Secure to grow its business and strengthen its position in the Indian IT market. Commenting on this occasion, Sanjay Pradhan, Founder & CEO, Max Secure Software, said, “NNR will help us represent our security software range of products of IT security solutions that address PC and Mobile concerns faced by users and businesses every day. We are sure with NNR IT Solution’s expertise in channel distribution, we will boost our sales in India and Overseas this year. This partnership will enable the Company to enhance its product portfolios and would provide access to the attractive opportunity in the SOHO and SME segment though a strong channel network and will also create a greater brand recall.” N. Jagannath Patnaik, CEO, NNR IT Solutions, added, “With our expertise in channel development over the years and considering our longstanding relationship with our partners we look forward to have a deeper penetration in the Indian market to reach out to the end customers.”

Cyberoam is steadfast to convert its alliance with NICSI, a Government of India enterprise under the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, to partner more government agencies, departments and PSUs to become a supplier of choice for network and IT security announced the official press release. It further added that the company has been putting incessant efforts with NICSI & NIC to understand evolving cyber security challenges and network performance needs for various government agencies and infrastructure. This has resulted in Cyberoam grabbing several prestigious wins including CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team), Air India and Narcotics Control Bureau. “It is also rewarding to work with the agency that understands that proactive network security is a critical component of a comprehensive national cyber security strategy,” he further added,” said Sunil Sharma, VP Sales & Operations, India and SAARC, Cyberoam.

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

WORLDWIDE APPLICATION INFRASTRUCTURE AND MIDDLEWARE MARKET REVENUE GREW 5.6 PERCENT IN 2013 THE WORLDWIDE APPLICATION INFRASTRUCTURE AND MIDDLEWARE (AIM) SOFTWARE REVENUE MARKET* TOTALED $21.5 BILLION IN 2013, A 5.6 PERCENT INCREASE FROM 2012, ACCORDING TO GARTNER, INC.

Oracle

Microsoft

Software AG

Tibco

9,435

VMware has named Sanjay Deshmukh as Head of End User Computing Business, Asia Pacific Japan.

VMware has appointed Arun Parameswaran to the post of managing director, VMware India. He succeeds T Srinivasan, who has decided to step down after five years with the company.

545

558

703

1,084

1,023 IBM

21,512 2013

650

2012

3,298

3,285

20,378

8,519

TOTAL

6,448

6,345

WORLDWIDE VENDOR REVENUE ESTIMATES FOR TOTAL AIM SOFTWARE, 2013 ($MILLIONS)

Security company F-Secure has named Amit Nath has joined F-Secure as Country Manager, India & SAARC and will be responsible for company’s India relations, strategy and growth for channels mid market and enterprise business.

Others

Source: Gartner (May 2014)

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SNIPPETS

Redington to Distribute Dell’s Enterprise Solutions Dell has partnered with Redington for the distribution of its enterprise products. The partnership will aim to strengthen Dell’s distribution business strategy launched last month in the Indian market. The Dell-Redington partnership is established on national distribution framework and will enable smooth availability of Dell enterprise solutions in 33 Indian cities. The enterprise solutions available through Redington are Dell’s server and storage products. S. Sridhar, Director & GM (Enterprise Solutions Group), Dell India, commented, “Our Enterprise solutions have been well received by our customers because of the evident value of open architecture and flexibility of Dell solutions. In order to meet the demand for our solutions we need to ensure they are available any-time anywhere for our customers. We are happy to join hands with a strong partner like Redington who will give Dell the market opportunity through their national presence and help create customer value.”

Trend Micro Upgrades Worry-Free Trend Micro has upgraded its Trend Micro Worry- Free Business Security, with version 9.0, to equip small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) with enterprise-grade security capabilities that address and mitigate threats across endpoints, from desktops to mobile. The offering is the only SMB solution available that provides complete user protection with integrated mobile device security with the option of cloud management announced the press release. “Since SMBs are more acutely affected by BYOD and consumerization, Trend Micro is committed to providing dynamic, yet affordable, solutions that deliver greater functionality and ease-ofuse,” said Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director, India & SEA, Trend Micro. “The ability to protect data across a business, regardless of who has access, is essential to a comprehensive approach to security. With integrated mobile device protection, Worry-Free Business Security 9.0 helps companies secure critical business information whether in the office or on-the-go.”

Matrix Partners Grandstream Matrix Comsec has joined hands with Grandstream GXV IP Video Cameras for IP-based surveillance solutions. Enterprise and SME customers worldwide can implement a comprehensive and reliable video surveillance solution for improved security and business productivity using the Matrix NVR400 (Network Video Recorder) and Grandstream IP Cameras. Matrix SATATYA NVR400 now supports Grandstream camera models GXV 3504 (Encoder), GXV 3601, GXV 3610, GXV 3611, GXV 3615. Video processed on any GXV IP cameras is encoded and processed at the camera then streamed to the SATATYA NVR400 for storage and remote access to live views and playback of recorded images.

Capillary Bags ‘Best CRM Technology Provider’ Provider of cloud-based software solutions for customer engagement Capillary Technologies has been felicitated as the ‘Best CRM Technology Provider’ at the Indian Retail and e-Retail Awards 2014 by Franchise India. The award ceremony held at the Hyatt Regency in Gurgaon witnessed participation from over 300 industry leaders representing all major retail organizations of the country. “We are honored to receive recognition and distinction for our technology and market leadership. We believe we are providing the best-in-class business solutions and know-how for any size company to grow and thrive. Being honored yet again as a leader in our domain stands testament to our efforts in helping our clients grow rapidly and reap continued success over the years,” said Aneesh Reddy, CEO, Capillary Technologies.

DIGEST LUMINOUS HOME UPS—ZELIO Luminous has introduced Zelio - a pure sine wave, state-of-the-art Home UPS, designed to work with the most sensitive home appliances that the consumers in India are using in their house-holds today. It is priced at Rs 5,500. Zelio has a feature that shows Power Back-up display in hours and minutes, which will allow the consumers to plan their day without any hassle and manage their appliances accordingly when there is a power outage.

NEW SSD FROM ADATA ADATA Technology has launched the Premier Pro series SP920 solid state drive (SSD) here in India. Designed to meet the high-performance requirements of multimedia file transfers, the SP920 comes in a 2.5” form factor, and is equipped with the latest generation Marvell controller implementing the SATA III 6Gb/sec specification. The Premier Pro SP920 will be available through ADATA Authorised channel partners across the country at the price starting from Rs 6,500 for a 128GB drive.

VIEWSONIC DELIVERS 27-INCHES MONITOR SIZE ViewSonic has expanded its display series with 27-inches monitor size. This series includes products such as professional Quad HD display for graphic design, edge-to-edge frameless monitors, intuitive touch screens and audio-visual entertainment models. With this complete product range, ViewSonic provides customers with a broader choice of applications, whether it is in the professional graphics, business sector, interactive education, digital signage, or entertainment.

TRANSCEND JETDRIVE UPGRADE KITS FOR MACBOOK Transcend has launched its JetDrive SSD Upgrade Kits aimed at MacBook computers. The JetDrive Upgrade Kits are ideal for professional photographers, videographers, and graphic artists looking to enhance the performance and capacity of their MacBook system, and even includes an easy-to-use drive enclosure for converting the original SSD or HDD into a new USB 3.0 portable storage device announced then press release. Available in capacities of up to 960GB it’s built on the next-generation SATA III 6Gb/s interface to achieve lightning-fast transfer speeds of up to 560MB/s.

HYPERX COMPATIBLE WITH INTEL HyperX, a division of Kingston Technology, has announced its memory product lines: FURY, Genesis, Predator and Beast, offer a series of dual-channel kits compatible with the new Intel fourth-generation Core i5 and i7 processors and Intel 9 series chipset. HyperX worked closely with leading motherboard partners to guarantee compatibility and the highest performance. Compatible Intel HyperX memory is available in frequencies ranging from 1333MHz to 2800MHz, and in various combinations from 8GB to 32GB in kits of two and four.

SME CHANNELS 15 MAY 2014

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SNIPPETS

Dell Wyse Brings Portable Cloud Access Device

VIDEO CONFERENCING MARKET SEES HUGE TRACTION

Dell has released Dell Wyse Cloud Connect, an ultra-compact and highly mobile cloud access device that instantly delivers desktop virtualization and personal cloud services to any HDMIor MHL-enabled display. The pocket-size device delivers a full-HD experience with enterprise-level security, manageability and reliability. Organizations of any size can now deliver streaming cloud services and IT solutions in a cost-effective, mobile offering for work, home and on the go announced the press release. Santosh Pandey, Country Manager, Dell India, said, “Cloud Connect brings together the key elements that our customers wish for in their Wyse computing devices – functionality and portability. A technology solution with enterprise-level security and highly optimized cloud-client, Cloud Connect allows users to create an extension of their workplace virtually anywhere. At Dell, we strive to innovate and deliver technology which supports and reinforces the BYOD trend that is transforming the workforce.”

Tyco’s Affordable Wireless Cube Camera

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the overall Unified Communications market in India has seen a marginal decline of 2.3% in 1H13 as compared to 1H12. 10% decline in Enterprise Telephony market has pulled down the overall UC revenues in 1H13, whereas other markets like Enterprise Collaborations and Contact Center have seen a decent growth of 4-6% as compared to 1H12. Enterprise Telephony market is suffering due to a combination of market factors: Firstly, IP-PBX solutions are eating into the TDM-PBX solutions revenues as the former gives better ROI for end customers. Secondly, all the major vendors have started offering Software-based IP-PBX solutions, which is cutting their hardware revenues. On top of these, IP-PBX solutions are no longer considered as business transformational tools. IDC has seen a huge traction in Video Conferencing market as this generates a clear ROI by reducing the travel cost for organizations. However, economic downturn is limiting this market to grow further as organizations are taking a cautious approach towards overall IT spending. But IDC believes this impact is just cyclical and desktop-based VC solutions will witness a growing demand in the future. Web & Voice Conferencing, Team Collaboration and Enterprise Social Networking are the next high growth areas, as these solutions will help reduce the number of emails and lower the bandwidth requirement which in turn will reduce the cost and improve productivity. Contact Center market is undergoing modernization and transformation with Multi-channel/ platform solutions which integrates voice, IVR, social media, email, web chat, SMS, fax etc. It helped the India Contact Center market to achieve a 4% Year-on-Year (YoY) growth in 1H13, despite the continued threat from the Philippines which is famous for their low cost of resources as compared to India.

Tyco Security Products has announced its new Illustra Flex WiFi Cube Camera is an affordable, fixed color only network camera that provides 720p resolution at up to 30ips for high quality images. H.264 and MJPEG video compression provides excellent image clarity announced the press release. It further added that wireless connectivity offers ease of installation and eliminates the cost of network cabling when adding this camera to your video surveillance system. Tyco says that because of its sleek design and affordable price, this camera is ideal for small to medium size offices, retail boutiques, K-12 schools, or any location requiring WiFi installation of a 720p IP surveillance camera. The Camera provides crisp, clear video quality regardless of lighting conditions.

