SME Sep 2013

PLUS

Emerson Network Power Unveils New Modules of Trellis /22

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 04 | ISSUE 07 | PAGES 66 | SEPTEMBER 2013 | RS. 20/-

CLOUD STORAGE Cheap, expandable, and accessible Cloud storage is another option that SMEs are turning towards /40

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Panasonic Unveils Entry Level Projectors /16 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 04 | ISSUE 07 | PAGES 66 | SEPTEMBER 2013 | RS. 20/-

SME CHAT

SME TREND

/58

Infor: “SaaS is a Boon to SMBs”

/45

Adobe: “From Box to Cloud”

SME TREND

/56

Plantronics: Bets on Enterprise and Retail

MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL

NEED OF CLOUD STORAGE SANJAY MOHAPATRA editor@smechannels.com

REQUIREMENT OF Enterprise-class Storage technology in the SME segment is as important as it is to the large enterprises. The impact of data loss as devastating for the large enterprises as it is to the SMEs. Therefore, the small organizations should consider having right storage policy in place.

However, the high growth in the data flow to the organizations- year on year – actually does not help any policy to get translated into real action because it involves a certain cost, and the pain point of the SMEs is to pull out the requisite budget. The alternative to the issue is to have cloud storage in place.

By adopting cloud-based storage, SMBs can access to superior infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies at a fraction of the cost, an on-premise deployment would require. Today, in the competitive market environment, organizations are wishing to enable their employees to access infrastructure and applications remotely. Therefore a lot of companies are implementing BYOD and with cloud computing and cloud storage in place, BYOD can actually be effective.

But not many of SMEs know about data security, compliance, and reliability and there is no CIO or CTO in the SMEs to take decision on this front. Mostly, the technology procurement and implementation decision is also taken by the owners of the organizations, who normally hate this job. Here, the role of channel partners is quite high. They are the people who can not only be consultants but also be solution providers. Today, SMEs can have solutions from most of the tier -1 vendors including IBM, Dell, HP, HDS, NetApp, EMC, etc. and tier-2 vendors like FusionStor, Netgear, QNAP, Digisol, etc.

The partners need to take bold steps in suggesting the right solution. Normally, they give solutions as per the affordability of the customers, which is a wrong practice. If they want to create trust among the customers, they need to suggest right solution and right price, though at times the customers need to stretch their budget – but be it.

Another side is that many of the very small SMEs manage with high capacity external storage devices for backing up important files and documents. In this market also there are options and innovations. At a little higher price, they can get cloud-enabled external storage devices, which can help them to a greater extent in terms of accessing data remotely.

For the SMEs, the important thing is how to reduce cost of ownership and manageability, and at the same time, access data as and when required, which is to increase their efficiency and productivity. The answer is cloud storage. This issue talks about various facets of cloud storage for the SMEs, pls. read it for more perspectives.

Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E431 for Small Biz LENOVO INDIA ThinkPad Edge E431 laptop complemented with Lenovo’s OneLink technology offers a dock and power connector that can transmit audio and video with a single connection.

The new laptop is powered by the latest 3rd Generation Intel Core processor, Windows 8 operating system and optional NVIDIA GeForce Discrete Graphics.

Built for Indian small businesses, ThinkPad Edge E431 can be equipped with 16 GB memory (maximum).

SPECIFICATIONS Its USB blocker helps to protect data from security threats. Plus, it comes with clean and smooth touchpad surface with easy scroll and zoom functions.

FINAL WORDING Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 is a costeffective promise to the small enterprise market in India.

OVERALL RATING

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contents

SEP VOLUME 04 ISSUE 07

2013

ER COV RY STO

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Assistant Editor: Karma Negi Reporter: Aparajita Choudhury Executive Editor: Smruti Chaudhury Copy Editor: Neil D’Souza Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Satya Sagar Sinha Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Senior Manager: M Raj Marketing Executive: Rajat Kumar Circulation and Printing: Panchanan Bhoi SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016 Phone: 91-11-41055458 / 9313891660 E-mail: raj@smechannels.com Bangalore #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

Cloud Storage /40

Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 /

Cheap, expandable, and accessible Cloud storage is another option that SMEs are turning towards.

46151993 editor@smechannels.com Bangalore Bindiya Jadhav #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004

SME CHAT LG India /28

“We are eyeing 10% market share next year”

more inside Editorial~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06

Ricoh /30

“Add value to our customer work place”

Infor India /58

Snippets~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~10 SME Trend~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 32, 45, 54, 56, 64

“To Deepen Our Roots in Enterprise Soil”

accentinfomedia.com Skype ID: b1diyajadhav

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

Partner Corner~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 57

New Delhi-110016

Products~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 62

Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458 Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor,

“SaaS is a Boon to SMBs”

Cyberoam /60

Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 E-Mail bindiya@

Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi

FEATURE PORTABLE STORAGE /46 CONSUMABLES /50

110020, India.

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

Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.

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SNIPPETS PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

for more log on to smechannels.com

Lenovo SMB Biz Partners To fortify the existing relationships and build new associations, Lenovo recently held SMB National Business Partner meet in Jaipur, Rajasthan where 60

dealers from all over the country participated.

The objective of the meet was to instill confidence amongst their SMB business partners and have

them meet the Lenovo Leadership team to understand the company’s India focus and business priorities.

The theme of the meet was “Winspiration”, crafted keeping

in mind the aim to win the SMB market share and mind share amongst the key partner community, by inspiring them to follow and associate with Lenovo.

Ashok Nair, Director (SMB), Lenovo India, stated, “Protect and Attack strategy has enabled us to witness hyper-growth in the PC industry. Our Unstoppable Lenovo India motto has helped us achieve impeccable results across all the segments. Consumer and SMB segments are the growth engines for our Lenovo India business and we aim to sustain our growth in the consumer space and double our market share in the SMB space with a healthy Think Mix and Premium Portfolio.”

Partner programs were also launched at the event: first, The New Partner Loyalty Program (Spartan DOERs Club for T3 Retail Business Partners and (Spartan VARLords Program for VAR Sales Reps); second, The SMB Partner advisory council – to decide on the FY13-14 partner policy framework.

Amar Babu, MD, Lenovo India culminated the evening with an interactive session.

Canon MDS Enables Anand and Anand Anand and Anand, a law firm in India, has successfully contracted its entire printing and scanning requirements to Canon by embracing Canon Managed Document Services (MDS).

Canon has provided end-to-end printing solutions to Anand and Anand across its Noida and Chen-

nai offices. The engagement has helped the company streamline its printing infrastructure and enhance its processes in both the locations.

Alok Bharadwaj, EVP, Canon India, said, “We are privileged to be associated with Anand and Anand in helping them consolidate their printing device sprawl, decrease the

high print cost, relieve their IT team and manage legal confidentiality.”

The company saw a reduction of 35 to 40 percent in overall printing and was able to achieve standardization with Canon MDS. Canon delivered a high uptime of more than 95% percent.”

Subroto Panda, CIO, Anand and

Anand, said, “Canon’s offering provided our company with the best solution available in the market and their expertise in dealing with critical printing infrastructure helped us consolidate our printers, scanners, fax and e-mail. Canon allows us to meet our evolving printing needs in a cost effective way.”

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HP India Tops the Charts HP India has been ranked at the top position in PC vendor and Printers categories by IDC. According to the IDC Asia Pacific Quarterly PC Tracker, HP’s PC market share has jumped to 34.1% in Q2 2013.

The report shows that HP has market leading 57% and 50% share in inkjet and laser printer categories respectively, while also being the top vendor in Multi-Function Printers (MFP) with a 30% share.

“In terms of vendor share, HP recorded its high-

est ever quarterly market share with an astounding 34.1% share, accounting for one-third of the India PC market for Q2 2013,” said Kiran Kumar, Research Manager, IDC India.

As a PC vendor, it’s for the third successive quarter that HP has been ranked at the first position.

“The IT marketplace is transforming rapidly, and technology companies are challenged to deliver innovations that enable the changing needs of consumers and businesses,” said Rajiv Srivastava, President, PPS, HP India.

TP-LINK Leads in Global WLAN Market TP-LINK has acquired 42.29% share of the WLAN market based on products shipped, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker, 2013 Q1 Final Release, released by leading IT market research and advisory firm IDC, ranking the world’s wireless networking equipment vendors by product shipments and revenues.

With this market share, TP Link maintained a dominant lead in global WLAN market and has taken the lead in the first quarter of 2013 over competing vendors, with more shipment volume than the next two leading vendors combined. In 2012, the company gained a total market share of 34.86 percent in 2012.

FusionStor Releases IFS SAN Storage Series FusionStor has unveiled IFS SAN Series SAN storage solution with unique features like high performance cache and battery free super capacitors.

IFS series comes with HDD SSD options as added advantage. Series offers support for multiple SAS/SSD drives, allowing mix of SAS SSD in any drive slot enabling business agility. User can increase the performance just by swapping the controller.

As companies move to competition they demand smooth output and maximum flexibility that offer high class user experience. Enterprises are struggling with compatibility and complexity issues which in the end increase their investment.

“Today, where every enterprise is facing compatibility issue, we have launched a one-stop solution as an initiative to reduce time and investment. FusionStor IFS SAN series provides multiple options in terms of drives, power supply, chassis, performance control etc. Thus user gets better access and output in lesser cost,” said Amod Phadke, CEO, FusionStor.

MY POINT

Rashi Bags ‘Star Performer of the Year’ from Lenovo Lenovo awarded Rashi Peripherals with the ‘Star Performer of the Year’ award for the T1 category at its annual National Business Partners Meet in Jaipur.

Rashi and Lenovo have a long and successful association with each other which has reaped with successful outcomes and helped each other grow mutually. Lenovo has always been a supportive client with a great team that has been motivating from the very beginning. The future will have more success instore for the benefits of the partners as well as the consumer announced the press release.

Ashok Nair, Director SMB, Lenovo India, said, “Rashi Peripherals is an integral part of Lenovo SMB’s growth story in India, and we are ready to script history as we grow our business together to a leadership position this year.”

Kapal Pansari, Director (Marketing), Rashi Peripherals Pvt. Ltd.,said, “This was an exceptional event and high honor for Rashi Peripherals to be called the Star Performer of the Year. I would like to thank the whole Lenovo team for this appreciation and would hope that this association will have many such successful milestones in the future.”

Nehru Place Dealer Flees with Rs. 27 Crores

“Effective IT adoption by Indian companies will be key to realizing India’s GDP growth potential.”

KRIS GOPALAKRISHNAN, PRESIDENT—DESIGNATE CII AND FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE CO– CHAIRMAN OF INFOSYS LTD

Nehru Place has been jolted yet again with the news of another dealer fleeing with a whopping Rs. 27 crore. What is even more shocking is that Amit Kumar of Shanti Computers, a member of Delhi based ADCTA, had been operating out of Nehru Place for the last 13 years.

Mahinder Aggarwal, President, ADCTA, responded, “We have registered an FIR and undertaken all the necessary legal process.”

According to Aggarwal Shanti Computers’ 24 employees has no inkling as to why Kumar took such a step. “With the repairs and maintenance works Kumar was doing well in his business,” he added.

With the IT market posing challenges due to slump in the economy, the fear in the rising cases in default is already a major concern among the IT traders and this has further exacerbated the concern.

ADCTA has appointed a permanent lawyer whose expenses will be borne by the association.

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McAfee Updates Data Center Security Solution McAfee has announced a new version of its data center security solution. The McAfee Data Center Server Security Suite provides complete visibility to all workloads in hybrid data centers so organizations can secure and expand that environment confidently into the cloud.

This flexibility gives organizations elastic security that is auto-deployed when new virtual devices are provisioned either on-premise or in the public cloud announced the press release.