Midmarket Companies Adopting AMD’s Next-Gen Mobile APUs Designed to enable the best user experience on today’s most popular and Big Data Aggressively innovative PCs, AMD has unveiled its 3rd-generation Mainstream and LowA Dell Software survey of big data initiatives in the midmarket reveals that Big data initiatives, enabled by new analytics tools and strengthening ties between business and IT leaders, are helping midsize organizations achieve the improved product quality and decision making once reserved for large enterprises. Focused exclusively on midmarket organizations, the survey indicates that big data projects have made a significant shift from their enterprise roots, and have become a critical decision-making factor for midmarket companies across the globe. It also show midmarket organizations overwhelmingly believe in the potential of big data projects to help them solve tangible business problems, and they are backing up that belief with action.

Power Mobile Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). Combining category-leading compute performance with unique features and rich user interactions, the 2014 AMD Mainstream and Low-Power Mobile APUs (formerly codenamed “Beema” and “Mullins,” respectively) are the ideal choice for consumer and commercial client devices alike announced the press release. These new mobile APUs feature up to four newly-designed x86 CPU cores with updated, industry-leading AMD Radeon graphics and a hardware-level data security solution based on the ARM Cortex-A5, all on a single, power-sipping system-on-chip (SoC).

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McAfee Strengthens Network Portfolio McAfee has outlined its strategy for helping businesses and government agencies strengthen their network protection through a powerful combination of integrated technologies. As part of its strategy, McAfee is strengthening its network portfolio with deeper integration and expanded use of both global and local threat intelligence. As part of its Security Connected framework, McAfee offers network security as part of an integrated portfolio in which security products and services work together to safeguard businesses from advanced attacks. At the core of McAfee Security Connected are the principles of integrated solutions, built-in intelligence, and advanced management offered with an extensible architecture for partners. These solutions integrate with endpoint security to share real-time information, threat intelligence, and workflows to strengthen an organization’s defenses.

EMERSON APPOINTS NEOTERIC AS DISTRIBUTOR Emerson Network Power has appointed neoteric infomatique ltd. as a national distributor for its range of small and medium uninterruptible power supply (UPS) products in India. With this partnership, the company plans to address the growing demand from enterprises for innovative and technologically superior back-up power solutions devised for modern day IT requirements announced the press sanjay zadoo, emerson release. Emerson’s small and medium UPS product portfolio includes the online and line-interactive product range. Announcing the partnership, Sanjay Zadoo, Country Manager (channel business), Emerson Network Power in India, said, “We are pleased to announce neoteric infomatique ltd. as a distributor for India. We are confident that neoteric will help us extend our nationwide footprint and support us in inducting more valued partners for a varied range of products. Through Neoteric, IT resellers in India will now have access to Emerson’s reliable and highly effective UPS solutions which can thrive in India’s power infrastructure.”

NETGEAR Plans to Garner 20 Percent Market Share In a bid to maximize its reach at pan India level, NETGEAR has entered into the North East India market. As a part of its expansion plans, the NETGEAR plans to tap North East Market. The company has chalked out aggressive strategies with its new regional distribution model and aims to garner 20 percent market share in the current fiscal. On the occasion, Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director, India & SAARC, NETGEAR, said, “North East India market presents a very large opportunity for NETGEAR and we are working to increase our presence here. We are working to develop the distribution channel, train the partners and will shortly be announcing some recruitment plans. As a part of our immediate growth strategy, we want to expand our reach to all major cities in the North East.” Currently NETGEAR has 40 sub distributors and 1200 active retailers across India. It has beefed up investments in post-sales support. “Indian market is growing on Broadband adoption and SMB technology adoption and we believe that this is going to drive growth in India for some years to come. We are focused on bringing the best products for this category,” added Bhattacharya.”

QNAP’s Updates for Vulnerable Turbo NAS QNAP has announced firmware updates for Turbo NAS systems with vulnerability to the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug (CVE-2014-0160). The operating systems vulnerable to Heartbleed are QTS versions 4.0 and 4.1. Versions 3.8 and earlier use a different version of OpenSSL and are not affected by the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug. As described on the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures website, some versions of the OpenSSL TLS and DTLS implementation do not properly process Heartbeat Extension packets which allow remote attackers to obtain sensitive information by reading private keys (aka the Heartbleed bug). “We strongly urge users of vulnerable Turbo NAS systems to update their firmware,” said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP. “Users are also recommended to contact their SSL providers to regenerate their SSL CSR/keys for server protection.”

Kantech Unfurls ioPass SA-550 Stand Alone Door Controller Kantech, part of the Tyco Security Products business unit of Tyco, has introduced the ioPass SA-550 Stand Alone Door Controller for use in small security applications. Ideal for convenience stores, storage rooms or parking lots, the ioPass SA-550 brings the reader and controller together in an easy-to-use software free solution announced the press release. Designed as a self-contained, stand-alone unit, the ioPass SA-550 is the perfect complement to Kantech’s existing line of access control solutions, addressing the need for a simple, effective and intuitive tool that can be deployed by growing businesses further added the release. “As a basic, stand-alone solution, the ioPass SA-550 is convenient and easy-to-use,” said Scott McNulty, senior product manager, Kantech. “The combined reader/controller design makes it an affordable choice considering both installation and equipment costs.” The ioPass SA-550 offers an integrated 26-bit Wiegand ioProx proximity card reader that can store up to 1,000 users.

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Cadensworth to Distribute Juniper’s Networking Portfolio Cadensworth (India) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Redington (India) Ltd, has signed a distribution agreement with Juniper Networks. Cadensworth will now offer Juniper Networks solutions to fast growing enterprises across India and South Asian countries including Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Cadensworth will also become an authorized distributor of Juniper Networks’ products and solutions and gain partnership benefits from Juniper’s distributor advantage program. “This association will help us to accelerate output from the go to market initiatives through certification and training programs, partner enablement, targeted sales and marketing programs,” said Vishal Shaparia, Vice President, Cadensworth (India) Pvt. Ltd.

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Emerson Network Power’s ‘Howzzatt Offer’ for Partners In keeping with the cricket fever, Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson, has unveiled the ‘Howzzatt Offer’ for its channel partners across India. The ‘Howzzatt Offer’ is valid from April 1, 2014 to June 30, 2014 and is applicable on the sale of UPS systems upto 20 kVA. The scheme is valid for purchases from Ingram Micro and neoteric infomatique ltd. and is applicable only to VARs and NSPs of Emerson Network Power India Pvt. Ltd. The scheme offers channel partners the freedom to choose their target slabs and take home gifts of their choice on achieving them. The minimum sales target has been kept as low as Rs. 50,000. Partners stand to win prizes such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops under the ‘Howzzatt Offer’. They can also choose their own gifts as per the achieved sales targets by logging in to the online gift redemption mechanism on Emerson.bvcrewards.com. Commenting on the scheme, Ankesh Kumar, Director (channel products and marketing), Emerson Network Power in India, said, “Our partners are an integral part of our ecosystem. It is a part of our channel initiatives to enable our partners sell our products. The current scheme is aimed at empowering partners to create a profitable proposition for themselves.”

CRMnext Raises INR 420 Million from NVP CRMnext has received strategic investment from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). The fresh capital will be used to accelerate the company’s global outreach and fuel investments into its research and innovation portfolio. This move is part of the company’s vision to become one of the top five players in the global CRM space across industries changing the dynamics of the global market announced the press release. “We are focused on expanding our reach in the global market and this move will accelerate it. Even though we are a very profitable business, this funding will enable us to fuel investments into our research and innovation initiatives. All this will lead to further strengthening of our position as an enterprise class innovator in the CRM space, a space that has seen consolidation resulting in commoditization and has led to lack of real customer focused innovation,” said Nishant Singh, CEO, CRMnext on the sidelines of the announcement. Mohan Kumar, Executive Director, NVP India, said, “We believe the CRM market is evolving and next gen CRM systems will be multi-channel, more vertically focused and have a heavier emphasis on customer engagement. At NVP we have invested in a variety of verticals including retail, healthcare and education, and with CRMNext, we found a great company doing the same in the BFSI space.”

F-Secure Names DoBuy as Sub-disty F-Secure has partnered with DoBuy Technologies as its new sub-distributor for South India. As part of the signup, DoBuy Technologies will carry F-Secure’s Business Suite and Protection Service for Business across entire South India for SMB segment. Amit Nath, Country Manager (India & SAARC), F-Secure, said, “F Secure is expanding its partner base to reach out to the SMB and Mid-Enterprise segment in South India. We would be extensively targeting growth for our Enterprise solutions this year. We are pleased to welcome DoBuy Technologies as our Sub distributors.” Paul Vijayakumar, VP (India), DoBuy Technologies, said, “With our clear focus towards partner satisfaction with best solutions and the right products integrated and backed by the best support, we will be able to help our customers effectively protect their business assets across cloud and physical environments with F Secure products.”

Gigabyte Unfurls New 9 Series Z97 and H97 Mobos Gigabyte has launched its new 9 series motherboards based on the Intel Z97/H97 chipsets with support for 4th and 5th generation Intel Core processors. “Gigabyte is excited to launch 4 new series of motherboards for the Intel 9 series chipset, each offering a host of new and unique Gigabyte features matched with Gigabyte signature quality and durability,” commented Henry Kao, VP (Motherboard Business Unit), Gigabyte. “Our 9 series motherboards also offer a future proof platform to our customers by supporting the latest 4th generation Intel Core processors including the soon to launch refresh and unlocked CPUs, as well as future 5th generation Intel Core processors, ensuring they will be able to take advantage of current and upcoming Intel technologies.” From incorporating industry-leading Gigabyte AMP-UP Audio technologies that allow gamers and audiophiles to experience crisp, ultra sound effects while gaming and the richest possible sound experience while listening to their favorite music and movies, to ultra-fast onboard Gigabit LAN solutions from Killer™ and Intel, Gigabyte G1™ motherboards were designed for gamers that aren’t satisfied with second best announced the press release.

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SME BIZ

FINANCIAL BACKING MAKES IRIS DREAM BIG After being acquired by Inflexionpoint last year Iris plans to become the number three distributor in the country with its financial backing BY: KARMA NEGI

Karma@smechannels.com

tarted in 1996 with a modest revenue turnover of Rs. 5 crores in the first year Iris Computers plans to increase this to Rs. 3000 crore by next year with the backing of financial support from US based IT supply chain company Inflexionpoint. Inflexionpoint acquired Iris last year with 99% controlling stake and appointed Vishal Sopory as CEO of Iris as a part of its restructuring strategy. Naming financial challenges as the main impediment towards scaling up made Iris turn towards investors like Inflexionpoint which were ready to invest. Vishal as the CEO will be running all the operation of Iris India. “We want to become clear number three in the country,” he remarks. He further added, “With the innovation we bring in terms of financing projects and brining money for projects is the biggest asset that Iris will receive to scale up the business to become number three. We are very clear that we don’t want to be a distant number three.” In 2013, apart from Iris, Inflexionpoint also acquired Singapore-based Dragon Technology Distribution. With the Iris and Dragon acquisitions, Inflexionpoint has consolidated over $700 million in annual distribution revenues spread over 10 countries in Asia Pacific. “Dragon and Iris put together currently gives us footprint in at least 70 to 80% of APAC market where we want to grow and all we need is scaling up of business around these,” informs Sopory. As for choosing Iris he reasons they have the best system and process in place with complete formal

account management. He further points out at the opportunity they have in terms of the customer base they have access to and says if they have access to even 3000 corporate partners with each having a customer base of even 20 it translates into 60,000 end users. He is clear in their vision of becoming a billion dollar company in the next two years if they have to become a clear number three (not a distant number three). Talking about Iris Sanjiv Krishen, Chairman, says, “We are a different kind of distributor. We go out of the way, and try and close business and not just hide behind policies.” Iris also encourages its branches to open tertiary branches. They try to find partners in cities, who can manage to get large orders, hand them a laptop and find opportunities there. So taking this forward, last year they started with Trivandrum, Bhopal, Ranchi and now these have scaled up so much that they say can easily have physical offices there. “We always tell our sales manager to create such an environment in the market that Iris should be the first name that comes into the customers’ mind. We have to make that difference; this is what we think is the key differentiator for our growth,” says Sameer Chaudhary, Sr VP, Sales, Iris Computers. With the new restructuring Iris is not looking at doubling the manpower to double the turnover, rather it plans to be very selective when hiring manpower. “Our manpower strength is 300. To

VISHAL SOPORY, CEO, IRIS COMPUTERS

“WE WANT TO BECOME NUMBER THREE IN THE COUNTRY.” grow to Rs. 6000 crores company we may add 50 more people. Till now our constraint had always been credit limit,” he adds. But now things have changed says Sopory, with the financial capability of Iris to executing any size order he believes vendors will start coming to them. From the services aspect Iris Care is an authorised service provider of HP, IBM, Lenovo etc. There are two aspects of Iris Care: service fulfilment and service execution. The first aspect includes pure selling and fulfilling the care pack environment and extending the warranty requirements by OEMs. Partners in Kerala also can buy IBM service packs. The other is execution of service; if a server goes down an engineer needs to be sent but unfortunately that ability is limited. “We want to expand the first part that is OEM service packs first, and AMC we want to route through the partners. This is the ability we want to give to tier 2 partners. First we will build the capability to give service and then execute it,” Sopory adds.

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SME CHAT

VISHAL PAREKH, MARKETING DIRECTOR, KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY – INDIA

“POSITION KINGSTON AS #1 LIFESTYLE TECH BRAND”

A recent study by IDC says that the digital universe is doubling in size every two years and will grow from 4.4 trillion gigabytes to 44 trillion gigabytes in 2020. SME Channels spoke to Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, Kingston Technology – India to understand their strategy. Excerpts

What is the market size of external storage in India? A lot of today’s gadgets are hi-tech and memoryintensive, which fuels growth. With the growing number of new devices in the market and the growing potential of data consumption, the market for external storage devices is on the rise. For now, the market for external storage devices like the USB devices, SD cards and microSD cards stands at around 550mn units in India. Looking at the trends, users need more capacities to store their ever-growing data. Also, since these storage drives are portable, durable and easy to use, there is a lot of potential for growth. What is the present state of external storage market from the capacity point of view? India is a growing market and the needs of the consumers here in terms of storage requirements are on the rise. Today, the users are taking more pictures, listening to music, recording and watching more videos and saving more personal memories digitally. Also, a recent study by IDC says that the digital universe is doubling in size every two years and will grow from 4.4 trillion gigabytes to

44 trillion gigabytes in 2020. With the growing amount of digital data and increasing needs for mobility in our daily lives, the requirement for higher storage capacities is evident. What are the innovations driving storage market? The storage market is dynamic, where the usage is varied and so are the offerings. Presently, innovations are seen more in terms of the product’s form, the level of portability and the speed that it offers. Users are now aware of the benefits they get with a USB 3.0 drive and have started asking for it. Also, certain new storage gadgets like the DataTraveler microDuo – a tiny dual interface USB drive that can be attached to PCs as well as Android devices – are attracting many eye balls. Which verticals are driving external storage market? With digitization, almost all market verticals use external storage products or solutions. Enterprises and corporates prefer using secure USB drives whereas others would like a fast and trendy storage device. We have seen more usage of external storage devices by personnel from the IT, Media

and Education fraternities. There are many instances with the IT and Media companies where the data from a USB drive enabled the user to work On-the-Go, complete presentations or even work from home. When we talk about the Education vertical, it includes students who need to store movies, videos, songs, softwares, presentations and much more. Today, online free storage is competing against the physical storage what kind of impact do you see in this market? The impact from online free storage is still limited so far. Cloud is a relatively new term in India and is still in the nascent stage. Although there is free storage available, the infrastructure required for the data transfers is not up to the mark and can hamper the availability of data. For example, uploading a 1GB file might take around 4-5 hours and equal time for downloading it. Moreover, the connectivity and data charges are not very lucrative. This makes it difficult to access important files in crucial times. Therefore, physical storage like USBs and memory cards that are highly portable, easy to use, easily available, and a lot more

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faster than Cloud storage is still fundamental in India. Moreover, companies like us also provide solutions with military grade security, which will ensure thorough data protection. What is your strategy to penetrate into the market? Our strategy to penetrate the market is as innovative as our products. We have different products catering to needs from various kinds of consumers. Our strategy is fairly simple – reach more audience and introduce innovative and attractive products in India. There is a range of new products lined up for this year and are sure to excite our target audience. Along with that, we plan to expand our area of operation in the tier II and tier III towns and cities. What is your marketing strategy? We continue to position Kingston as the #1 Lifestyle technology brand with the best quality memory and storage products. Kingston also has strong technical support with reliable quality. What is your channel strategy? We have always been a channel friendly

“ALTHOUGH THERE IS FREE STORAGE AVAILABLE, THE INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIRED FOR THE DATA TRANSFERS IS NOT UP TO THE MARK AND CAN HAMPER THE AVAILABILITY OF DATA.”

company. We believe in building and maintaining strong relations with our partners. To help them grow, we are working with them to give them insights and to educate them on the newer market trends. To build better confidence, our channel partners are the first to be sync with Kingston on product positioning and strategies. We are also working on growing our reach in the tier II and tier III towns and cities as we are positive about the growing demand there.

What is your retail strategy? Our flash-based external storage products are popular in India with most users reaching out to the retail shops and LFRs for the purchase. We have nurtured positive relations with them and route products and deals only through our channel partners. Not only that, we also bank on our strong technical support and warranty. What kind of growth are you expecting? The storage market in India is growing as there is a huge requirement in the domestic data consumption. USB drives are used with most of the PCs, laptops, netbooks, desktops while Flash cards are used in most smartphones and tablets. The need for data storage is growing exponentially and Kingston is well positioned to address this demand. We are expecting to be on the high growth trajectory along with our channel partners and are betting high on our new product lines like high speed USB 3.0 drives, DataTraveler microDuo – the tiny dual interface USB drive, secure drives, wireless card readers and high speed flash cards.

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5 BEST VADs

DIMENSION DATA DIMENSION DATA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data Plc., a leading global IT solutions and services provider. Over the last three decades, the company has established itself as global leader in the provision and management of specialist IT infrastructure solutions and services. With operations in over 58 countries, over 23,000 employees and over 6,000 clients, coupled with our deep understanding of the global business and technology landscape, the company accelerates the achievement of their business goals. Dimension Data’s passion is to find ways to use ICT to make their clients’ businesses work better. Dimension Data’s management structure comprises the the board of Dimension Data plc, which consists of five Executive Directors, four Non-executive Directors and the Group Executive Committee, which is responsible for business operations and assists in formulating the Group’s strategy. n Products: Client computing, Cloud , Contact centres, Data centres, Enterprise mobility, Networking, Security, Software services, Sustainability, Unified communications and collaboration, Virtualisation, etc. n Employees: 23,000 n Revenue: NA n Contact person: Kiran Bhagwani, CEO. n Address: Dimension Data India Limited, Mumbai (Head Office), 2nd floor, Trade View, Pandurang Budhkar Marg, Kamala Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400013, India.

2 INFLOW TECHNOLOGIES FOUNDED IN 2005, Inflow Technologies is a niche player in IT infrastructure distribution & services. It is a value added distributor for networking, security, storage, infrastructure and application software, electronic security and AIDC products & services in South Asia. Headquartered in Bangalore with presence in 16 locations, Inflow Technologies has a direct relationship with 41 global technology vendors and operates through five business units. Besides, the company has 600+ channel partners and offer solutions to more than 5000 end customers. n Products: Information Security, Networking, Automatic identification & data capture, Infrastructure & Application software, Storage Management and Electronic security. n Employees: NA n Turnover: Rs. 470 crore (last year) n Address: Inflow Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Inflow House,33 & 34, Indiranagar 1st stage, Off 100 feet road, Bangalore – 560038, India.

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GO IP HEADQUARTERED IN Noida, Go IP Global Services Pvt. Ltd, an integrated IT solutions and services provider was founded in the year 1994. The company has a pan India presence in 14 cities (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, etc), support in 44 cities through partners, and an international presence in Asia and US. Go IP has 600 plus channel partners across the country, who work with them on multiple products and technology sectors like networking, security, mobile VAS, wireless, unified communications, server or storage virtualization, managed services and cloud computing. Go IP provides an end-to-end technology solutions and services within the Infrastructure domain to Telecom Operators, Service Providers, Government, Large and SME Customers. GOIP is an existing VAD for many reputed OEMs like Ubiquiti Networks, Huawei, SYROTECH Networks for Optical Fiber Modules, Dialogic, RAD, Radwin, Sensage, TP-Link, TOTO-LINK, etc. n Products: Access (Copper/Fiber/Wireless, SDH/PDH) and Wireless (Ethernet, WiFi, WiMax, Wi Mesh, PDH, SDH): Ethernet, WiFi, WiMax, Wi Mesh, PDH,SDH, VOIP (Media Gateways, ATAs, IP phones), Video over IP (Conferencing/Streaming/Survellance), Routers & Switches, GPON. Solutions and System Integration: Core Network design, Last / Second Last mile design and implementation, VAS Architecture implementation and support, TDM/IP based solutions for Telco/ISP, Wireless Access design, rollout and management, GPON technology, solution design and implementation. Managed Services: Remote Infrastructure Management, Network/Security/Server/Application, Remote Infrastructure Management, network/Security/Server/Application, NOC & Help Desk Services, on-site support and access management. n Revenue: Rs. 120 crores (2013-14) n Employees: 140 n Address: Go IP Global Services Pvt. Ltd., H-68, Sector-63, Noida, Uttar Pradesh-201307, Tel: 0120-4533200