“Enterprises must stay compliant and meet government regulations and that is a typical barrier for organization who want to move workloads into the cloud,” said Rishi Bhargava, VP (Data Center Security), McAfee. “With McAfee’s latest Datacenter Server Security Suite and its elastic security, enterprises are now empowered to do just that. McAfee provides comprehensive security from servers to networking to storage.”

DELL STRENGTHENS WORKSTATION PORTFOLIO Dell has expanded its workstation portfolio with the launch of the Dell Precision M4800, M6800, T3610, T5610 and T7610, designed to seamlessly run the leading content creation, engineering, scientific and other professional software applications announced the release.

The new Dell Precision mobile workstations also deliver the highest performance with up to 16GB of 1866MHz memory, fourth-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processor options up to Core i7 Extreme Edition, and AMD FirePro and NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics, with up to 8GB graphics memory on the M6800 configured with NVIDIA Quadro K5100M, for handling complex 3D work, including rendering and simulation.

The new Dell Precision tower workstations include next generation workstation-class processors and professional graphics, Windows 8 factory installed, new Intel Cache Acceleration Software, PCIe SSDs and updates to Dell Precision Performance Optimizer. The Dell Precision M4800 and M6800 mobile workstations and T3610, T5610, and T7610 tower workstations will be available worldwide with prices starting at INR 139,999 and INR 99,999, respectively.

PCAIT’s New Council Gets Proactive With the newly elected President, Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal Group of companies, the new executive council of PCAIT (Progressive Channels Association of Information Technology) has been aggressively operational in initiating the plan of action.

Alok Gupta, President, PCAIT Executive Council, said, “PCAIT Members will be meeting two Government department on bi-monthly basis o run channel community work without any hassle. Besides the earlier formed five committees were re-aligned to four for greater homogeneousness viz. Arbitration Committee, Government Interfacing Committee, Committee for interfacing with other Associations in the country, and Committee for Vendor Relation and Management of Event, PR, Membership and Websites.”

neoteric to Participate at InfoComm India Neoteric is all set to debut at InfoComm India 2013 with its complete gamut of AV solutions and services under its own brand-property, neoteric Technology Solutions (nTS).

InfoComm India 2013, scheduled for 16-18 September 20013 is an event for the Indian AV industry.

Infocomm India is a part of InfoComm, the largest annual conference and exhibition for AV buyers and sellers worldwide and it has conducted roadshows in India earlier in 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

AV is one of neoteric’s primary focus areas of business currently and neoteric’s decision to participate at Infocomm complements its larger objective to enhance its contribution to the Indian AV industry and enrich its AV portfolio.

CP PLUS Introduces Network Video Recorders

CP PLUS has launched Network Video Recorders, CP-UNR-104Q1, CP-UNR-104Q1P that come in 4 channels and CP-UNR-108Q1, CP-UNR-108Q1P in 8 channels.

These robust, reliable, and feature-rich recorders are ideal for installation in any space-constrained location like standalone ATMs or sophisticated locations like homes, villas etc. announced the release.

Comes in 4 and 8 ports versions, the CP PLUS NVRs (CP-UNR-104Q1P and CP-UNR-108Q1P) are built with plug-and-play feature, specifically designed for High Definition IP cameras and also compatible with analog cameras.

Epson Organizes enVision Epson launched enVision, a Technology Carnival aiming to delight visitors with the latest in world-leading digital imaging solutions for home, office, business and beyond.

Home theatre projectors, the futuristic personal head mount display, revolutionary new ink tank printers, large format graphic printers and many more products are being showcased in this event announced the release. The two-day event was a platform for Epson to connect with its channel partners and end customers. A multi-city road show spanning the six metro cities, enVision was recently held in Hyderabad and Chennai.

Gigabyte A88X Mobos Gigabyte has launched its new FM2+ motherboard lineup supporting the forthcoming ‘Kaveri’ AMD APUs with support for existing socket FM2 Trinity and Richland APUs. Gigabyte A88X motherboards feature a number of features and technologies and also include the first AMD G1-Killer gaming mobos, the G1.Sniper A88X which includes Gigabyte AMP-Up Audio. It also offer unique Gigabyte features, including UEFI DualBIOS, Digital Power delivery, as well Triple Display support.

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NETGEAR Unveils its First Desktop ReadyDATA

PANASONIC UNVEILS ENTRY LEVEL PROJECTORS

NETGEAR has rolled out its first Desktop ReadyDATA device. This ReadyDATA 516 is packed with enterprise-class technology and delivered with ease-of-use features that enable SMBs to effectively use them.

It comes with a maximum capacity of 24TB and has a supporting mix of SSD and SATA drives which helps in boosting its performance manifolds. ReadyDATA redefines the concept of storage for small and medium businesses and remote offices/branch offices (ROBO).

Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director (India & SAARC), NETGEAR, said, “Never before have so many features come standard on an enterprise-class storage device, especially one with a price tag that is comfortable for even the smallest of IT organizations. The ReadyDATA 516 is easy-to-use unified storage designed to address serious data management issues with a single system.”

It is significantly less expensive and dramatically easier to use than comparable enterpriseclass offerings.

Panasonic India has launched new portable range of 1 chip DLP projectors, PT-LW271 series to cater to price sensitive volume zone market. With this product Panasonic intends to target SMEs including government and education sectors.

“This launch is a well exhibit of entry-level pricing.

Panasonic is renowned for its quality and the pricing is very attractive. This is a perfect strategy to propel our products,” remarked Vineet Mahajan, Head, Display Products, Panasonic India.

Panasonic Unveils Entry Level The Osaka based company also launched new Projectors range of display solutions which include professional LED LCD Display Solutions, Plasma Interactive Displays for Boardroom/classroom and Portable Range of Interactive Ultra Short-Throw, Short throw and Portable Projectors.

The launch in LED LCD line comprises of 55” LFV50, LF6 series, and 70’’ and 80” LED LF50 series. LED 55” LFV50 is the company’s first video wall product.

Then plasma display are targeted at classrooms and boardrooms which comes in 50 inch, 65 inch, 85 inch and 103 inch available at Rs. 130,000, Rs. 280,000, Rs 1,600,000 and Rs. 2,500,500 respectively.

The Japanese Company also launched PT-CW330 series of ultra-short-throw projectors and PT-TW330 series of normal short throw projectors priced between Rs. 49,000 to Rs. 95,000.

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

SERVER SHIPMENTS RISE 4%, DIPS 3.8% IN Q2’13 IN THE SECOND QUARTER 2013, WORLDWIDE SERVER SHIPMENTS GREW 4 PERCENT YEAR-ON-YEAR, WHILE REVENUE DECLINED 3.8 PERCENT FROM THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2012, ACCORDING TO GARTNER, INC. WORLDWIDE: SERVER VENDOR REVENUE ESTIMATES, 2Q13 (U.S. DOLLARS)

17.7

25.0

Oracle

5.8 29.2

Cisco

4.4

15.4 6.0

IBM

2.9 25.6 21.5

27.2

Q2 2013

19.2

August 2013.

Aditya Infotech Ltd. (AIL), has appointed T. Ravi Shankar as the vice president of security business unit.

He will be spearheading AIL’s growth path into new areas and opportunities announced then press release.

Dell

HP

Canon India has appointed Andrew Koh as Senior Director of the brand’s Imaging Communication Products (ICP) business effective

Others

Brocade has appointed Bill Lipsin to the position of Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Global Systems Integrator Sales.

Genius has appointed Gaurav Mathur, as the Country Business Head for India.

Q2 2012 Source: Gartner (August 2013))

Xerox has named Manish Gupta as Vice President, Director of the Xerox Research Centre in India.

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Konica Minolta Organises Its First Road Show

DIGEST

Konica Minolta rolled out its first road show in Jaipur as a part of its channel engagement initiative. The road show was organised by Konica Minolta’s distributor, Keertika Enterprises. The event was presided

by Tadahiko Sumitani, MD, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt. and Kuldeep Malhotra, EGM Sales.

The main focus of the road show was to showcase the new range of A3 sized printers specially the color A3 MFD machine. The other A3 printers like Bizhub Series BH 284e with Fiery controller were showcased to highlight better print quality. Besides, machines bh 164, bh 224, bh 215, bh 423 were also displayed. The demo of all the products was pre-arranged for the customers and prospective buyers.

“For us, Rajasthan is a high potential market and we will completely support our Jaipur business partners to establish a strong hold in this market,” said Sumitani.

Silicon Power has launched USB 3.0 portable hard drive, Armor A30. SP Armor A30 is comprised of a shock-resistant silica gel, building from the internal structure to the exterior, adding an extra shield to withstand crushes and shocks announced the release.

Armor A30 is equipped with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface, presenting a powerful performance with maximum protection, and is available in 500GB and 1TB.

TRENDNET TO CONDUCT 3-CITY ROAD SHOW WITH ABACUS TRENDnet will kick-start its first set of 3-city road shows which will be conducted in Delhi, Secunderabad and Cochin partnering with Abacus Peripherals, national distributor for TRENDnet in India.

TRENDnet has planned to educate the partners on the wide range of TRENDnet products catering the needs of Home, SOHO and SMBs. TRENDnet would be displaying its product range from its wireless networking, LAN switches, POE switches, Internet Camera, KVM switches, Fibre modules and converters, USB accessories and Power line categories. Through these road shows TRENDnet will communicate to the channel partners on the fast moving trends in the networking market and how they can add value to their customers buying decisions claimed the company.

Atul Jain, Country Manager, TRENDnet India, said, “The idea behind these road shows is to let partners know how they can increase their product offerings to their customers by catering them some niche products and achieve better profitability.”

HCL DDMS Partners with Datacard Group Digilife Distribution and Marketing Services (DDMS) has entered into partnership with Datacard Group—provider of secure ID and card personalization solutions.

DDMS will be the national distributor for Datacard Group’s products and services and will further extend their services to various market segments and projects including Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY), financial inclusion, banking, driving licences, voting cards and student ID cards.

Rajiv Singh, MD (India operations), Datacard Group, said, “The global partner program is extremely important to Datacard Group and DDMS’s extensive expertise, established relationships and proven experience in the marketplace will undoubtedly strengthen our reach in India to mutually grow our businesses.”

Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme with ‘True Speed Technology’ Plextor, a developer of high-performance digital storage technology design, has implemented its True Speed Technology in its flagship drive M5 Pro Xtreme, the high-performance 2.5’ SSD with professional read-and-write efficiency.

The True Speed Technology that efficiently cleans up the dirty blocks by constantly operating in the background to pick up blocks, erase the unwanted pages and move data to deliver a constant speed with high performance announced the press release. True Speed provides SSDs with the ability to handle the toughest real world applications by enabling them to rapidly return to like new performance even after very intense use.

SILICON POWER UNVEILS ARMOR A30

ECS UNVEILS H81 SERIES MOTHERBOARDS Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) has released its new H81 series motherboards, featuring new Intel 8-series Chipset for the new 4th Generation Intel Core processor family.

ECS H81 series motherboards are designed for different applications, such as Internet café, multi-media, and general office productivity. ECS H81 series motherboards are also available in a full product line of ATX, Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form factors.

TAG PRO USB 007 TAG has unveiled PRO series USB gaming mouse 007 which is designed with grade varying from 800 to 2400 DPI laser sensor.

The company informed that TAG PRO 007 gaming mouse is framed with 6 fully programmable buttons and scroll wheel that can be accessed without compromising on the grip of the mouse.

TAG PRO USB 007 is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, Windows7, ME, 2000, Mac OC and Latest OS. The length of 1.6 meters allows the user to operate from long distance. TAG PRO USB 007 is available at a price of Rs. 1050/- and comes with 1 year warranty.