IVALUE INFOSOLUTIONS

3 5 4 M.TECH SOLUTIONS ESTABLISHED IN May 2002, M.Tech Solutions India Private Ltd is a branch of the Multi Chem Group. The Multi Chem Group is listed in the Singapore Stock Exchange and is headquartered in Singapore. M.Tech started its operation in the year 2007 with around 6 employees and now has over 75 employees. M.Tech has a network of 33 offices in 18 countries, namely in Singapore, Australia, Cambodia, China (including Hong Kong), India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and Vietnam to provide on-site sales, marketing as well as technical support to reseller partners. In India, M.Tech has offices in 7 cities namely, Ahmedabad, Bangalore (HQ), Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. M.Tech is considered as a Value Added Distributor because of its state of the art Pre-sales, Sales and Technical team. M.Tech has been successful in Acquiring more than 60% of the market share in the space of IT security / Wan Optimization / Application Delivery as a Value added Distributor n Products: IT security, application delivery network and Video communications solutions. n Turnover: NA n Employees: 75

IVALUE WAS incorporated during the year 2008 by the team which created the largest VAD business focusing on networking, security and storage technologies. At iValue, their approach is to understand and effectively address customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business and IT challenges in the Data, Network & Application management space. This business centric approach with strong focus in Security, Storage and Networking technologies for over 15 years, have made iValue the fastest growing VAD, growing at 5+ times market growth rates, over last 6 years. They have grown from a 40 member team at 5 locations to 80+ member team across 10+ location with a overseas branch. The companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extended family now comprises of 5500+ unique customers, 400+ unique channel partners and 12+ Consulting organizations including the BIG 4. n Products: To understand and address Customers business and IT challenges around Digital Asset protection and Data, Network & Application management areas. n Turnover: Rs. 1400 Mn n Employees: 80 n Address: ivalue House, No. 1, 3rd Cross, 29th Main Road, BTM Layout 2nd Stage, 29th Main Rd, MCHS Colony, Stage 2, BTM Layout 2nd Stage, Bangalore, Karnataka 560076.

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“WE AIM TO BRING SOME DISCIPLINE” Started as a 1977 as a non-profit organization to promote standards and practices for Information Transport System today it addresses the complete ICT industry. Ketan C Kothari, Chairperson, BICSI India District, in a chat with SME Channels talks about what it’s set out to do.

Give us a background on BICSI. How and why was it created? This body was formed as Building Industry Consulting Services International in 1977 as a non-profit organization to promote standards and practices for Information Transport System. Since then BICSI has grown to address the complete ICT industry. In what ways is this group helping the ICT industry? BICSI is supporting advancements in information and communications technology (ICT) enabling industry to tap into emerging opportunity areas and deliver the most reliable, scalable, and highly secure IT infrastructure. What is the core focus area for BICSI? BICSI serves ICT professionals, including designers, installers and technicians who undertake the design, integration and installation of pathways, spaces, optical fiber- and copper-based distribution systems, wireless-based systems and infrastructure that supports the transportation of information. These individuals provide the fundamental infrastructure for telecommunications, audio/video, life safety and automation systems. Through courses, conferences, publications and professional registration programs, BICSI helps assist ICT professionals in delivering critical products and services, and offer opportunities for continual improvement. Reveal some of the upcoming trends in the market?

The competitive landscape is changing fast and network has become a technology integration platform to offer a wide array of communication capabilities. The huge base of Small and Medium businesses (SMBs) in India presents tremendous opportunity. How many members are registered with BICSI? BICSI has more than 23,000 ICT professionals worldwide and around 125 in India. The plan is to grow this community to 500 members by 2016. How is the SME sector evolving and the role they are playing in the ICT industry? The IT Infrastructure market is fast maturing, Cloud Architecture & Telephony, Mobile Devices & Applications and Open Source could be the dominating technologies in the coming days. SMEs would continue to look for an effective user experience and focus on solving business performance challenges embracing solutions that offer greater functionality with increased focus on core competencies: Communications infrastructure, Datacenters, Security & Surveillance, Hosted Solutions that are flexible, scalable and reliable offering compelling advantages and quick ROI will be the areas of interest among the SME segment. Please share BICSI India’s plans and initiatives for SIs, installers, consultants, distributors & OEMs. Going forward, what are the plans for this year?

KETAN C KOTHARI, CHAIRPERSON, BICSI INDIA DISTRICT

“The huge base of SMBs in India presents tremendous opportunity. We have plans to conduct trainings and technical conferences in major metro cities so as to educate people about the upcoming standards, best practices and implementation methodologies. We aim to bring some discipline, in the way physical connectivity is implemented for any kind of ICT requirement. BICSI also focuses on training courses and credentials for ICT professionals working in the OSI physical and data link layers. These training initiatives allow both installation and design training providers and ICT solution providers to work together toward their shared goal to provide world-class technology education & solutions to the ITS industry. Our Annual Shows are supported by a series of Satellite Seminars scheduled to be held in 5 select cities in India. BICSI India it will hold its next India District Conference and Exhibition at Bangalore on 12th September, 2014.

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PARTNER CORNER

COMPLETE YOUR BUSINESS WITH FUJITSU SCANSNAP At Fujitsu, we offer a wide range of extensive scanners designed for dependable throughput in document management application of desktop, departmental and production levels to fit business of all industries and all sizes. Fujitsu ScanSnap models and data storage solutions is delicately engineered for SMEs & SOHO use as it encompasses a powerful suite of document scanning and management tools which integrate effortlessly with your business environment. ScanSnap models features its trademark of compact, speedy and simple, saving you cost at value and space altogether!

Speedy & reliable scanning with ScanSnap iX500 – Your Intelligent Document Scanner Wish for an intelligent scanner with editing capabilities and scans wirelessly direct to your mobile devices? Enjoy the robust functionalities of this scanner with its ‘one button PDF creation’, stack on the pile of paperwork and be amazed by its fast scanning speed of 25ppm Inheriting the superior paper feeding technology of our professional grade scanners, iX500 achieves exceptional feeding reliability using the “Separation Roller” technology to minimize jams and multifeeds, hence improving your business scanning work process. Furthermore, with its latest wireless scanning feature, bypass your computer and scan directly to your iOS or Andriod mobile devices at a simple touch of a button. It’s just that easy.

A New Perspective of Scanning with ScanSnap SV600- Your Overhead Book & Document Scanner Looking for an effective solution to scan books and oversized documents? Pioneering new VI technology for scanning newspapers, books, magazines and all documents up to A3 in size, it automatically corrects the distortion caused by the curve of an opened book.“Page Turning Detection” automatically detects when a page is turned during scanning, facilitating book scanning on a whole new level! Users can digitize a book in just one touch without hassle. Bundled with a full line up of useful software “Adobe® Acrobat® Standard” for PDF file editing, “CardMinder” for managing business cards and ‘Rack2Filer Smart’ that allows you to classify and manage your data seamlessly, it levels up and marks its own, scanning in a digital age like never before. A winner in both efficiency and style, the SV600 is sure to impress with easy, user friendly functions that allows one to scan effortlessly, with results beyond your imagination!

A Walk In The Park with Scansnap S1100 – Brings a mobile and simple scanning to new places! Do you often find yourself needing to scan a few pages while away from your office? Work efficiency should not be discounted despite engaging in social activities with your client. Meet your client at your convenience, be it over lunch or dinner at any fancy place, and allow your client the privilege of keeping the original documents while you scan and store, on the go. Literally a walk in the park, introducing ScanSnap Image Scanner S1100, an extreme portability document scanner that pushes the limits of size with a smooth A4 document scanning. Furthermore, S1100 is capable to offer you with the ultimate accessibility to your scans by allowing direct scan to your existing Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs, SugarSync and Salesforce accounts.

Scan all your documents to your network platform with ScanSnap N1800 –Network Scanner Expanding your business or simply pumped up for some spring cleaning? Require extra storage with central managing? ScanSnap N1800 is your solution as you can customize the mechanism to best fit your environment and needs. The ScanSnap N1800 ties in to provide network scanning that can transfer data/documents via LAN directly to our server, or to multiple recipients with high control power and maintenance. This facilitates your total solution to a multiple-user environment, at the push of a button.

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COVER STORY

NETWORKING MARKET

SME NETWORKING MARKET

POISED TO GROW The data deluge has further given a push to the networking market; and with the changing perception of SMEs towards IT the networking market in India among them is poised to grow BY: KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

s per research conducted by IDC, the networking market in India is as big as US $ 129.5 million as of Q2 of 2013 and this figure has varied roughly between US $ 120 to 140 million in the last six quarters. The majority of this revenue comes from the switching market (ranging between US $ 78 million and US $ 98 million the period of Q1 2012 and Q2 2013), while the routing market saw lesser revenue, ranging from US $ 41 million to US $ 61 million in the same time period. For the routing market, products for the mid-range saw revenue ranging from US $ 6.23 million to US $ 8 million between the period of Q1 2012 and Q2 2013 in markets across India. The Indian IT market continues to grow, albeit slowly. The increasing interest in the enterprise market and dependency on connectivity, the networking market in India is seeing a significant amount of interest across India, especially in the SME segment says the industry. Though this segment is price sensitive and a majority of SMEs are still technology laggard, this is changing with

more organisations embracing IT the demand for quality and technologically capable networking products is on the rise. Juniper Networks sees big opportunity in the networking market in the age of data deluge. It points to a recent statistics which states that 300 million people are connected and the number will go up to 450 million in the next five years. As more and more people connect, this generates more internet traffic, which requires more routing infrastructure and this is where it comes in. “Video, mobility, and cloud are putting enormous pressure on networks as traffic is rising exponentially and are the key dynamics of switch and router market in India,” says Jitendra Gupta, Director (Partner sales, India & South Asia), Juniper Networks. SMBs are realizing the correlation between investments in technology and business performance and are using this to their advantage which is further boosting the network market. Amandeep Singh Dang, Country Manager (Networking), Dell India, says, “With the increasing connectivity, growth of mobility and a con-

sequent demand placed on the IT infrastructure of SMB enterprises, there is a growing need for networking technology such as SDN which can enable faster and simplified management of networks in an automated manned.” According to a study by Zinnov when it comes to enterprise IT, SMBs in India are different from SMBs in the developed world who have a higher understanding of technology. Therefore, SMBs in India look for solutions that are easy to deploy and for vendors who spend time educating their customers on the deployment of products and solutions. With the emergence of IT in a box products and services and greater involvement by vendors in educating customers, IT is simplified greatly and hence there is an increased adoption amongst SMBs. “The market is going through a rapid change in technology use. SMEs today realise that IT is a competitive advantage and they have to upgrade their IT infrastructure for two reasons – firstly to make themselves more productive consequently reducing costs and secondly to keep themselves at par with the technology used by other SMEs in

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NETWORKING MARKET

COVER STORY

SME CONTRIBUTION TO GDP HAS BEEN GROWING AT A STEADY RATE OF CAGR 12 PERCENT OVER THE LAST SEVEN YEARS AND WILL REACH $15 BILLION BY 2015.