PORTRONICS LAUNCHES CAR POWER Portronics has comes out with small portable car charger- Car Power which charges any device with the input of 12V DC and the output of full 5V, 1A like mobiles, tablets, Bluetooth, portable speakers, cameras and a lot more.

The LED light of Car Power allows you to locate the car charger at night very efficiently as it has the LED indicator that lights up when inserted in the car socket. LED allows the user to understand that the lighter socket is fully functional.

DOMO UNVEILS AMBIDEXTROUS MOUSE DOMO has unveiled its first ambidextrous optical mouse - DOMO MagicKey L1. DOMO L1 is designed to provide flexibility in working through either hand announced the press release. It is compatible with Windows, MAC, Linux and Android devices.

The DOMO MagicKey L1 optical mouse has a smooth matte finish which supposedly does not attract stains and finger prints, making it easy to maintain. The MagicKey L1 provides superior grip, to work for longer hours and the company boasts its ambidextrous design makes it easy for both right and left-handed users to use the mouse without any discomfort.

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Quantm to Resell Google Apps

CYBEROAM’S MULTI-CITY CHANNEL MEET CONCLUDES

Quantm has been appointed as an authorized reseller of the Google Apps. With Google Apps Quantm fortifies its ability to provide a mailing solution which has all the features of collaboration.

Quantm will now sell, service and customize Google Apps for Business for its customers announced the release.

Pawan Khurana, CEO, Quantm Ltd., said, “It is our strategic goal to strengthen and deepen customer relationships in our chosen markets and to offer a more complete solution set, and we are convinced that in Google we have found the perfect partner for charter and now we can offer a perfect suite of communication to our customers.”

Google Apps brings simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools to organizations of any size, all hosted by Google to streamline setup, minimize maintenance, and reduce IT costs. With Gmail (including Google email security, powered by Postini), Google Calendar, and integrated IM, users can stay connected and work together with ease.

ESET Secure Authentication Upgraded

Cyberoam recently concluded its multi-city channel partner meets during which it connected with over 500 channel partners and strengthened its strategy and vision for emerging opportunities in enterprise and virtual security segments.

In addition to its existing channel partners, hundreds of new partners from all over India took part in this channel gathering, culminating into a Cyberoam’s Multi-city Channel Meet Concludes mega success for Cyberoam announced the press release. Cyberoam is ready with its innovative network security portfolio including NG series and virtual UTM appliance range announced the Company. The portfolio addresses top security and performance concerns of SMBs as well as Enterprise customers. Recently voted “Channel Champion”, Cyberoam is poised for the next level of business growth for its network security solutions.

With a view to exhorting its channel partners to seize rising opportunities in Enterprise, Virtual Network security and more, Cyberoam unveiled several attractive Sales incentive schemes: it announced first-ever rebate program for its Gold and Platinum Partners that entitles them for an additional rebate up to 5% besides their standard benefits; and sales incentives schemes giving partners plenty of exciting cash and gift rewards, wins and bumper prizes.

Among other key developments, Cyberoam informed about commencing sales training to its partner workforce, with a near-future target of training 1000+ professionals. Cyberoam also awarded CCNSE and CCNSP certifications to more than 350+ partner engineers across Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities.

ESET has updated its authentication IT security product and is taking advantage of native support of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, VMware Horizon View, and many other VPNs, making ESET Secure Authentication more attractive for businesses using these VPN appliances wanting to protect their sensitive infrastructure and data announced the release.

ESET Secure Authentication works with iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and 8, Windows Mobile and J2ME-based phones. The solution even supports authentication based on SMS messages thus supporting older mobile phones unable to run the application.

ViewSonic Unveils 1080p Projector

Mydlink Cloud Garners One Million Users

ViewSonic has released the new Full HD 1080p 3D projector for office and home entertainment. The ViewSonic PJD7820HD is the best in class priceperformance Full HD 1080p 3D projector announced the press release.

The PJD7820HD comes integrated with 3,000 ANSI lumens for a clear, bright image even in well lit rooms - perfect for watching sports or playing on games consoles during daylight.

“As more and more business applications run on high definition resolution, the demand for 1080p projectors in the business world has been on the rise, our new PJD7820HD makes it the ideal crossover model for both SMBs and home office consumer use,” said Girish Mamtani, Country Manager, ViewSonic India.

D-Link’s mydlink cloud service has topped one million registered users. mydlink is the cloud-based service that adds unmatched value to D-Link’s award-winning Cloud Cameras, Cloud Routers, and Cloud Storage devices by making it possible to access them and stream media remotely over the Internet using a smartphone or tablet announced the press release.

New mydlink-enabled Cloud Routers offer next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi for video streaming, online gaming, and VoIP calls, and also allow parents to view their children’s browsing history or block a child’s wireless device when it’s time for homework or bed. mydlink-enabled Cloud Camera or other device needs to be registered with mydlink in order to use the service.

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Emerson Network Power Unveils New Modules of Trellis Emerson Network Power has released two new modules for the Trellis platform: Trellis Power System Manager and Trellis Mobile Suite.

The new modules provide a complete visualization of the power system, including utilization and dependencies, as well as secure, real-time mobile access – all via the Trellis platform. This enhanced data center infrastructure management (DCIM) functionality gives data center managers richer insights and more ways to utilize these insights to reduce the risk of downtime and improve operational efficiencies announced the press release. “Discussions with our closest customers on our advisory boards indicated they needed additional flexibility and holistic insight for power management, and that they would benefit from the ability to take Trellis anywhere, 24/7,” said Steve Hassell, President (Data Center Solutions business).

SYNOLOGY UNVEILS RACKMOUNT NAS SERVER Synology has launched RackStation RS214, a 1U 2-bay rackmount NAS. Featuring easy data sharing and management, RS214 is specifically designed to serve growing businesses of any size, along with a myriad of office applications that enhance working experience and productivity.

“With enhanced hardware architecture, advanced fail-proof mechanism, and comprehensive business solutions, RS214 provides Synology Rackmount NAS Server users with an affordable and reliable solution at an optimal price/performance ratio,” said Wayne An, Product Manager, Synology Inc. Powered by a 1.2 GHz processor and Link Aggregation, the RS214 delivers an average over 70 MB/sec writing speed under RAID1 configuration in a Windows environment, and over 160 MB/sec reading.

The built-in floating-point unit enhances the overall capability of the main CPU, enabling RS214 to work in higher efficiency when it comes to multimedia processing. With 512MB DDR3 RAM, twice the size of its predecessor, RS214 exhibits a surprising boost in multi-tasking performance, making it one of the best values in 2-bay rackmount NAS devices available today.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Upgraded Microsoft’s next upgrade to its ERP suite Dynamics NAV will be available in October and will be named Dynamics NAV 2013 R2. The release said that it will add significant new value for small and midsized businesses in the following areas like the new update to Microsoft Dynamics NAV delivers modern business solutions that are simple to use and easy to navigate, the product brings greater integration with Office 365 allowing small businesses with solutions that are intelligent and enable businesses to be competitive and, through partners, brings them to the cloud and customers success is at the heart of everything for SMBs and the enhancements are based on the feedback received.

Microsoft also offers Dynamics AX, a highly adaptable, scalable and powerful ERP solution that delivers value by enabling large businesses and enterprises to take advantage of business opportunities and reduces risk by easily modifying processes to cater to the new requirements of business.

eScan Names Cyberstar as its Regional Disty eScan has appointed Cyberstar India Pvt. Ltd. as its regional distributor for eScan Internet Security Suite - 4 Single User. Cyberstar’s strong reach in South India would further enhance eScan’s market reach and ensure maximum penetration in the southern pockets announced the press release.

The release further emphasized that in its bid to continue tapping newer markets, eScan, with the help of Cyberstar will nurture strategies that will help the brand in enhancing and improvising their distribution of eScan Internet Security Suite – 4 Single User in southern region. eScan will leverage on the strong and extensive channel network of Cyberstar in South India which includes VARs, SIs, corporate partners, retailers thereby reaching out to customers even in remote locations.

Kingston Presents SSDNow E50 Kingston has launched SSDNow E50 which features data integrity protection via DuraWrite technology that extends the life of the SSD. SSDNow E50 is available in the capacities of 100GB, 240GB, 480GB. It features SandForce-SF2581controller, AES 128bit encryption, 69.9mm x 100mm x 7mm dimensions, vibration non-operating of 20G Peak, life expectancy of 1 million hours MTBF and three years warranty. Nathan Su, Flash Memory (Sales Director, APAC Region), Kingston, said, “We found that there was a demand within our customer base and partner community for an SSD that offers enterprisestrength reliability and superior features but with lower endurance capabilities and associated costs.”

Matrix at IT-EXPO, Las Vegas Matrix Comsec partcipated in IT-EXPO 2013 in Las Vegas. This year Matrix showcased NAVAN CNX200 Office-in-a-Box solution, catering data and voice needs of small businesses and Matrix fixed and scalable VoIP Gateways solutions.

Shaun Trivedi, Director (North America), Matrix Comsec, said, “Optimized for service provider business, NAVAN CNX200 offers bundling of managed communication services and high-speed internet over 3G/HSPA and leased lines. This in-turn helps service providers to reduce operational costs, increase ARPU and leverage communication infrastructure and services.”

Transcend Industrial SSD Transcend has added the SSD630I 2.5” Industrial Temp SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) and the 96GB SSD630 2.5” SATA SSD to its industrial SSD lineup. The new 2.5” industrial SSDs present enterprises with a more extensive product selection to meet the strict performance, stability, and capacity requirements of mission-critical industrial applications. Transcend’s SSD630I SATA SSD is offered in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities.

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Cadyce Eyes Indian Structured Cabling Market Cadyce has entered India’s structured cabling market with an entire range of structured cabling solutions including keystone Jacks, Faceplates, Cat6 patch cords, Cat6 Patch Panels, Cat6 Cable box and also cable management tools like Network Cable Tester, RJ-11/RJ-45 Crimping tool and Punch down Tool.

Cadyce has tested its entire structured cabling products in extreme conditions and are CE, FCC Certified products announced the press release.

Nacheeket Nilekar, Director (Sales), Cadyce, said, “We are very happy to enter the structured cabling market in India. We at Cadyce have understood the importance of structured cabling in any of the networking system. The Cadyce products are specifically designed to provide system integrators with an easier and highly efficient method of structure cabling installation. Our expanded range of structured cabling products combines cable connectivity and cable management.”

R&M TAKES ROADSHOW TO BARODA Swiss cabling specialist R&M conducted a road show at Baroda. The road show attracted over 20 partners from in and around Baroda announced the press release.

The R&M road show started with the corporate overview of R&M, the attendees at the events got a first round of briefing on R&M’s innovative product R&M Roadshow in Baroda portfolio and Swiss technology. The partners and resellers got an idea on how to increase their business portfolio by offering unique, value-added R&M products and solutions. Later a question and answer session was conducted so as to gain better understanding as to what’s expected from the organization and vice versa of the customer.

R&M started its road shows three quarters ago in Tier I cities like Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata and also explored the Tier II cities like Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Hubli, Trivandrum and Belgaum and has seen increased traction for its products in these regions. R&M has planned a series of road shows to target Tier II & III cities in the next three quarters.

Shailendra Trivedi, Director (Operations and Channel Development), R&M, said, “These road shows have been a success mainly down to the time and effort invested into the channel market and partners are appreciating that. These road shows allow us to introduce and talk about R&M to potential partners and form a long term relationship with them.”

RDP Brings Red Ant OS RDP Workstations has released its newest thin client operating system Red Ant OS. Exclusively built

by RDP Red Ant OS is a powerful, thin, secure, Linux-based operating system specifically designed to provide an exceptional desktop experience for end-users and administrators alike announced the press release.

RDP Red Ant Operating System, is optimized for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and provides support for all major VDI technologies. These solutions include VMware with PCoIP, Citrix with HDX, Microsoft and Red Hat all within a small OS footprint.

RDP Red Ant Operating System, offers users a smooth, robust VDI experience, optimized for superior high definition audio and video support with both VMware’s PCoIP and Citrix HDX, while also supporting onboard Flash Redirection in Citrix environments.

AMD Reveals Embedded Product Roadmap

In 2014, AMD plans to bring to market two new high performance AMD Embedded R-Series processor families; the “Hierofalcon” CPU SOC family based on the ARM Cortex™-A57 architecture and the “Bald Eagle” APU and CPU offering based on the x86 microprocessor architecture codenamed “Steamroller.”

The upcoming “Steppe Eagle” APU SOC is designed to provide improved performance while extending the low-power characteristics of the current AMD Embedded G-Series SOC family.

“There are different customer needs in different segments of this market, from low-power to highperformance, Linux to Windows, and x86 to ARM, and now with our upcoming product portfolio, we are addressing them by providing embedded design engineers with a range of solutions backed by our embedded longevity program for supply stability assurance to fit their every need,” said Arun Iyengar, VP and GM, AMD Embedded Solutions.

ZyXEL Partners QNAP to Bring Solutions for SMBs ZyXEL Communications has partnered with QNAP to create affordable, high performance 10G Ethernet powered NAS solution packs for small to mid-size companies (SMB).

The solution packs include ZyXEL’s XGS1900 series Web-managed smart 10G Ethernet switches and QNAPs TS-870U-RP NAS appliance.

Field-tested to ensure optimal performance, the ZyXEL 10G switches and QNAP NAS solution pack meets the SMBs unique needs announced the press release.

“We are happy to take forward our relationship with QNAP to the next level by integrating our 10G solution with their high end storage solution as well as integrating IP Surveillance requirements with them as they are one of the most innovative and strongest storage brand globally,” said Pinaki Chatterjee, Executive Director (Distribution Channel & Business Development), ZyXEL India.

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SME CHAT

LG

HEMENDU SINHA, B2B HEAD, LG INDIA

“WE ARE EYEING 10% MARKET SHARE NEXT YEAR” Being a leader in the display market, LG recently embarked in to the video conferencing market with the launch of premium video conferencing system. SME Channels spoke to Hemendu Sinha, B2B Head, LG to know more about this new venture.

What is the present scenario of video conferencing market in India?

Last year, it was $85 million for the end points but in 2013 we are expecting the market to grow around 110 million USD and CAGR for the next four years is predicted around 20%.

We are entering in video conferencing market with the launch of premium Video Conferencing System VR5500F & V5500/V5000/ VR5010H/RVF1000 which are priced between Rs. 1, 90,000 to Rs. 6, 99,000. In terms of revenue, we are eyeing 10% market share in the next year.

How do you plan to survive in this crowded market?

In video conferencing there are three primary elements, firstly, it is display which is an output device where we see the images and video, secondly, is the camera which picks up the images and collect the audio inputs, so the input device is the camera and the output device is the display and in between there is codec which does the compression and mixes the various inputs and compress it and transmit it to the output devices and remote places.

LG is a leader in display and the company also has very strong practice in camera technology because LG is a leading manufacturer of CCTV products and camera products. So we also have a CCTV with compression technology, the resolution, the quality of audio and video. Since we have the technology with us for the camera

which clicks the pictures of very high resolution and picks up the finest audio and transmits through compression technology with least bandwidth, so all these together can help us to survive in this market. We have the domain knowledge and we are the expertise. Besides we have our own R&D where we spend lot of time and money in our design and research, so with the help of our expertise, we have created a video conferencing solution.

Have you adopted any other technologies from other solution provider?

No, because we are an undisputed leader in display and in CCTV. We have our own products which are being used globally by many partners and clients for the surveillance requirements like XDI for CCTV cameras, BLC (Back Light Compensation), WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) etc.We are the only OEM which can provide end to end video conferencing solution including display, camera and the products.

What is your competitive edge vis-à-vis your competitors?

We have web based recording and streaming facility, so in video conferencing you do not need to depend on an additional hardware to record the conferencing. With just click of a button, you are live on recording and that would be unlimited recording. So in terms of entire solution we are more competitive as of now.

What are the recent challenges SMEs are facing in terms of adopting video conferencing solutions?

Cost is one of the major factors in terms of bandwidth but through our technology and product deployment the TCO will reduce drastically. We are providing multiple options in terms of product range so that SMEs can pick up whatever they want.

How about the knowhow of channel partners on video conferencing solutions?

We have specific channel partners who are doing integration for video conferencing and some of them are existing LG partners who are working with LG so we have started training programs and we impart the knowhow to them. We have also tied up with Third Wave Homeland Security as our distributor for northern region.

What is your market strategy for this year?

To create awareness among end users via channel partners, we have also our sales team who will go and talk to the end user. We have demo centers across the country where we invite our partners and end users and showcase the products.

What is your product roadmap for this year?

We have four products as of now and the fifth product is on the way which is full HD product which will be coming next month.

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SME CHAT

RICOH

“ADD VALUE TO OUR CUSTOMER WORK PLACE”

A leader in the A3 printer market, Ricoh is also looking at expanding its footprints in the A4 category too. In a chat with SME Channels Manoj Kumar, Senior VP & CFO, ricoh talks about the comapny’s plans.

BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

What goal has Ricoh set for the Indian market?

We have always been quite upbeat about the fast growing Indian market. We have already achieved leadership position in several product segments and strive to constantly consolidate our market position through innovative products and services.

What are the challenges you are facing in the market?

With rapid technological advancement, the customers demand integrated solutions to meet their changing office needs. The biggest challenge for any service provider in the Indian market is to keep pace with the growing customer requirement in this area.

However, this is where we feel that Ricoh has a clear edge over the players in the sense that we have emerged as a single stop solution provider to meet the customer needs holistically through technically advanced products and solutions.

What is the philosophy of the company? Does it match the market sentiment in India?

Our philosophy is to add value to our customer work place by providing our customers state of the art solutions to meet their various office needs. The Indian market is highly mature and our ability to meet the end to end needs of our customers through our comprehensive office solutions in the segments of imaging, communications and IT services considerably strengthen our position in the Indian market.

Which verticals and geographic markets will drive growth?

At Ricoh, we are firmly focused towards all geographies, in particular the Tier 2/3 cities where the market is growing significantly.

We have seen different verticals playing a key role in the business expansion for our various business lines.

Ricoh is a leading player in the A3 printers’ market, what is your strategy to extend that leadership to the A4 space?

We have been consistently launching several A4 products to fulfil the market needs. These technically superior products at low operating cost are giving us a clear edge in the market.

What is your go-to-market strategy?

We are a one-stop-solution provider offering state of the art products and solutions to meet every customer need. We seamlessly integrate imaging, communications and IT services to deliver customised solutions to our customers in every vertical.

MANOJ KUMAR, SENIOR VP & CFO, RICOH

“AT RICOH, WE ARE FIRMLY FOCUSED TOWARDS ALL GEOGRAPHIES, IN PARTICULAR THE TIER 2/3 CITIES WHERE THE MARKET IS GROWING SIGNIFICANTLY.” which additionally provides us with the requisite flexibility to customise our solution offerings according to every customer need.

Brief us about the manufacturing and supply chain of the products.

We have a robust supply chain process through our four national logistics centres and the various other inventory stock points in our branches located strategically across the country, which help us to stay close to our customers anywhere.

What about availability of the printers and consumables?

We have a wide range of printers to suit the varying needs of our customers. Our toner refill program helps in reducing the cost of printing for our customers

From the products perspective what different value proposition do you provide from the competition products?

Our uniqueness lies in our presence across the wide spectrum of the office automation market through our presence in the segments of imaging, communications and IT services. This considerably enhances our ability to cater to the integrated needs of our customers under a single umbrella

What is your product roadmap?

How do you focus on visibility and branding where the competition is much higher?

We undertake several business promotion and customer connect initiatives to constantly improve our visibility. Besides, the quality of our products and services has made Ricoh a strong force in the Indian market. Our vast base of satisfied customers bears ample testimony to this fact.

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SME TREND

FIBER IS THE FUTURE

Structured cabling company TE Connectivity declares that in Fiber lies end possibilities

BY: KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

F

iber is the future’ says the Switzerland-based multinational company TE Connectivity, formerly Tyco Electronics.

In terms of growth Fiber is contributing the highest with 20% of TE’s business coming from this sector. “Actual growth is happening in Fiber and we foresee a substantial growth happening here,” says KK Shetty, Director (Network Solutions), TE Connectivity – India and SAARC. “There are end numbers of possibilities with Fiber,” he adds.

“From undersea cabling to WAN connectivity, city to city connectivity, connectivity within the city and within the premises, campus, house etc. for everything we have a complete solution.

Hence we are educating everyone, creating robust infrastructure in terms of implementation; we have product technologies and partners and when the requirement comes we will be able to give the entire thing to our end-customers. And all our partners will be able to provide both products and service; this will be a long term relationship.

We create demand for them and then work with them,” adds Shetty.

As for Copper its growth is more or less stagnant or maybe a single digit growth is happening and from 2015 onwards he predicts Fiber growth will be huge as telecom application, data centers, and fiber to home (FTTH) will be implemented.

Though copper will continue but for campus networks, long distance, FTTH, copper has limitations hence it will move to Fiber. While lot of data centers are using copper today especially telecom data centers they will eventually move into Fiber. “As more and more broadband connectivity happens you will see huge shift from Copper to Fiber,” Shetty replies.

Today, mostly small home networks and SMEs are still sticking to copper but over a period of

time with the growth of FTTH all of them will eventually shift to Fiber.

While he predicts FTTH will be implemented in the coming years but the challenge still remains in the last mile connectivity. In this regard TE is carrying out trials runs of products to smoothen this out.

In the next three to four years Shetty sees the percentage of Fiber to be substantially higher; and says that in the next three years the last mile connectivity will be on Fiber.

At present TE has three national distributors: Ingram Micro, Redington and Compuage which have more than 30-35 branch offices and warehouses across India which gives them a good geographical representation.

The regional distributors number more than 12 and has 160 SIs spread across the country. OEMs are fourth in its channel category followed by the resellers. “Almost 30% of the business comes in terms of run rate business,” informs Shetty.

But times are tough. The market is going through a lean period and for TE too the year showed almost a flat growth.

“I think next year will be marginally better than this year. I don’t think a double digit growth will happen but even if growth happens because of dollar fluctuation it will be passed on to the customers,” explains Shetty.

Compared to Q1 and Q2 TE had a healthy Q3 growth and also expects Q4 results to be better.

For the Company government is a big focus area, followed by IT and ITeS infrastructure where its main interest is in the export market.

Shetty predicts that next generation growth will happen in mid-sized IT segment. One of its driving factor is UID under which 600 million people are expected to be enrolled by 2014 which he says will reach 900 in the next one or two years. He further adds that Aadhar will be a platform to develop lot of applications. At present 40% of its business comes from mid-sized

KK SHETTY, DIRECTOR (NETWORK SOLUTIONS), TE CONNECTIVITY – INDIA AND SAARC

“AS MORE AND MORE BROADBAND CONNECTIVITY HAPPENS YOU WILL SEE HUGE SHIFT FROM COPPER TO FIBER.” business.

Manufacturing is another area where again TE’s focus is more into exports in India. Banking and finance forms another core area.