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COVER STORY

NETWORKING MARKET

“VIDEO, MOBILITY, AND CLOUD ARE PUTTING ENORMOUS PRESSURE ON NETWORKS AS TRAFFIC IS RISING EXPONENTIALLY AND ARE THE KEY DYNAMICS OF SWITCH AND ROUTER MARKET IN INDIA.” JITENDRA GUPTA, DIRECTOR (PARTNER SALES, INDIA & SOUTH ASIA), JUNIPER NETWORKS.

India and even globally. The trend is in investing in 10G, storage solution, 1 G networks, surveillance, wireless etc,” says Subhodeep Bhattacharya Regional Director, NETGEAR India & SAARC. The increasing deployment of data centers, as per Savera, is also one of the key factors contributing to this market growth. “The data center network equipment market has also been witnessing the increasing virtualization in network environments,” says Subir Mahapatra, Country Manager, Savera Marketing. It’s not just the metros but tier II and III cities too are also scripting the growth of SMB networking market. “Heightened business activity, increasing job opportunities, rapid urbanization and use of the internet are transforming upcountry markets. This coupled with growing investments is pushing sales for small business product lines. With over 65% of our population living in tier II & tier III cities, small businesses can tap into a host of opportunities in areas such as rural banking, healthcare, education, retail, IT/ITES and connected agriculture,” says Mahapatra.

Market It’s not just for the enterprises but for the SMEs too vendors have a very strong portfolio of networking to cater to this segment. NETGEAR has end-to-end networking switching solution - some are specialised like 8 port smart 10G switches. It also has one of the largest range of NAS in the industry ranging from entry level 2 TB boxes to 240 TB rack solutions with deduplication, replication features at a fraction of a cost of similar solutions. Dell claims that SMEs have a lot to benefit from its products which are scalable, flexible and are designed for high performance with low costs. Digisol has introduced a number of products targeting the SMB and SME segment. It provides end-to-end LAN switching and routing portfolio that it says can address the needs of all organiza-

tions, from small to medium enterprises. Globally, as is obvious from the IDC report, the router and switch market is experiencing significant growth rate. This has been attributed to factors like video, carrier Ethernet, and convergence of residential and business networks. “This trend is expected to continue in future in addition to wireless backhaul, which is currently an emerging opportunity that is expected to become a strong market driver in the near future,” announces Bhattacharya. He further adds that SMEs are going to focus on upgrading infrastructure – of network backbone, storage systems, and wireless infrastructure and of security systems. SMEs are also taking advantage of branch office automation after the advent of more reliable wireless and broadband bandwidth. Increasing use of carrier Ethernet technology and increasing bandwidth usage is one of the major reasons driving this market. Lately, SMBs are also migrating towards cloud. Cloud is not only helping SMBs by making many services affordable and accessible but also helping them to scale up their business. Dang adds, “Therefore, many SMBs are moving towards cloud computing and this is changing the network requirements of SMBs by increasing the demands placed on them.” Dell adds that SMBs have a lot to benefit from enterprise mobility, as it enables greater productivity and an opportunity to server customers better. SMBs everywhere are revamping business models to empower employees through mobile solutions and this in turn is changing the demands placed on networks.

Challenges Increase in technology comes with its own challenges: absence of adequate and timely finance, the cost of setting up new technology and maintaining it, its sustenance, limited knowledge and non-availability of suitable technology at afford-

“MANY SMBS ARE MOVING TOWARDS CLOUD COMPUTING AND THIS IS CHANGING THE NETWORK REQUIREMENTS OF SMBS BY INCREASING THE DEMANDS PLACED ON THEM.” AMANDEEP SINGH DANG, COUNTRY MANAGER (NETWORKING), DELL INDIA

able cost. When the growth of SME sector itself is challenged due to policy paralysis and the growth of any other market linked to the growth of SME itself will have repercussions on the networking market also. It’s all upon the state to create an environment for the growth of SMEs. “Today, most of the partners are facing thin margins & delay in payments from SMEs as well as from corporate,” says Madhukar Swayambhu, Vice-President, Sales, ZyXEL India. The lack of skillset is another challenge faced by this market. In case of a complication it is usually difficult to find personnel with the appropriate skills to fix it and this is a big risk as failure in technology can have adverse effects on any business. In addition, the lack of resources required to constantly run complex IT infrastructure has an adverse effect on the agility of business as the focus is the IT environment rather than the business needs environment. NETGEAR finds the greatest challenge in some solutions provider’s obsession in providing cheap solutions without delivering any value in product technology and services. Consequently many technologies cannot be introduced due to the fact

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COVER STORY

NETWORKING MARKET

“THE DATA CENTER NETWORK EQUIPMENT MARKET HAS ALSO BEEN WITNESSING THE INCREASING VIRTUALIZATION IN NETWORK ENVIRONMENTS.” SUBIR MAHAPATRA, COUNTRY MANAGER, SAVERA MARKETING.

that the market will not be able to drive adequate volumes to bring in economy of scale. For example, the world is moving to Gigabit networks, but Indian companies continue to buy 10/100 Mbps network because it is cheap. This in turn makes it difficult to implement future technology which will use the network as a backbone (for example a Network storage).

Gupta says, “Organizations face some stiff challenges to break the status quo. Barring the budgetary constraints, there is caution around security threats, loss of productivity, and lack of control and data loss prevention. These are only a few of them but depending on the business, there could be other challenges as well.” Network security is increasingly becoming complex for small and medium businesses as they face constant threats from viruses, worms etc. With multiple types of device (PCs, tablets, phones) accessing the network using multiple OS to reach data in the cloud network security is critical. “Access control, QoS, identity management is critical and these can be only managed through newer security products and advanced network systems. SMEs are now exposed to security threats like never before and they need to focus on network security,” replies Bhattacharya. Gupta adds that the pressure to release software on time to the market makes it impossible to release 100% error and vulnerability proof applications and so, enterprising cybercriminals have a lot of little loopholes to play with. Dang advises that the best network security solutions for small businesses provides a total security solution comprising of layered security with integrated gateway anti-virus, anti-spyware intrusion prevention, Comprehensive Anti-Spam and Application Intelligence, Control and Visualization for real-time protection against a wide array of threats. A good network security solution also provides business benefits such as compliance, secure e-business foundation and the ability to grow your network securely.

Channel Channel also has much to gain from the SME networking market says the industry. Dell is

“ONE STRONG POINT WE ALREADY POSSES IS TO REACH SME SEGMENT THROUGH OUR PRESENT REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL, WE HAVE EMPOWERED THEM WITH PRE-SALES TRAINING ON OUR PRODUCTS AND TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS.” BIMAL RAJ, CEO, SMARTLINK NETWORK SYSTEMS.

integrating its channel business into sales organization which is designed to accelerate channel sales growth. It adds that this integration is done across the globe, simplifying the whole structure and allowing them to grow faster. “This opens up enormous opportunities for partners to grow sales, increase the overall reach; working hand in hand with Dell,” feels Dang. NETGEAR feels the opportunity for the channel lies in focusing on storage and storage services, setting up quality wireless networks, providing a manages network infrastructure for SMEs and probably looking at helping SMEs outsourced some of the IT services so that the SMEs do not have to bother about developing skills for the same. To increase the reach into this segment vendors have adopted different routes like providing channel across the length and breadth of India and backed by well-established support system. In March, Dell announced its increasing focus on the Distribution line of business that will increase coverage and sales. Dell has already tied up with national distributors in India - Ingram Micro and Redington to offer unparalleled enterprise solutions and products to its customers and partners without wait period. Dang hope this will help them widen their reach to SMEs across India, especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, where its products were not readily available. Digisol has been largely working on visibility amongst SI community coupled with SI engagement programs. Going forward, it wants to work closely with SI partners with a host of activities such as road shows, events and training programs. “Last year we have engaged with System Integrators and VAR’s in a stronger way than ever before, with having done number of events with the primary focus being on training SI’s and VARs catering to SME segment,” informs Bimal Raj, CEO, Smartlink Network Systems. Juniper is equipping sales representatives of distributors to become the marketing arm and will help partners in deal closures. It plans to increase its Select Partners in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, and conduct 12-city roadshows in upcountry locations over the next 2-3 months, and train 200 sales and pre-sales employees of partner organizations. These will contribute towards better and more accessible reach to SME’s across India and also contribute to better sales in the long run. Recently, Cadensworth partnered with Juniper Networks to distribute its networking portfolio in India, South Asia. When it comes to strengthening channel ecosystem NETGEAR wants to focus on training its channel partners. “We are clear that we do not want to crowd the channel space with too many

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NETWORKING MARKET

COVER STORY

“TODAY, MOST OF THE PARTNERS ARE FACING THIN MARGINS & DELAY IN PAYMENTS FROM SMES AS WELL AS FROM CORPORATE.” MADHUKAR SWAYAMBHU, VICE-PRESIDENT, SALES, ZYXEL INDIA.

partners and we are working with selected partners. We also want to have a variety of partners in line with the diverse solutions we sell so that we can have the right partner for the right job,” announces Bhattacharya. Digisol has planned two fold sale strategies. “One strong point we already posses is to reach SME segment through our present regional distribution channel, we have empowered them with good amount of pre-sales training on our products as well as latest technological trends. Secondly we now have strategic national SIs and

have identified list of corporate and institutional customers. As our USP, we continue getting recognition as one stop shop for end to end solution for IT infrastructure,” informs Raj.

Finally With more organisations embracing IT the demand for quality and technologically capable networking products the market is on the rise. Trends like BYOD and cloud are accelerating the growth of this market and in addition are providing immense opportunities for the channel.

“SMES ARE NOW EXPOSED TO SECURITY THREATS LIKE NEVER BEFORE AND THEY NEED TO FOCUS ON NETWORK SECURITY.” – SUBHODEEP BHATTACHARYA REGIONAL DIRECTOR, NETGEAR INDIA & SAARC.

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SME CHAT

“TO ADD MORE TELECOM AND SECURITY PRODUCTS” Growing at a rate of 30% over last year Bangalore based Compac Telesystems is a Rs. 3 crore plus company. Proprietor of the company P.U. Somaiah talks to SME Channels about the telecom market.

Brief us about your company? Compac Telesystems is a Bangalore based company established in 1994. Right from our initiation we have been a telecom and security solution provider. We offer the best solution & service for all Telecommunication and Office Automation needs. We have a full-fledged sales and service setup. What is your turnover and growth percentage? We are a Rs. 3 crore plus company and growing at a rate of 30% over last year. What is your strength in terms of market reach and others? Our strength is our goodwill in the market and prompt support to all our customers. What kind of solutions and products you are dealing in? We supply and support telecommunication & office automation products like: KTS, EPABX & Intercoms, Multi function Fax machines, Heavy Duty Laser Printers, LCD Projectors, Conference Phones, Telephone Instruments, Plasma TV’s, CCTV Camera’s, Access Control, Head Sets, Networking, biometric, Voice Logger, Dialer & Call center solutions. Compac also deals with consumable products like fax film rolls, printer cartridges, fax paper rolls, refilling of printer cartridges, and servicing of telephone & cordless instruments.