With its financial year ending in October its Channel strategy for the coming year will include creating a lot of awareness on Fiber. “As future is going to be Fiber and we are very good at it,” replies Shetty.

With eight plants in India — five in Bangalore, two in Pune and one in Kochi TE last year had announced Rs. 250 crore investment in a greenfield facility, which is expected to be ready by June 2014; which will further accommodate its manpower of 3,500 people.

Finally…

Though the market is tough but its expertise and innovation will help TE brave the weather and offer the market what it needs. “Our objective is to bring new technologies and understand the local market for the local needs as well as the price points,” concludes Shetty. SME

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COVER STORY

STORAGE

CLOUD STORAGE Cheap, expandable, and accessible Cloud storage is another option that SMEs are turning towards.

BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

T

he need to manage IT services easily, or to be able to access data from anywhere and anytime, albeit in a much cheaper way are turning SMEs towards cloud to leverage the agility and ease of management and obtain computing and storage capacity at reduced prices.

Last year, Amazon cut down its rate for its own cloud infrastructure, this was followed by Google too lowering its prices for its Cloud Storage, and also launched Google Drive, a storage locker for individuals and SMBs. A survey by cloud-services firms StorageCraft and Symform queried nearly 600 companies out of which majority were SMBs. The survey revealed that some 50 percent of businesses deployed Network Attach Storage (NAS) devices as their primary data backup, followed by external hard drives with 42 percent, and cloud backup with 35 percent.

Around 2 percent did nothing to back up their data, which will only compound their problems in the event of a worldwide zombie apocalypse.

But 20 percent of companies also neglect a secondary backup or some form of backup disaster recovery (BDR).

With the immense shift that enterprises and SMEs are undergoing in their IT infrastructure CTOs, CIOs and IT pros have to capitalize on this sea of change and fight to stay relevant in new cloud environments.

Cloud has enabled small business with not so deep pockets towards the purchasing of servers, data structure infrastructure and storage devices.

To better utilize IT infrastructure or adapt to new technologies like from setting up cloud infrastructure to security of applications, network etc. larger organizations always had the upper hand possessing technical expertise and resources as compared to smaller businesses. But it’s not the same for SMEs. When it comes to utilizing modern computing technology in order to get a leg up in competition; SMEs usually fall short as they often lack the platform infrastructure, technical expertise and necessary financial resources. “But with cloud computing and services SMEs can use

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STORAGE

COVER STORY

AMI-PARTNERS ESTIMATES THE CLOUD DATA STORAGE MARKET IN INDIA TO AMOUNT TO $36.3 MILLION (TOTAL CLOUD STORAGE, NOT JUST SMES).

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COVER STORY

STORAGE

“WE ENABLE OUR PARTNERS BY KEEPING THEM UP TO DATE ON THE SOLUTIONS THAT WE OFFER SO THAT THEY ARE ABLE TO SUGGEST APT IT SOLUTIONS TO THEM.” AMIT LUTHRA, NATIONAL MANAGER (STORAGE AND NETWORKING SOLUTIONS MARKETING), DELL INDIA.

and pay for their computing requirements as and when the need arises. Additionally, the SMEs are also able to scale up or down the cloud services as needed,” says Amit Luthra, National Manager (Storage and Networking Solutions Marketing), Dell India.

Why Cloud Storage?

AMI-Partners estimates the cloud data storage market in India to amount to $36.3 million (total cloud storage, not just SMEs).

“The data quantity in medium-sized companies has seen an average increase of 59% annually.

Demand could be huge in the next three to five years. Today, Indian SMBs handle about 20-100 TB of data and data management is a significant issue. Reports have shown that almost every SMB is looking forward to about a 10-40 percentage of growth in business data, on a year-on-year basis,” explains Rajesh Awasthi, Director (Telecom & Cloud Service Provider), NetApp India.

Adopting cloud based storage has innumerable advantages: it’s cheap, doesn’t require installation, doesn’t need replacing, has backup and recovery systems, has no physical presence, requires no environmental conditions, requires no personnel and doesn’t require energy for power or cooling, it’s based on the opex model of cash flows which is

preferred to capex investments.

Not only this, it also offers the twin benefits of scalability and ease of maintenance, both benefits which are invaluable to Indian SMBs who are on a growth path and keen to leverage technology to facilitate business process, but constrained by a lack of adequate full-time IT support.

By adopting cloud-based storage, SMBs are able to access superior infrastructure and cutting edge technologies at a fraction of the cost a full on-premise deployment would require.

“Furthermore, as SMBs see an uptick in mobile employees, the remote connectivity access offered by cloud storage acts as an additional incentive,” replies Rati Ghose, Director (Market Insights), AMI-Partners.

However, according to a Symantec report cloud storage utilization is actually extremely low at just 17 percent. It’s even worse for SMBs, at just seven percent. This is resulting in organizations paying for six times more storage than they need. The problem is exacerbated because almost half of enterprises in India (48 percent) admit that little to none of their data is deduplicated, and 34 percent of SMBs indicate that half or more of their data is duplicate, all of which leads organizations to pay for storage they don’t require.

Choosing the appropriate storage may depend

“HAVE TO LOOK AT SLAS, CONTRACTS, IN TERMS OF DATA PRIVACY AND WHAT THE PROVIDER WOULD OFFER IN TERMS OF ELASTICITY ETC.” AKHIL KAMAT, BRAND LEADER (STORAGE, SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY GROUP), IBM INDIA/ SA.

THE SME VERTICAL ITSELF IS DIVIDED IN TWO MAJOR VERTICALS, SME AND SME (ENTERPRISE), SO THE UNIFIED NAS IS THE MAJOR DEMAND IN THE SME AND MORE STORAGE CAPACITY UNIFIED NAS AND THE SAN SOLUTIONS ARE IN DEMAND IN THE SME ENTERPRISE SEGMENT,” AMOD PHADKE, CEO, FUSIONSTOR

on the needs and storage requirements of SMEs. While LAN makes more sense when the information is huge but SMEs typically go for SAN, NAS, or file servers which may provide high performance, high availability data storage accessible via industry standard interfaces but are costly to purchase, have limited lifetimes and require backup and recovery systems.

“Unified NAS solutions are more in demand for SME’s. The SME vertical itself is divided in two major verticals, SME and SME (Enterprise), so the Unified NAS is the major demand in the SME and more storage capacity Unified NAS and the SAN solutions are in demand in the SME Enterprise segment,” informs Amod Phadke, CEO, FusionStor.

From primary cloud storage to a pure cloud or hybrid deployment companies can choose the

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STORAGE

kind of backup they want on cloud. With purecloud, all data is backed up to an off-site cloud, while with hybrid it goes to a server within their business before it’s transferred to the cloud.

Cloud Storage Strategy Before embarking on a storage strategy there are few pointers that SMEs need to look out for.

Selecting the right service provider is of utmost importance. SMEs need to ask as many questions as possible and allay their doubts. Luthra lays down some questions that SMEs should ask service providers: 1. What type of service for the cloud will be suitable for our organisational needs?

2. How secure will my data be on the cloud?

3. What is the ROI that your company from adopting the cloud?

4. What will be the cost involved in moving towards the cloud?

According to AMI Indian SMBs look for the following characteristics in their ideal vendor: low latency, brand name and experience, customization of application, low monthly charges/TCO, and local presence of vendors.

Ensuring they have been provided with enough

elasticity on the cloud, getting them sufficient benefits through tiering etc. of data from cloud providers as their business grows, and how fast the service provider will be able to provision, what are the security aspects around this etc. and performance are some of the aspects that SMEs should also look for when developing a storage strategy.

“We have to look at it in two ways: first is if somebody wants to get his existing infrastructure cloud ready and second is if he wants to host it with a hosting provider. In the latter there are different criteria to look at like SLAs, contracts, in terms of data privacy and what the provider would offer in terms of elasticity etc,” answers Akhil Kamat, Brand Leader (Storage, Systems and Technology group), IBM India/ SA. There are certain things that IT managers need to be aware of when it comes to cloud adoption.

Despite its advantages there are a few potential issues that might negatively affect adoption of this technology and services points out Luthra: Firstly, adequate planning to decide the migration path to Cloud Computing and Services is highly critical. Not all apps are suitable for the Cloud. In particular, it is not economical to adopt some legacy systems for migration to the Cloud.

COVER STORY

Secondly, SMEs need to be aware of data security, compliance, and reliability if they are planning to migrate some applications to the Cloud.

Thirdly, managers need to be aware of the so called “Cloud latency” that creates system performance delay due to the long distance and the fact that large data files and services may need to jump through a few network routers before they get to their destination.

“Given the requirements of Indian SMBs, vendors face multiple challenges in terms of perception,” informs Ghose.

Chanel Partners For the partner dependant SMBs channel partners play a vital role. They need the services of partners/SIs to scale up their technology levels in tune with their business growth. When SMBs are evaluating a decision to move to the cloud, channel partners can explain the cost-benefit of cloud migration to the relevant business decision makers (BDMs).

They can Show BDMs the ROI arising from cloud application adoption and provide use case scenarios where other SMBs in similar industries/ of a similar size have migrated and the benefits

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STORAGE

“MANY INDIAN SMBS ARE STILL ADOPTING A “WAIT AND WATCH” PROCESS...

WHETHER THE SHIFT TO THE CLOUD WOULD BE THE APPROPRIATE STEP FOR THEM.” RATI GHOSE, DIRECTOR (MARKET INSIGHTS), AMI-PARTNERS.

they’ve realized. And provide assistance and support with data migration to ensure the process is smooth and hassle-free.

Dell’s goal is to make its partners IT consultants rather than mere IT providers in order to lead to their overall growth.

“Channel partners play an important role in reaching out to our SME customers with our cloud solutions. We encourage our channel partners to fully understand customer needs and enable them to choose the most appropriate solutions for prospects. We enable our partners by keeping them up to date on the solutions that we offer so that they are able to suggest apt IT solutions to them,” says Luthra.

New Hitachi Cloud Service Provider program is a partner provided public cloud offering built on HDS cloud infrastructure and solutions. “Partners build and manage their hosted cloud environments on HDS cloud platforms and technologies and offer HDS cloud services as well as their own value-added services; Part of the new HDS Cloud partner framework,” says Yogesh Sawant, Director (Partner Sales and Field Alliance Organization, India), Hitachi Data Systems.

IBM has a set of partners who are certified as cloud specialist and do the technology selling and this specialisation is what it says differentiates them from the others in the market. Additionally, it’s also looking aggressively at porting more ISVs.

Limitations Latency and bandwidth are considered the key technical limitations of cloud storage. While Indian SMBs experiment with various cloudbased solutions, including free ones such as DropBox, however, many cite latency as an issue, especially when downloading/uploading large file on geographically distant servers.

Migration to cloud is still considered timeconsuming and challenging and in order for cloud based storage to achieve greater penetration within the SMB market, businesses are looking to be provided with easy to use, intuitive tools which would completely replicate their existing infrastructure onto the cloud.

With all their critical data at stake Security is considered one of the biggest concerns organisations face. Security is relative to what cloud computing solutions are used or which cloud environment the organization is planning to migrate to.

“Security is a commitment by your trusted cloud service provider. With data and information security of utmost importance to gain customer trust, service providers need to have the commitment to continually find ways of improving security measures and policies,” says Awasthi.

Ghose informs, “And finally, many Indian SMBs are still adopting a “wait and watch” process, where they are evaluating various use-cases and analyzing whether the shift to the cloud would be the appropriate step for them.”

“SMBS ARE EXPERIENCING ESCALATING COSTS TIED TO COMPLEX BACKUP AND RECOVERY, AND INEFFICIENT CLOUD STORAGE.” TARUN KAURA, DIRECTOR (TECHNOLOGY SALES, INDIA & SAARC), SYMANTEC.

“PARTNERS BUILD AND MANAGE THEIR HOSTED CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS ON HDS CLOUD PLATFORMS AND TECHNOLOGIES.” YOGESH SAWANT, DIRECTOR (PARTNER SALES AND FIELD ALLIANCE ORGANIZATION, INDIA), HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS.

With regards to cloud backup and recovery, most Indian organizations use three or more solutions to back-up their physical, virtual and cloud data—leading to increased IT inefficiencies, risk and training costs. Furthermore, nearly two-thirds organizations have lost cloud data (60% of enterprises and 70% of SMBs), and most (80%) have experienced recovery failures informs Symantec survey.

“Other key survey findings showed enterprises and SMBs are experiencing escalating costs tied to complex backup and recovery, and inefficient cloud storage,” informs Tarun Kaura, Director (Technology Sales, India & SAARC), Symantec.

Finally…

With data increasingly being stored in myriad of devices it becomes imperative to secure the data. And Cloud now offers much more for every pocket depending on the budgetary requirements. Hence going on cloud does make sense for SMEs; but while trying to save money they also need to keep in mind that their data is stored in the most cost efficient way.

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ADOBE

FROM BOX TO CLOUD

After launching the Creative Cloud suit, Adobe has come up with an option of letting the customers choose any one or more desktop application by releasing the Single App Plan.

BY MANALI MISRA

manali@accentinfomedia.com

C

loud is permeating the IT environment and businesses are devising strategies on delivering services on this technology. Adobe made its way into cloud in March 2013 in India with the launch of Creative Cloud (CC), a suit of fourteen desktop applications.

Recently it introduced a new version of Adobe CC that enables creative teams to purchase membership of a single desktop application which was previously unavailable. This saves the expense and inconvenience of buying the entire suit when the users wanted to use only one application.

“This was always on our roadmap; first to launch the entire CC suite and then release the point products i.e. Single App plans,” informs Gaurav Kanwal, Head (Distribution Channels), Adobe South Asia.

Both plans for Creative Cloud for teams radically simplifies license management and deployment for IT departments. The web portal, the Admin Console, lets administrators centrally purchase, deploy and manage all seats across an organization – whether single app or complete – under one membership agreement.

Kanwal clarifies that the entire idea to launch CC was to make the applications affordable.

“Perpetual licensing is much more expensive.

Now, the customers have option of CC which is a subscription based licensing that they can buy for a limited period of time and can renew it or buy more subscription licenses at any point of time,” he adds. The new single app plan of Adobe Creative Cloud for teams is available for a suggested retail price of INR 2083 per user per month. Existing customers with CS3 or later are eligible for single app membership at a suggested retail price of INR 1392 per user

GAURAV KANWAL, HEAD (DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS), ADOBE SOUTH ASIA

“THIS WAS ALWAYS ON OUR ROADMAP; FIRST TO LAUNCH THE ENTIRE CC SUITE AND THEN RELEASE THE POINT PRODUCTS I.E. SINGLE APP PLANS.”

SME TREND

per month. The new Single App Plan provides a 20GB of storage and the ability to showcase the work on Behance, a creative community owned

by Adobe.

According to Gaurav, Adobe is receiving tremendous positive feedback. He feels customers are quite content. “The three stakeholders of any organisation namely users, finance, and IT have benefitted. The users are constantly updated whenever any new feature is added into any of the applications. Finance department knows how they need to budget y-o-y. IT gets the control in allotting licenses to each individual, can move license from one person to another and can have centralised controls,” he says.

In light of the launch, Adobe has plans for channel expansion. All the partners who are certified level and above are eligible to sell Adobe CC. Besides from the registered category of partners, Adobe has classified the partners into Certified, Gold and Platinum category. “We want to have more partners who are deeply engaged with us.

From our end there is a lot of focus on depth which implies having increased certified number of partners but at the same time there will always be a focus in terms of expansion in breadth so that our product become more available to a larger customer base across the country including tier II and III cities. We need channel partners in those cities as well who can reach out to the local consumers plus their regular set if customers,” explains Kanwal.

In coming time, Gaurav sees a lot of reach and presence in tier II and III cities and hence the channel expansion plan. “We are hoping this will help us reach out to a wider audience set and give the latest tools and add more value to their business by making them more and more productive by getting them to the latest version,” he comments.

For Adobe CC, the company is offering training to the channel partners. The channel managers are reaching out to the partners and do sessions in their office for their sales people. Adobe also conducts regular set of webinars for partners to train them on CC. Kanwal informs there is a session almost every week for partners.

Adobe CC is not available online as of now and both the complete and single app plans are available via reseller partners.

Finally…...

Adobe has officially announced that there will be no new developments on the Creative Suite on perpetual licensing side. However, the question lingers on the ease of transition from box to cloud within the channel fraternity and customers.

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FEATURE

PORTABLE STORAGE

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

ENABLES

PORTABLE

STORAGE GROWTH Growth in the data creation has triggered the overall enterprise storage market growth.

Not only this, it has also cast its spell on the external storage market. To accommodate users’ convenience, the portable storage devices are coming with a lot of innovation like cloud connectivity, Wi-Fi, etc.

BY APARAJITA CHOUDHURY aparajita@smechannels.com

T

he usage of portable storage is no more restricted to sharing or transferring personal data from one computer to another, rather it has become more meaningful these days. At the personal level, people are storing large number of photographs, videos and movies and at the official level its presentations and official documents. Therefore, the growth in demand for high-capacity, high-speed with high-security and encryption-

able external devices has become the order of the day. However, one thing which is posing challenge in its way is the upcoming cloud storage; but due to the high demand in storage the cloud storage is complementing the physical storage devices.

Rajesh Gupta, Country Manager (India), SanDisk Corporation, says, “Personal storage includes both physical device storage and cloud storage. SanDisk’s flash memory solutions enable

a connected world of digital content. Flash memory-based mobile phones bring the cloud to consumers’ fingertips while flash memory-based enterprises SSDs enable more efficient datacenters and IT infrastructures.”

The explosion of digital content seems to drive the need for more storage which in turn increases the demand of flash memory for mobile, computing and consumer electronics devices. Flash memory offers consumers the fast performance,

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PORTABLE STORAGE

large storage capacities, small form factors and reliability needed to power a smart digital lifestyle.

Now-a-days, consumers intend to take more pictures, listen to more music, record and watch more videos and save more personal memories. So the concern is to store these data in a secure way.

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

Rajesh Khurana, Country Manager (India & SAARC), Seagate, avows, “Today, consumers are looking for storage devices that are elegant and stylish, fast, secure and handy. Seagate has continually innovated to stay current not just in technology but also in product designs.”

Seagate Wireless Plus mobile device storage is designed to wirelessly stream content for up to eight smartphones or tablets with enough space for up to 500 high-definition movies, this new wireless hard drive, will extend the limits of today’s mobile lifestyle. The new Seagate Wireless Plus features 10-hour battery life and the integrated 1TB drive.

Besides, Seagate has designed an easy, centralized backup for each computer in the home, regardless of the operating system. The Seagate Central storage is also designed for easy media streaming. Khurana maintains, “Once all your files and rich media are safely on the drive, central storage organizes the content for you according to media type, such as videos, pictures, music and documents. Seagate then makes it easier than ever before to access entertainment and documents by providing free apps for Samsung Smart TVs and Blu-ray players, as well as Apple iOS devices, Amazon Kindle HD and Android mobile devices. Central is DLNA certified and also works with Apple AirPlay, which means nearly any network-connected device can connect to it.”

The Seagate Backup Plus family of hard drive is external storage devices, which work interchangeably with both Windows and Apple computers.

Backup Plus drives come with hassle-free Seagate Dashboard software for one-click local backup to eliminate excuses about backing up one’s most valuable digital content. Further the company claims that Seagate Backup Plus products are the world’s first external hard drives to provide backup for content on social networks, such as Facebook and Flickr.

FEATURE

“Today, consumers are looking for storage devices that are elegant and stylish, fast, secure and handy.”

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

Challenges Inconsistent supply due to ever increasing demand in this segment and compatibility with a huge base of devices and product specifications to match consumer’s specific needs are said to be some of the key challenges this market face. On the contrary, Subroto Das, Director, WD, elucidates, “I do not see significant challenges because these devices are attached to or connect to a desktop or a laptop, and the sales of those devices are significantly higher as compared to the sales of the portable hard disk devices, so there is a significant amount of opportunity of these devices to catch up with the sales of the devices that they connect to.”

Basically, the portable kind of storage devices associate with the laptop, desktop and tablet market, so the challenge here is the sale of PC and desktop which sees huge decline and laptop sales are also not high as compared to tablet which is growing extraordinarily. Cloud services have also become an obstacle in the portable storage market because some people prefer to store their data on the cloud rather buying hard disk or a DRAM device.

On the contrary, the huge growth rate of entry level smart phone and camera enhance memory card business because most of the entry level smart phone only embeds basic storage memory in device which makes users use memory cards to extend the storage space. Besides cameras with high resolution quality technology need extra storage space to store high quality picture.

Now-a-days more and more people prefer to enjoy the benefits of digital lifestyle whether it is music, videos, photos or games. Consumer

“Flash memorybased mobile phones bring the cloud to consumers’ fingertips while flash memorybased enterprises SSDs enable more efficient datacenters and IT infrastructures.”

RAJESH GUPTA, COUNTRY MANAGER (INDIA), SANDISK

devices such as high-definition TVs, portable game systems, home media servers, car navigation and entertainment systems and multi-function cell phones drive the demand for storage.

But at the same time, the performance of digital content should not be compromised, so it is very

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PORTABLE STORAGE

“I do not see significant challenges in this market because these devices are attached to or connect to a desktop or a laptop, and the sales of those devices are significantly higher.”

SUBROTO DAS, DIRECTOR, WD

protection and simplicity are integral to the powerful products and solutions that customers now require.”

Market Dynamics

“MicroSD cards are common in mobile devices and have become popular for users’ need of extra storage space to store higher megapixel photos and videos on their handheld devices.”

NATHAN SU, FLASH MEMORY SALES DIRECTOR, APAC, KINGSTON

much essential to have a hard drive which can provide the best combination of capacity, speed and reliability. Khurana states, “When customers generate highly personal, irreplaceable content, such as photos and videos, they need simple to use, comprehensive, secure storage solutions that can help safeguard that content. Security, data

Portable storage market comprises of USB drives, SD cards, microSD cards, HHD based USB fire wire drives, SSD based USB drives and optical storage media like CD storage devices. Nathan Su, Flash Memory Sales Director, APAC, Kingston, says, “To derive at individual market share for each product is difficult but USB drives lead the segment because of its convenience, size, and price. MicroSD cards are common in mobile devices and have become popular for users’ need of extra storage space to store higher megapixel photos and videos on their handheld devices.”

Besides, the growing market of mobile phones in India helps fuel the demand for microSD memory cards. And the usage of USB flash drives moves forward beyond computing like automobile audios, plasma TVs, DVD players, etc.

Gupta says, “The size of the flash memory market is strongly determined by the buoyancy in the host device market and the digital lifestyle of the Indian consumer. India is doing very well on both the counts. The host device market, be it mobile phones, tablets, cameras and computing devices are on a strong growth path. With the growing amount of digital data and increased need for mobility in our daily lives, the demand for portable storage devices is ever-increasing.”

Capacities of Storage Device With the trend of HD digital, user experience has changed over a period of time, now they prefer

to watch HD movie which is of 8-9 GB which triggers the need for storage device larger than 16 GB to fulfill this usage. So, 16 to 64 GB drives the demand of portable storage market and soon the capacities will elevate from 32GB to 128GB and above.