How do you find telecom market in India? Major growth is in traditional PBX and IP PBX. Also, there is a demand for wireless system and video calling system. The Telecom market in India is growing day by day vastly with many solution based requirement. What kind of telecom solutions you have? We deal in IP calling, video calling, gateway interfaces, dialer & call center solutions. How do you find Matrix products in terms of its advantages vis-àvis other brands? Matrix is SUBSTANCE brand. Substance is in the DNA of Matrix solutions. Substance in the form of technology, depth, genuineness and going beyond the mere outer façade and offer more values in all the areas. This is what differentiates Matrix from the lot. Matrix solutions are packed with More. More productivity, more applications, more flexibility, more functions, more features, more cost saving, more reliability, and more support. Matrix positioning is based on offering more of these true inherent values which customers expect from infrastructure solutions. What is the potential and challenge for matrix in the market? Matrix products have a great potential in lower and mid segment. Competition with MNC

P.U. SOMAIAH, PROPRIETOR, COMPAC TELESYSTEMS

“OUR STRENGTH IS OUR GOODWILL IN THE MARKET AND PROMPT SUPPORT TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS.”

brands is the major challenge. What the company needs to do to improve the market share? More branding activities, KTS varieties, building intercom system at affordable cost, ensuring our product is at par with competitive products technically. Company should come up with products like Office in a box and new products with new concept online support, trainings and need to incorporate TAPI functionality so that it can be pitched in Call centre space. As a partner what kind of products you want to add this year? We are happy with the existing product portfolio and would like to add more telecom and security products so as to serve our customers more efficiently.

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SME BIZ

HELPING PARTNERS BOOST MPS BUSINESS To help channel partners grow their managed print services business HP has come out with its cloud based application – HP Express Decision Portal BY: KARMA NEGI

Karma@smechannels.com

P launched its managed print specialist (MPS) program last year for channel partners in Delhi and Mumbai. To further help its channel partners the IT giant has launched HP Express Decision Portal, a cloud-based application, to help them grow their MPS business. The cloud based application offers the partners greater visibility not only into their expected revenue but also throws up business proposals to help them bag MPS business opportunities. “One of the unique aspects of Express Decision Portal that it helps partners to look at their target margins and from that see what the price points are and even have rules within their business,” says Bill Avey, VP (Partner Managed Services), HP. Around 2.5 years back HP acquired a pure play management print services company Printelligence around which its partner managed print services is formed. “It had the best in class infrastructure tools and processes to do managed print and we have executed that intel now and our strategy was to take that infrastructure, rewrite it into multi-currency, muti-language assets that we will turn out to our channel partners to enable them to be successful in managed print space. So we did that initially with the selling program, followed up last fall, we talked about the expansion of the service delivery part of that enabled that differentiated services delivery were these tools that in this case were carried by the actual technicians and they go out and touch the individual customers,” reveals Avey. The decision to launch Express Decisions Portal was the next step in that process and it’s taking the

capabilities that it required, rewriting them in such a way to turn it into a web based portal and that web based portal enables its partners to take the HP universal device or UDA (a piece of software) to their customers and install that in the customer network which begins to collect information around the imaging and printing behaviour and sending that back to the Express Decision Portal. Further partners will work in tandem with the customers to understand the actual cost of printing today, how much they are paying for toner cartridges and where they get break fix services and with this information collected electronically via the UDA manually, discussions with the customers are then loaded into the decision portal. The partner now has the ability to come up with a proposal for the customer for a managed print services environment that will typically enhance end-users experience in terms of higher up time, generating cost savings, say up to 30% of the spend Avey says they find very achievable from their experience with the customers. It also enables the partners to look at their economic world in terms of both future projections of revenue as well as margin. Calling its MPS program a success he further adds that their decision to combine the sophistication of the customers who desired to move on the managed print services and their infrastructure is what propelled them to launch the program in India and have been very pleased with the results. “The results have been so good that we decide to release our HP Express Decision Portal here and India again is the first country in APAC where we bring in assets to our partner based customers,” he reveals.

BILL AVEY, VP (PARTNER MANAGED SERVICES), HP

“THE PORTAL HELPS PARTNERS TO LOOK AT THEIR TARGET MARGINS AND FROM THAT SEE WHAT THE PRICE POINTS ARE AND EVEN HAVE RULES WITHIN THEIR BUSINESS.” From a foundational perspective Avey adds HP is different in terms of the actual devices, supplies, services and software security mobility that it brings to the table. “And when it is combined with partners it’s by far the best in the industry. By this I mean partners are in our DNA to do business with and HP feels pretty good about understanding managed print services as a business and we have made global infrastructure investments.”

Finally.... Apart from the launch of the Express Decision Portal Avey says they will be working very closely with its partners as they move into the new fiscal and calendar year to bring that value add to the customers and grow their business together.

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SME BIZ

“IMPROVING CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT MODEL” At the backdrop of its growing business in the Indian market, WatchGuard has re-launched the WSP Program that will not only prove beneficial for the existing channel but also attract the potential partners in the country BY: KARMA NEGI

karma@accentinfomedia.com

atchGuard Technologies, one of the global leaders of integrated, multi-function business security solutions, recently re-launched its popular WatchGuard Secure Partner (WSP) Program for the existing as well as prospective partners. The new WSP Program offers host of benefits, multi-level partnership, and deliver all essential resources for the partners to build revenue, stay ahead of the competition and increase profitability. “WatchGuard is a 100% channel focused company so we are always looking at ways to improve our channel engagement model. The new program is designed to enhance partner opportunity and profitability in three key areas – growth, value and expertise. We have introduced new programs and investment in activities designed to grow business with our most loyal and technically capa-

ble partners,” says Scott Robertson, Vice President (APAC), WatchGuard. He further adds, “At the same time, we understand Indian customers seek value in their IT acquisitions as so we’re introducing the WatchGuard Value Proposition to help top partners align security with core business goals and objectives. All of this is not possible without a strong security capability and while we continue to innovate on the product side, it’s important to keep partners educated, trained and certified with the latest developments and we offer this through our both on-site and on-line training facilities.” The company has introduced many new enhancements to the WSP Program. The primary reason behind bringing these changes in the channel programs was that WatchGuard was receiving common complaints in the market regarding the timeliness of rebate payments. The company believes that a delayed payment can not

only impede the flow of business and success of winning a deal but the overall profitability for the partner waiting for a rebate to hit their account. Besides, it’s important that the WSPs have the opportunity to gain competitive advantage through up-front discounts and under the new program they not only have this but additional ways to increase margin such as using the new online deal registration system to lock in new opportunities. Once the new opportunity is qualified, they earn additional margin for that deal immediately.

Window of Opportunities The re-launch of the WSP Program opens up a window of opportunities for the company’s existing partners in terms of building revenues, increasing profitability, and business expansion. It will also encourage more potential partners to join WatchGuard.

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SME BIZ

and this would typically be a registered reseller who has undergone some training and started to build a security business with WatchGuard. Once an Associate Level partner develops with a sustainable business and invests in certified training and NFR product, the company may consider their eligibility for the Professional Level and at this level, it offers the full program benefits including access to preferential pricing, lead development, deal registration, marketing investment and many others. The Expert Level is the most prestigious status within the company’s partner ecosystem and is reserved for partners that truly understand WatchGuard’s offering and work well with its team to continue to grow successfully and have done so for some time. Some of the other key benefits of the WSP Program include higher margins and upfront discounting, technical support and hands-on trainings, professional sales training, access to NFR (not for re-sale) program, no cost evaluations, and joint marketing activities amongst others.

Tapping Potential Partners

“The new program is designed to enhance partner opportunity and profitability in three key areas – growth, value and expertise” SCOTT ROBERTSON, VICE PRESIDENT (APAC), WATCHGUARD

“We have many new ways for partners to grow with WatchGuard. Firstly, we run a series of webinars and end user events that we co-sponsor with partners so that we work hand in hand to educate their market and build a strong healthy pipeline together,” opines Robertson. He states, “Our partners know the WatchGuard Value Proposition is the most compelling in the market, as we provide the highest UTM throughput, the only vendor with best in class security services from world leading brands such as Websense, Trend Micro and Kaspersky and the most comprehensive management platform highlighted by the recently launched visualization tool, WatchGuard Dimension.” Furthermore, this revised program will help WatchGuard resellers to join the elite club of WSPs at different levels. The process designed for this is that any reseller interested in the company’s program can register as a reseller via www.watchguard. com and it will send an information kit out to them. The next level of partnership is the Associate Level

In the Indian market, the company is going to leverage this revised program to tap in new/ potential partners and expand its presence in order to create a strong foothold in the country. “We welcome all resellers to connect with WatchGuard and learn about our products and services and I encourage all reading this article to register their interest via www.watchguard.com/ partners/ and we will be sure to get in contact with you,” asserts Robertson. He further elaborates, “Besides, it’s also important to strike a good balance between quantity and quality. As a WatchGuard Secure Partner, you don’t want to invest time in conducting a PoC only to lose a deal to a discount house down the road so to that end we work hard to ensure our WSPs, who have committed to our joint business, are protected as best possible when time is invested.” Moreover, this initiative will also help WatchGuard in tapping the underlying opportunities in the Indian market. The company believes that India is a growing and dynamic market and customers are discerning when it comes to spending, often sorting through many solutions to select the best value for money. “Like our WSPs, I am very confident that the WatchGuard Value Proposition is the most compelling in the market today and offers tremendous opportunity for our channel ecosystem in 2014,” highlights Robertson. Meanwhile, WatchGuard offers comprehensive portfolio of security solutions catering to the requirements of businesses of all size from small to medium to enterprise, across verticals.