Moreover, the reason behind the growth of digital data is today’s information driven society where data plays a major role in everyday life be it for students, professionals, businesses or those in creative fields. The personal digital data also witnesses huge growth with the people sharing music, videos and photos in social networks.

Das maintains, “The external drives in WD are of two types, one is element and the other is passport. The most popular is the passport and the passport comes in 500 Gigabytes, 1TB and 2TB which is USB powered, so 1TB or 2TB My Passport Ultra from WD drive demand.”

Innovations One of the latest innovation in this market is the flash storage which comes with wireless solution, for example Kingston’s MobileLite Wireless, which allows transferring data through Wi-Fi and content streaming to three devices simultaneously. So enhancements in the storage devices can be measured as a part of innovation and in addition, bigger capacities, the performance of transfer rates, stability and compatibility are also being improved.

Gupta avers, “Our 3-bit-per-cell (X3) technology, advanced architectures, and other flash memory innovations are enabling new types of products. Our research into 3-D memory and other types of memory solutions will drive the future of the storage industry and deliver an exciting new range of consumer and business devices built on SanDisk innovations. Besides, flash memory continues to enable a broad array of applications and is currently being used extensively in mobile computing devices such as smartphones, tablets and ultrabooks. It is this set of new applications that is helping to drive the global growth of flash memory.”

Innovations are also happening in terms of capacities and transfer rates because the trend of 500GB capacities going up to 1TB to 2TB and beyond. USB 3.0, slim form factor, cash memory and memory management inside the drive are also considered as a part of the innovations.

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PORTABLE STORAGE

Earlier the usage of USB drives was restricted to corporate offices and that too with the capacity of 512MB which used to be the highest one at that point of time. But now the increase in usage of digital data - be it in the form of personal data or important files augments the demand of portable flash storage both in units as well as capacities.

The buying trends of consumer have changed because people now-a-days are least bothered about money rather they look at value for money and the values are capacity, sleekness, transfer speed, ascetics value, warranty services and after sales services.

days for some partners due to the uncertainty and insecurity in their minds and eventually they let it go, enough for others who have the faith to grab and make best of it. Our suggestion is that it’s ok to be cautious but it’s more important to be positive.”

Channel Partners act as a bridge between SanDisk and its existing, potential and prospective customers which as a result boost the growth of flash memory in India. SanDisk trains and educates channel partners about high-end and high-capacity flash memory products, their benefits and the growing demand for SSDs apart from USBs and memory cards.

Channel Partners

Market Strategy

Portable storage market poses opportunities for the channel partners as it is a growing market with lot of potential. Portable storage devices allow channel partners to offer choice of products to the customers in terms of capacity, color etc.

Channel partners who always intend to be the frontrunner knowing very well that the opportunities should be grabbed during tough times.

Su explains, “I think this is the time when most people are not prepared to take the risk. For example, a big deal or a tender seems tough in these

Due to dollar fluctuation and change in market dynamics, the market strategy is undergoing some changes. Su states, “Apart from incentives, we are now channelizing our energies to educating and make our partners aware about products and technology that shall help them fight tough times.”

According to Seagate, in India, the growth is rapid and tremendous. The company addresses the needs of the customers and partners of the local market by delivering them the best-in-class

FEATURE

solutions. Seagate says it understands the importance of brand, so intends to elevate their brand recognition and help customers understand Seagate’s technology and product leadership and innovations. Khurana mentions, “Supporting our partner community at every step is also a key ingredient of our market strategy. In India our marketing efforts are focused on developing effective partners for various segments and train, and assist them in every way and help them grow their business.”

Das maintains, “We want to increase the awareness among customers through LFRs, local channel partners etc. We conduct channel partner training program which we call ‘WD ki Patshala’ where we invite all our distributors, tier-I, tier-II channel partners.”

Finally…

In Q4, the buying trends of the consumers are expected to increase due to the upcoming festivals like Christmas and Diwali leading to lucrative annual revenue. Besides, with the existing desktop, laptop install base and good growing tablet base, the portable storage market will witness significant growth.

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FEATURE

CONSUMABLES

BALANCING THE VARIETY Consumables have a considerable share in printer peripherals market. However, the consumables market settles itself between original and alternative supplies.

BY MANALI MISRA manali@smechannels.com

T

he printer consumables market in India largely comprises of original, counterfeit, unorganized and organized refilled, compatible and remanufactured products. The size of the consumables market depends on the number of printers installed. However, there are various factors determining the growth of this market. The different kind of cartridge supplies available is the major influencer.

According to Lyra Research, about 1.3 billion ink cartridges are sold worldwide every year and such sales generated revenue of $130.1 billion in 2012. Projections show that the consumables market is all set to rise. “With the printer penetration still very low and printers sales growing fast, consumable market is bound to grow in double digits,� says Nitin Hiranandani, Director, Printing Systems, PPS, HP India.

VP Sajeevan, CEO, ESY India estimates the size of

consumables market in the country at Rs. 3,500 crores inclusive of the ink and toner cartridges.

The Trend The consumables market is growing but malpractices in the manufacturing of ink and toner cartridges are rampant across the country. Rajeev Tiwari, Director Canon CSP India estimates that 50% of the total consumables market comprises of the alternative supplies. However, OEMs have

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“The revenue loss because of alternate supplies is not only difficult to estimate, but also not as relevant as the loss of printing quality.”

NITIN HIRANANDANI, DIRECTOR, PRINTING SYSTEMS, PPS, HP INDIA

a larger share than the other alternative supplies.

“Earlier more than 65% of the market was nonOEM which includes compatible, counterfeit, grey, and refilled cartridges. Since 2007, the trend has started changing; OEMs have picked up the market. They have a wide reach across the country with original cartridge centres and promotion through marketing,” adds Sajeevan.

The Divided Market The availability of alternative cartridges eats up the market share of original cartridge manufacturers.

“If we are getting a penetration rate of 35%, the rest of the 65% is between the refills, compatibles as well as some of the counterfeit which are available.

In A3 printing, penetration rate is 70-80% which is much higher hence the loss in A3 is much lesser as compared to A4,” informs Vipin Tuteja, Executive Director, Technology, Channels & International Business, Xerox India.

Tiwari asserts that Canon’s revenue will double with respect to consumables if such alternative supplies were not available in the market.

However, Hiranandani feels that the revenue loss because of alternate supplies is not as relevant as the loss of printing quality and therefore poor customer experience that printer users get when they use alternate supplies.

The Factors There are different reasons that can be attributed to the consumer behaviour of looking at other

FEATURE

“It’s not the high price of genuine ink but the low price of the counterfeit or compatible inks which makes it lucrative to the customer.”

“We have attractive channel incentive programs for Consumable resellers to give them a profitable business of Brother Consumables.”

RAJEEV TIWARI, DIRECTOR CANON CSP INDIA

ALOK NIGAM, GM (SALES, MARKETING & SERVICE), BROTHER INTERNATIONAL INDIA PVT LTD

options in cartridges’ category. Some feel it is due to the high price while others say it’s the lack of awareness among the customers regarding the unoriginal supplies. “The price is the main and only factor contributing to the growth of alternative form of consumables. The pricing is just not right. Why would anyone like to pay 80% of the cost of printer price just for a set of replacement cartridges,” asks Rahul Khurd, Secretary, Computers & Media Dealers Association (CMDA), Pune.

Hiranandani has a different view on the issue. He feels that it is a general misconception that the original supplies are costly. “Original HP print cartridges are now available at low cost and can help customers save more over time with high quality and reliability that also helps reduce waste from failed prints. The HP Ink Advantage costs only 449 INR with a yield of 600 pages which brings the cost per page (CPP) down to as low as 75 paisa per page,” he explains.

However, Sajeevan is not of the same opinion.

He says that “if there is a huge gap between original and compatible cartridges, the original will always be losing the market. OEMs should bridge this gap.” Tiwari feels that the availability factor plays an important role. “If companies are able to set up the distribution channel in such a way that the genuine ink is available in close vicinity, then the consumer will buy the original ink. But if we are unable to reach there then the local people have a free hand in providing cheap/ counterfeit/ compatible ink and they put it to the customer,” he

adds.

Tuteja opines that the lack of awareness on the part of the consumer is a major factor. “The reason why they go for such products is that they think those are cheaper although in the long run it impacts the quality and probably cost much more.

It is not the high price but a quality product which is available from the OEM. The other forms spoil the running of the equipment,” he says.

The customers who want to save money on printing often end up putting up with the hassles of unreliable printing when using third-party cartridge options. “It’s not the high price of genuine ink but the low price of the counterfeit or compatible inks which makes it lucrative to the customer,” adds Tiwari. Counterfeit toner or ink cartridges often trick a customer into believing that they are buying a genuine, original product which turns out to be a low quality fake product.

Hiranandani asserts that the print quality is extremely poor, the cartridge can break down after just a few pages of printing, and sometimes the printer can get damaged because of a fake cartridge. “Added to this is the hidden costs in paper wastage and the costs of using fakes become a real worry for businesses. Customer would face similar challenges with refills and remanufactured cartridges although they could be cheap. These alternatives do not have performance comparable to originals. “A Buyers Laboratory Inc. 2012 study commissioned by HP confirms that 70% of refilled cartridges tested are

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CONSUMABLES

“The reason why the consumers go for such products is that they think those are cheaper although in the long run it impacts the quality and probably cost much more.”

“If there is a huge gap between original and compatible cartridges, the original will always be losing the market. OEMs should bridge this gap.”

VP SAJEEVAN, CEO, ESY INDIA

VIPIN TUTEJA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY, CHANNELS & INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS, XEROX INDIA

“The price is the main and only factor contributing to the growth of alternative form of consumables.

The pricing is just not right. Why would anyone like to pay 80% of the cost of printer price just for a set of replacement cartridges.”

RAHUL KHURD, SECRETARY, COMPUTERS & MEDIA DEALERS ASSOCIATION, PUNE

DOA or will fail prematurely,” he informs.

Usage of non-OEM cartridges harms the printer vendors at various fronts. Unsophisticated refilled, compatible or fake cartridge not only breaks the trust of customers in the brand but also spoils the printer head which can be damaged forever. Making an absolute copy of the original cartridge and branding it under the same name is illegal however compatible cartridges fall under the legal category. “As long as the compatible products does not infringe on patents and trademark of the original manufacturer and the seller does not sell the product claiming it is an original, it seems perfectly legal,” says Khurd.

Sajeevan informs that compatible cartridge industry is close to Rs. 1600 crores. However, he feels that compatible industry here is not organised like overseas. “Refill and compatibles are not done professionally in India,” opines Sajeevan.

Countering the Challenge The printer vendors invest huge amount of time, effort and money to counter challenges faced by the alternative market. Earlier, a chip based toner was introduced which deterred the use of any other cartridge. “A lot of chip based toners are still available from Canon along with the

non-chip based ones. The transition is happening towards the former,” notes Tiwari. To counter the malpractices in the consumables supply, creating awareness among the customers is the basic step taken by every printer vendor. “We run awareness programme through print, EDM and campaigns o educate customers about the benefits of using original cartridges. Also our warranty is based on the fact that our customers use the original print cartridge,” says Tuteja.

“Being the largest player in Indian printing space, we are committed to create awareness about the original supplies. We are using significant marketing spends to communicate the value of originals to our customers. This communication rests on three key planks: value offered by HP Original Cartridges, how to differentiate HP Toners from fake ones and how to buy HP Original Supplies conveniently. HP Order-a-cartridge allows you the conveniently order and replenish the ink, toner, paper and printer supplies from your home or office. Customers just need to call 1800 3003 3003 for supplies to be delivered to the doorstep within 6-8 hours,” explains Hiranandini.