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SME BIZ

TO REMAIN A CHANNEL CENTRIC COMPANY

With 5000 channel partners across India, Asia Powercom relies heavily on them to expand reach in every nook and corner of the country BY: APARAJITA CHOUDHURY Aparajita@smechannels.com

n the year 2004 April, Asia Powewcom commenced its India operation with the entry level UPS (used for desktop only) but gradually the company started developing UPS which were used for ATMs, CMC machines, pharma industry, photo copiers and various industrial grades. But in the past few years, the company emerged into a one-stop-solution provider for all kinds of UPS requirements with the enhancements of its product portfolio. As a part of the expansion of the product portfolio, the company introduced solar street light, solar inverters, automatic voltage regulator and multiple products in the UPS category. Tejas Sheth, Country Manager, Asia Powercom, says, “Till last year, we were growing steadily in UPS segment, but the buying behaviour has changed now and as everybody know that desktop is in negative growth, so as of now our growth in terms of UPS is not so high but neither are we dipping as lots of vendors have closed down, so on that account we have started getting others’ share as well.” He added, “We are doing well in the UPS category because that has been our strength since years. Besides, certain product lines are very competitive because of our production capabilities and some designs which we have done it specifically for India market, so that is the reason we have been doing well and we have been able to maintain that.” Earlier they had only UPS power range but in 2013, it expanded the product portfolio with the addition of new product categories like laptop

adaptors, automatic voltage regulators, surge protectors and SMPS. “With god’s grace and partners’ support, we have been doing pretty decently in these categories,” maintains Sheth. When asked about the positioning of brand, Sheth avers, “Moving forward we see that Asia Powercom will become a prominent brand in India because till yesterday we were only a UPS company, now we have started foraying into different verticals which are more consumer centric like power bank. Now the brand will become more and more popular even with consumers, so moving forward we see that it will become a very strong brand with sincere efforts in the market and giving products which will be value for money. Besides, with authorized service providers, we have 42 service centres in India.” In order to market the products in every nook and corner of the country, Asia Powercom relies on channel partners by conducting channel partners meet and educating them through their newsletters and EDMs. Sheth emphasizes that among all the regions in India in terms of business generator, west comes in no.1 position, south and north are in equal position whereas east comes in a last position. Asia Powercom has always been a channel centric company and at present has more than 5000 channel partners in India. Moreover, they also have regional distributors spread across India whereas Sheth maintains that they do not work on national distributor model. Sheth elucidates, “We keep on meeting sales person every quarter, we have our sales review meet in every six months, we have half yearly

TEJAS SHETH, COUNTRY MANAGER, ASIA POWERCOM

“AS OF NOW OUR GROWTH IN TERMS OF UPS IS NOT SO HIGH BUT NEITHER ARE WE DIPPING AS LOTS OF VENDORS HAVE CLOSED DOWN.” sales meet which is a common meet where all of us come together, we educate them on all our products, we share our roadmap, we discuss with them what has been our good success stories and bad stories (which we should not repeat), so that is how we share with each other and evolve.”

Finally... Asia Powercom will remain a channel focused company and will continue to work with regional distributors. The company will engage with channel partners for the new products as they rely on the channel partners to promote the products. In terms of product roadmap, the company will add three more categories in the product portfolio. Besides, in terms of revenue Asia Powercom hopes to grow 60% in the next financial year.

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SME BIZ

HIGH HOPES FROM REFILL PROGRAM With the hopes to bring down the per copy cost down especially for customers of A3 copiers segment Panasonic has come out with refill toners for MFPs BY: KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

s per industry estimates the refill market commands approximately 30% market share in both ink and toner cartridges market. Most of these ‘refills’ are done from the local market which in turns damages the machine not to speak of the reputation of the brand too. Based on the consumer requirements and giving some benefits to the end user by bringing per copy price down especially for consumers like jobbers and especially for customers of A3 copiers segment Panasonic has launched refill toners (only for black and white) for its entire range of multifunction printers. As per Ajay Madan, Product Head, Digital Imaging System, Panasonic, these are not only competitive and believes that the cost per page too will drastically come down to half of the current. For the promotion of the refill program Panasonic has taken the route of its services and sales channel and is giving warranty at all its sales channel, and service points which number 174. With 29 distributors it plans to increase this to around 180 by this quarter. Further to increase the awareness among its partners it’s planning to hold dealer meets for its top dealers and to engage and show them this product along with the new models that have been launched. “We are also planning to go to electronic media whereby lot of EDMs and online promotions can be done,” says Madan. He goes into explaining the expectation from this launch, “First, we want to target the end-customers and give them a healthy cost per copy. Second, by doing this we are planning a huge installation base and are looking at 30-35% growth in the next six months. Third, once we

increase the installation base then the refill will definitely sell and even the genuine consumables sales will go up.” With the market for laser MFP increasing more than 20% every year informs Madan for Panasonic this segment remains the spotlight. “The market is shifting from standalone laser printer to multi-function because the prices of these have come down drastically and the gap between the standalone and vertical laser printer is between 20-25%,” informs Madan. With 10.5% market share in laser MFP it wants to increase this to 14.5% by the end of next financial year. Recently Panasonic launched three models (28 ppm machines and 26 ppm machines); for which it wants to compete with the copier channel. As for the target verticals for laser MFPs SOHOs, SMEs and Govt. are the spotlight. Madan hopes that once these machines are registered with the Director General of Supplies & Disposal (DGS &D) their contribution from this segment will go up to 40% which is currently at around 10%. While its major business comes from SOHOs and SMEs which accounts for more than 75% of the business currently Madan feels this has to change to 60:40 (60% from SMBs/SOHO and 40 % from Government). With 15 models under laser MFPs in the second half of the year it’s further planning to launch three more models targeted at the government and copier section. From April to June many activities like EDM blasts to corporate and online promotions for its machines have been chalked out; and plans to have 20 dealers meet in the next two months to promote its refill program and new

AJAY MADAN, PRODUCT HEAD, DIGITAL IMAGING SYSTEM, PANASONIC

“THE MARKET IS SHIFTING FROM STANDALONE LASER PRINTER TO MULTIFUNCTION BECAUSE THE PRICES OF THESE HAVE COME DOWN DRASTICALLY” models. With 29 distributors and more than 450 dealers there are no plans to further increase the numbers but focus will be on how to increase their turnover and reach out to the customers.

Finally..... Panasonic Laser MFPs are in A4 only and the major sales of A4 machines are coming from the low-end models ranging from Rs. 8,000 to Rs. 15,000, and machines costing more than Rs. 25,000 constitute less than 10%. With this refill program Panasonic wants increase its share in the hig-end machines too from the current 8% to 25%. The business contribution for Panasonic from metros is 65% and 35% from B and C class cities. With increasing focus on B and C cities Madan hopes this should increase to 45%.

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SME CHAT

RAJIV BHALLA, DIRECTOR (MARKET DEVELOPMENT – SOUTH ASIA), INTEL

“RIDING HIGH ON BIG DATA” Intel corp’s $740 million investment in Cloudera, a big data startup, giving it an 18% percent stake in the company has highlighted what big data analytics means for the chipmaker. In a chat SME Channels Rajiv Bhalla, Director (Market Development – South Asia), Intel, elaborates on their big data focus

Intel has been going very aggressive after the big data analytics and the case in point is its recent acquisition of Cloudera. Tell us how Intel sees the market? According to Nasscom report big data industry is slated to grow from 200 million in 2012 to 1 billion by 2015 at CAGR of 43%. So there is huge opportunity that we see happening because of big data. And the CIOs have ranked data analytics as their top most priority. Most of the CIOs I interact with says how their role is changing from being an enabler to a competitive differentiator. Earlier a CIO’s role was to enable the organisation from IT perspective but today the CIOs are in many ways like the CEO. He is creating the competitive differentiation of the organisation. They are realizing the huge opportunity that exists for the organisation through using the intelligence that comes from big data to create the differentiator. Which all verticals are harnessing the power of big data? We have several examples globally where organisations are beginning to harness the power of big data and gain competitive advantage. In the retail space there are lot of retailers who are tracking social media field. Tracking trends through social media than deciding what product they want to stock and how much, predict what kind of footfall they will have and so on. Hence, today big data is being used at the smaller level at the retail space to help with deciding stocking or

traffic to optimise in a better way. Similarly, in the healthcare segment it helps better diagnose patient situation, faster diagnoses, predict the right medicine, and also the side effects if any and take precautionary measure against that. So when organisations start analysing this data they get that kind of competitive advantage or differentiation that they create for themselves. We also have cases of remote patients monitoring that is happening in the healthcare space through geo tagging and it saves on scarce healthcare resources that the organisations have without compromising on the quality of delivery. What are the opportunities you see around big data? Big data presents Intel with three big opportunities: around HPC and Cloud, and Internet of Things that’s where big data comes into play. Today, we are working towards creating an entire building block structure, so we don’t only have the server and storage device and hardware but also software that is optimised for data analytics on the open source platform. We are also looking at providing solutions. So intel is looking at software plus hardware plus solution approach in the time to come around the sphere of data analytics. What will be your approach and vision towards big data? Our approach towards big data is more around partnering with OEMs, SIs and ISPs to be able to bring these solutions to the market.

Our vision for big data is to enable organisations and individuals to unlock the intelligence from big data and enrich their organisations or lives thorough using this intelligence form big data to create new scientific modules, new business models and enhance customer experience. While what is useless for people is being utilised by companies to create that competitive differentiation. IBMs recent report shows that almost 90% of today’s data has been generated in only two years. So with the huge amount of data that exists in today’s world and analysing this quickly in a cost effective way is what Intel is trying to do by creating an open a platform for big data analytics. We have a very comprehensive approach towards big data. This approach is based on our history of innovation to enable analytics right from the device like a mobile phone to the cloud, complete with compute, software, interface and network technology. Given our broad product portfolio and the extensive experience in the computing industry Intel is very uniquely positioned to be able to offer ecosystem innovation and to provide an open platform for data analytics. So our quest in India is like the rest of the world that is to create an ecosystem of partners and to bring down the cost of technology, improve the techniques, improve the skillsets so that more and more organisations can adopt big data. And how do you plan to go about making this a possibility? One of the steps we have taken is through the

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SME CHAT

“WE SEE BIG DATA STARTING AS REALITY WITH ENTERPRISES AND THEN MOVING TO SMES FROM VOLUME CONTRIBUTION PERSPECTIVE.”

Hadoop distributor and Intel which is a leading provider for data center silicons. We power nine out of ten servers that are there worldwide. What we are doing is looking at providing a platform of choice on data analytics. By our coming together essentially we are looking at providing customers with benefits on enterprise feature readiness on ease of deployment and also on business solutions. So customers can get cheaper solutions and this can fuel growth for big data.

significant investment done in Cloudera. This will give us performance optimised roadmaps specifically for Intel. Besides Cloudera we continue to invest extensively in research. We have invested in Indian Institute of Science and Technology, disruptive analytics technologies like Tengen and Guavus analytics. We also continue to invest in open platforms for Hadoop distribution, we continue to work towards creating an ecosystem so that we can drive down costs of acquisition and cost of usage as far as big data analytics is concerned.

called the internet of things (IoT) where we are forecasting billions of devices interacting with each other. All of this will generate a huge opportunity we believe for Intel. Apart from our core business we also are a strong player in the server space and see big data as a huge opportunity that will grow our market for servers. We recently took over the Intel distribution platform (we distribute Apache Hadoop). Another thing is because of IoT we are witnessing a huge opportunity for our silicon wearables and inmemory computing.

Why did Intel feel the need to shift to solutions? There has been a huge proliferation of big data but at the same time the PC market is going through some of its challenges while there is an exponential growth overall in the compute market. The number of smartphones are growing at an exponential pace, similarly we have a new buzzword

With the huge investment you have made in Cloudera, what are the expectations from this alliance? We have made the largest equity investment in Cloudera and are the largest shareholder in this company. We are members on their boards. By acquiring Cloudera we have merged two entities: Cloudera which is a leading enterprise Apache

What will be your go-to-market strategy for enterprise and SMEs? It is a different kind of strategy as the solution offerings differs for enterprises and SMEs. And lot of this is through partner enablement, understanding the needs of the organisations and then providing customised solutions to them. As of now the way we are looking at positioning ourselves is that of a trusted service provider for an open platform on data analytics. That’s the underlying principle we have in our marketing strategy. Currently, are working with White Clay and Wipro to be able to offer this solution but are also talking to OEMs, SIs and ISPs. What is there for the SMEs to gain from big data? SMEs too can analyse the data to create more focused targeting for its audience and do things like search engine marketing, search engine optimisation. SMEs can also leverage the potential through big data to be able to offer a unique product offering and to create a competitive differentiator. We see big data starting as reality with enterprises and then moving to SMEs from volume contribution perspective. Which verticals are you targeting? The key verticals we are focusing and which should benefit from big data are healthcare, education, telecom, BFSI, and retail.

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PRODUCT

REVIEW

AXIS OUT DOORREADY 360° PANORAMIC CAMERA

DELL SOFTWARE DR6000 DEDUPLIC ATION APPLIANCE AND NET VAULT BACKUP 10

Axis Communications’ competitively priced AXIS M3027-PVE is a 5-megapixel fixed dome that offers a 360° or 180°

BY MANAS RANJAN

overview of wide areas. The IK10 vandal

info@smechannels.com

resistant, day/night network camera is designed for indoor as well as outdoor

NETVAULT BACKUP 10, Dell’s cross-platform enterprise data protection solution, features upgrades including a new web-based GUI, significantly enhanced scalability, and greater performance through tight integration with the new high-capacity, high-performance DR6000 deduplication appliance. The latest addition to Dell’s DR series of deduplication appliances, the DR6000 is designed specifically for larger enterprises, offering users more than double the raw capacity and greater scalability than the DR4100, which is optimized for small- to mid-size organizations. With few tasks plaguing organizations more than backup, Dell has made significant investments in its backup and recovery product line over the past two years to help speed and simplify the task. Dell now offers a comprehensiveportfolio that enables organizations to speed backups and restores, scale their backup tasks to match their business needs, and spend less time monitoring and managing backups. Dell Software’s data protection solutions are used globally by more than 83,000 customers who depend on them to add value to the business by minimizing downtime and data loss, while also reducing costs and complexity. The launch ofNetVault Backup 10 and the DR6000 deduplication appliance demonstrates Dell Software’s investment in its data protection portfolio to extend more value to customers.Individually, or in tandem, the two products help customers address the issues of usability, performance and scalability that too often make data protection a daunting, error-prone activity.

FEATURES

use. Examples of suitable installations

n Improved ease of use:NetVault

are inside or outside hotels, boutiques,

Backup 10 offers a new web-based GUI with a more intuitive workflow that allows admins to easily configure, manage, and monitor the NetVault Backup system. n Improved performance: NetVault

Backup 10 features a new backend database, along with optimizations in the scheduler and media manager algorithms that greatly improve responsiveness, so admins can spend even less time completing their backup and recovery tasks. n Moreover,the combination of NetVault

Backup 10 and the DR6000 will give customers ultra-fast backup speeds with a throughput of up to 22 terabytes per hour when using Rapid Data Access (RDA) technologyi. n Improved scalability: With its new

backend database, NetVault Backup has more than three times its previous scalability.

PRICE Price: On Request

restaurants and offices. AXIS M3027-PVE can be mounted on ceilings, soffits or under porches for a 360° overview and on walls for a 180° view. The camera provides de-warped views such as panorama, double panorama and quad views, as well as view area modes where users can digitally pan, tilt and zoom in on areas of interest. Multiple streams in H.264 and Motion JPEG can be sent simultaneously. All cameras in the AXIS M30 Series come focused at delivery, which means short installation time. They support Power over Ethernet (IEEE 802.3af), which eliminates the need for power cables and reduces installation costs. It offers considerable support for the installation of intelligent video applications through AXIS Camera Application Platform. Further, the camera’s built-in microSDHC

CONTACT

card slot enables several days of recording

Call 1-800-WWW-DELL

to be stored locally on a memory card.

WARRANTY On Request

OVERALL RATING

n Price: INR. 71,910 (+ taxes as applicable), Warranty: 1 Year (extendable upto 5 years), Contact: contact-sat@axis.com | 080 - 41119331/9332

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NEW ARRIVALS

PRODUCT

BENQ

BENQ ‘EYE-CARE’ VA LED MONITORS BENQ EYE CARE Technology is now available across 18 VA LED models in India. BenQ Eye-care aims to produce technology offering consumers a better choice for the health of their eyes. The technology now provides consumers with the ability to filter out blue light at levels which correspond directly to the task they’re performing while at the computer. The BenQ LBL (Low Blue Light) technology provides the user with four preset LBL modes: Multimedia, Web surfing, Office and Reading modes, reducing blue light emission up to 70%. Whilst for gaming models, there are up to 18 LBL modes. It is a standard inclusion across a range of business, home, professional, entertainment, stylish and gaming monitors, released in December 2013 in India with Flicker-free technology. In 2014 BenQ Eye-care is fully implemented with the inclusion of 18 Low Blue Light (LBL) modes. BenQ’s unique Low Blue Light technology is designed to deal with the everyday problem of blue light exposure and allows a healthier time spent in front of your computer. n Price: Available at a price range of Rs.4,750- Rs.60,000, Warranty: 3 years, Contact: BenQ India Pvt. Ltd., 3rd Floor, 9B Building, DLF Cyber City, DLF Phase 3, Gurgaon 122002, Haryana.

TREND MICRO

TREND MICRO WORRYFREE 9.0 THE 1L SIZED desktop weighs 2.9 pounds (1.3Kgs onwards), and is equipped with 4th generation Intel Core iprocessors that improve performance by 10%. The PC Cloud Manager 2 offers failure warnings, troubleshooting and power consumption reports to keep the PC healthy and green, announced the release. The Intelligent Cooling Engine (ICE) 3.01 allows for working in hotter temperatures and enables system monitoring with thermal alerts that preempt overheating possibilities. M73 Tiny is an affordable, powerful and compact desktop, offering the features and functionalities required to address the users’ increasingly varied demands.” n Price: Rs. On Request, Warranty: On Request Contact:iValueInfoSolutions Pvt. Ltd., iValue House”, No.1, 3rd cross, 29th Main Road, BTM Layout, 2nd Stage, Bangalore-560076., Tel : +91 80 65329944 / 66 / 40969906, Fax : +91 80 26687583

TOSHIBA

HDD FOR SURVEILLANCE TOSHIBA MD03ACA-V series is a high-capacity hard disk drive (HDD) for surveillance applications. Toshiba’s purpose-built line of 3.5-inch HDDs is available in capacities up to 4 TB. The 6Gb/s SATA drives spin at 7200rpm and support the industry-standard 512n sector lengths with RV compensation to keep performance under multiple HDD configuration, making the MD03ACA-V series best suited for customers looking for 24/7 video surveillance storage. The robust design of the MD03ACA-V series provides storage to various video recorders, including surveillance digital video recorders (SDVR), surveillance network video recorders (SNVR) and Hybrid SDVR, delivering 24/7 operation with a mean time to failures (MTTF) of 1 million hours. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: ERashi Peripherals Pvt.Ltd., Ariisto House, 5th Floor, Junction of N. S. Phadke Road &TelliGali, Andheri (East), Mumbai- 400 069, India SME CHANNELS 41 MAY 2014

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GUEST COLUMN

SMBs EMBRACING DESKTOP VIRTUALISATION SMBs are moving toward desktop virtualisation, which offers a modern and cost-effective approach that’s a viable alternative to traditional PCs BY MANISH SHARMA, VP (APAC), NComputing India BRIEF PROFILE Manish Sharma is vice president of sales for NComputing’s Asia-Pacific region. Based in Singapore, Manish brings 18 years of sales experience spanning start-ups, growth-stage companies, and F100 corporations. Prior to NComputing, Manish led the South Asia sales team for Wyse Technology. He also held positions of managing director of Domain Manufacturing’s APAC operations and director of sales, SEA for Brooks Automation (acquired by Applied Materials). Sharma also worked at HCL-Hewlett Packard and Sony Corporation.

Staying current with the latest and greatest in hardware and technology is challenging for organisations of any size, especially so for small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) that are often extra challenged with limited resources and personnel. It’s no surprise then that today’s SMBs are moving toward desktop virtualisation, which offers a modern and cost-effective approach that’s a viable alternative to traditional PCs. Desktop virtualisation delivers all the computer performance, manageability and security required for businesses to remain competitive in today’s market with significant cost savings compared to buying and maintaining PCs. Recent studies, focused on the State of IT for SMBs, reveal growing IT budgets and also continued rapid adoption of virtualisation technology, cloud services and tablets in the workplace. It’s been also observed that while sizeable numbers of small and mid-sized companies have already adopted desktop virtualisation for their business, many others are looking into adopting the technology in the near future. However, limited IT staff and IT budget constraints continue to remain perennial challenges for this segment. Desktop virtualisation therefore makes sense for SMBs as IT budgets are expected to grow and accommodate BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and cloud office environments, all while staff sizes to manage the environments remain the same. Specifically, desktop virtualisation offers the following benefits to SMBs: Long-Term Reduction of IT Costs and IT Staff Headaches Continual management of multiple individual PCs, desktops and handheld devices is time-consuming, cumbersome and costly. Already strapped IT staff members can leverage desktop virtualisation technologies such as NComputing to control and make system-wide updates and upgrades from a single centralised source in a timely fashion, rather than updating workstations and BYOD devices one by one. The payback is—freed time to focus on other projects and fewer headaches, thanks to a streamlining of IT.

In the long run, desktop virtualisation offers a reduction in administrative and maintenance costs, which increase over time with company size. Improved Enforcement of Security and Compliance Mandates SMBs are particularly concerned over the management of their end users - with security and compliance topping the list, and for good reason. For example, a significantly high number of laptops are stolen or sometimes even lost every year at public places such as airports, etc. The loss of business-critical information is a very real threat particularly for industries such as financial services, healthcare and government. SMBs can turn to desktop virtualisation to meet security and compliance mandates by moving data off end points and into the datacentre where it can be more efficiently and securely managed. Compared to a conventional desktop, a virtualised desktop is more secure given that its data never leaves the data centre. Increase in Overall Employee Productivity The impact on overall employee productivity is also worth considering. In typical scenarios, a desktop machine going down means lost productivity as that employee has to sit around and wait around for the workstation to be repaired. With desktop virtualisation, however, IT can get the user up and running again on a new instance of their original virtual desktop. The immediate ability to access the same desktop from a different device means no more lost time when such IT problems arise. Additionally, the fact that desktop virtualisation supports BYOD devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones means IT is able to support the demand for a virtualww working environment and immediate access to information. By enabling streamlined IT processes and enhanced employee productivity in today’s BYOD world, moving to desktop virtualisation can provide a step ahead in today’s competitive SMB business environment.

42 SME CHANNELS MAY 2014

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RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2010/ 31962 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-1/4145/13-15 Date of Publication: 20 of Every Month Date of Posting: 22 & 23 of Every Month

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