Canon has original ink centres which is a kind of indication to the customers that the original and genuine ink is available at the right price.

There are over 1200 such shops across the country.

“We are enhancing the availability of Brother Genuine Consumables by increasing the number of Consumable Wholesalers as our direct distribution partners. We also have attractive channel incentive programs for Consumable resellers to give them a profitable business of Brother Consumables,” informs Alok Nigam, GM (Sales, Marketing & Service), Brother International India Pvt. Ltd. As a responsible organization, Khurd says that CMDA hosts technical seminars and IT exhibition of products to help the market of original products grow. “We are trying to use the social media via internet for creating awareness about the product personal visits, pamphlets in newspapers etc.”, he adds. As an enforcement mechanism, CMDA helps to keep a tab on counterfeit resellers by punishing them under law and their names circulated amongst members so that they do carry on with their business in future.

However, Tuteja feels that the associations have not been able to do much about the counterfeit products because they continue to exist in the market place and Tiwari feels that there is no such organisation which is helping to tackle the problem.

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CONSUMABLES

Often counterfeit products are seized across India in raids which are quite frequent. “HP’s global Supplies Anti-Counterfeit Program (ACF) is a worldwide program run by an independent team within HP. ACF raises awareness among HP partners, customers and local authorities about when to become suspicious about the sale of counterfeit cartridges and how to report leads about counterfeits. In addition, the program ensures the stocks of HP’s Wholesale and Commercial partners are free of counterfeits, by conducting random inspections (Channel Partner Anti-Counterfeit Audits),” adds Hiranandini.

Vendors are coming up with innovative methods to counter the menace of fake cartridges.

“Most new printers alert customers when a cartridge that has been previously depleted is inserted into their printer indicating that the cartridge is not an Original HP supplies product and may be counterfeit. If this happens, customers who believe they have purchased a new, genuine cartridge should be suspicious of the cartridge’s authenticity and return it to the place of purchase.

For our Inks portfolio, we have introduced HP Originals in temper-proof packs with secure seals,” informs Hiranandini.

HP has launched initiatives like HP Mobile

Authentication tool which is helping customer identify an original cartridge. It is also offering convenience to its customers in ordering cartridges through initiatives like Dial-a-cartridge and Click-a-cartridge. This ensures that the customers have the peace of mind with the guaranteed original supplies and convenience of ordering from their home or business location.

Protecting the Channel Channel partners play a crucial role in the supply of consumables and the vendors feel it is their priority to protect the interest of partners. “We have a partner net across pan-India which covers 200 cities across India. We have our sales and service partners who are authorised to sell these Xerox genuine supplies and those are available with them,” says Tuteja.

“There are multiple ways in which we protect our partners. By continuously upgrading our product offering, investing in product value communication and new channels addition, we help them grow their revenue. HP also works closely with authorities and external law enforcing agencies to uncover and report the prevalence of counterfeit cartridges,” adds Hiranandini. In addition to this, HP ensures the stocks of HP wholesale and

FEATURE

commercial partners are free from counterfeits by conducting random inspections and audits known as Channel Partner Anti-Counterfeit Audits. The program routinely uncovers entities involved in re-packaging, manufacturing and distribution of counterfeit cartridges that are sold as HP cartridges.

Canon has Canon privilege corporate program (CPCP) which is a kind of rate contract for the ink signed with the corporate or SME segment customers. “The companies place the order on our partner and we give them supplies at a special price, a quantity- based pricing. That’s how we reach our direct customers so that they don’t face the problem of non-genuine supplies,” elaborates Tiwari. While Brother is working on twin strategy of educating the customers and channel partners about the benefits of genuine consumables and ensuring the widespread availability of the same.

Finally..

India has always been a price sensitive market.

Consumers look for cost-effective solutions even if it is at the expense of quality. Despite all the awareness campaigns undertaken by various vendors and organizations, the alternative market of cartridges is still growing.

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SME TREND

*ASTTECS

TO LEAD IN OPEN SOURCE PLATFORM *astTECS is all set to take on the VoIP market once the policy is implemented. And it aspires for an IPO by 2017 by furthering its internal IPO consisting of core people who drive the organisation.

P

acing with the revolutionary adoption of default Open Source Platform, *astTECS is buckled and armed to aid the customers to transit from voice to unified communication platform.

The industry continues to grow as customers migrate from simple voice solution to unified communication solutions; audio video integration and complete IP Telephony solution that would help them reduce rising administrative expenses, extend business reach, boost productivity and realize measurable returns on their infrastructure investments.

Levis Wilson, COO, *astTECS, says, “As the open source platform is mature; with a defined and strategic approach we can offer a superior telecom solution that had been so far been the domain of vendors offering proprietary technology. There is an increased convergence of voice and video and this integration is powered by upcoming technologies like cloud, web and intelligent infrastructure.” *astTECS current portfolio includes IP PBX with video conferencing, Call Centre Dialer, Mini IP PBX, GSM gateway, Voice Logger, IVR system ,Web based Video Conference System and ahead continues innovation to address the communication needs of enterprises offering superior communication experiences.

Wilson mentions that *astTECS products are purely Voice over Internet Protocal (VoIP) based – a next-gen product, which is all set to penetrate the market when the VoIP implementation is formalised. “We envisage being a service provider aiding in the conversion of EPBX to an IP PBX being cost effective.”

Till recently, VoIP though practiced in most of the developed countries was not legal in India.

Indian government has approved VoIP under

National Telecom Policy 2012 and as per Wilson is likely to get implemented in the next 13 to 17 months.

As the VoIP implementation is done EPBX users will be compelled to convert them into IP PBX. “IP is going to every home and enabling calls from mediums such as Skype to Skype; Skype to mobile number, therefore avoiding investment on a DTHP,” informs Wilson.

He further explains that once IP is in place the call charges are going to drastically drop down to just 10-20 paise from say 60 paise and ISD charges which is currently costing Rs. 6 -8 will come down to less than a rupee. *astTECS will shortly unveil the ultra compact and revolutionary SOHO PBX in an incredibly small and sleek form factor, which Wilson says is ideal for small offices and homes. Ensuring a plug-n-play simplicity, this product combines the capacity and capability of a powerful IP PBX and supports up to 8 extensions offering features like Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and ensures seamless integration with traditional analog phones. Not only this, the SOHO PBX readily connects with any smart phone and can be easily deployed for use as an intercom within the premises over Wi-Fi. *astTECS vision business opportunities in Tier I & II cities and primarily focuses on them and not beyond them. “We are scheduled to grab the tier III market as and when the IP becomes legalised,” says Wilson.

Aiming to increase its footprints geographically *astTECS has set in place a local office with a dedicated manager who is responsible for appointing the distributors and channel partners; nurture them, drive and ensure achieving the sales target.

The Company offers its wide range of open

source telecom solutions to customers across all verticals, such as IT & ITES, large enterprises, BFSI, hospitality, railways, airlines, logistics, retail and manufacturing apart from small and mid size companies. “*astTECS solutions are suited for enterprises across all categories and these can be easily scaled up. In terms of marketing participation in expos, exhibitions and other marketing avenues we are being generous,” emphasized Wilson.

Wilson proclaims that *astTECS channel strategy ensures strengthening and extending relationships with our partners and equips them with domain knowledge & support and empowers them with required training and certification on solutions. “We help our channel partners to move up the value chain and support them by providing access to key marketing and sales tools. The *astTECS channel programme is targeted towards long-term customer and partner retention.”

Partner Connect Programmes and *astTECS Academy includes road shows, seminars, regular education and trainings session with partners, SIs, users & customers across the globe ensuring visibility and hands on experience of path breaking Asterisk based solution.

Wilson adds, “We stand class apart in the market as our domain expertise in Open Source communications solution which makes us an ideal partner. Today, we are an integrated solutions company covering the entire aspect of IP telephony right from IP PBX to call centre solutions and catering to large enterprises to SMEs across all verticals including SOHO segment. *astTECS products provide an impressive feature list at very aggressive price range, thereby promising the consumer value for money and giving us a definite competitive advantage.”

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*ASTTECS

SME TREND

LEVIS WILSON, COO, *ASTTECS

“We are scheduled to grab the tier III market as and when the IP becomes legalised.”

*astTECS aspire for an IPO by 2017 by furthering its internal IPO consisting of core people who drive the organisation.

Finally... *astTECS is keen to transform and accelerate the potential of Open Source in telephony solutions and enterprise communications and bridge the

gap by bringing it closer to the user as it continues to broaden its presence and create an environment that can efficiently increase business growth and reduce costs.

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SME TREND

PLANTRONICS

PLANTRONICS BETS ON ENTERPRISE AND RETAIL A pioneer in wearable technology Plantronics plans to garner more market share with competitive products

BY KARMA NEGI

Karma@smechannels.com

T

hat’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind” were the famous words spoken by the first man to step foot on Moon, Neil Armstrong. These words have been catapulted to the list of the famous sayings; but unknown to most these words were transmitted through a Plantronics headset.

The 52 year old company, started in 1961, was called Plane Electronics, but over the years it got merged and became Plantronics. The focus in ’60s was mainly on the aviation side but in the early 70’s small help desk or in today’s terminology call centers started opening in US and later expanded to Europe.

It was in the early 90’s Plantronics got into music and started making headsets for them and the rise of mobile and later VoIP saw more growth and opened up more opportunities.

It was in 2002 that an India office was set-up predominantly to address call centers which were mushrooming across the country. In 2005 it became a full-fledged entity and built its sales and marketing team across the country.

From 2002-2008 it saw good growth. But in 2008 downturn happened and business got hit. “This was because our business is directly proportional to what gets outsourced from US or Europe or Australia into our country. When recession hit them ... our business slowed down,” says Bobby Joseph, Country Director (India and Middle East), Plantronics.

But this also made them look at the way they were doing business, relocate the opportunities that were in the portfolio and rebuild a new segment. So one of the things Plantronics did was to start focussing on maintaining the contact center operations by engaging more with them and ensuring that it doesn’t lose out on market share.

“At this point we commanded a market share

of 70% in contact centers but then we also realized the huge potential in enterprise business and retail business. Retail is mobile Bluetooth business and we started scouting for partners and the retail distribution started off with Rashi Peripherals and they focussed on building mobile Bluetooth,” explains Joseph.

To build the Enterprise business, apart from its existing partners, Plantronics started putting a whole team together to address channels largely from 2008. Opportunities also came with the growth of unified communication market.

But it soon realized that just being a hardware vendor and supplying headsets will not help them maintain leadership, hence after 2008-2009 it started investing in software.

“We started investing in devices that could be plugged into different devices and you can use it for communication purpose music etc. We need to make products which are not only designed well but also makes a good fashion statement,” announces Joseph.

In 2008 when downturn happened 99% of Plantronics business was coming from Call Centers, today it’s 65%; Enterprise and SME contributes 25%, and 10% comes from Retail. Joseph adds that Enterprise and Retail are both growing y-o-y over 70% and will keep growing because the opportunity in both the segments are huge.

Plantronics which grew by over 10% last year expects it to remain the same this year too.

The call centers in India are predominantly of two types: International and Domestic contact center. Business from the International side is over 70% and the rest comes from domestic. “Reason being domestic is still very small, price sensitive and they don’t value product quality,” informs Joseph.

The movement towards the channel began

BOBBY JOSEPH, COUNTRY DIRECTOR (INDIA AND MIDDLE EAST), PLANTRONICS

“ENTERPRISE AND RETAIL ARE BOTH GROWING Y-O-Y OVER 70% AND WILL KEEP GROWING BECAUSE THE OPPORTUNITY IN BOTH THE SEGMENTS ARE HUGE.” in 2009 and it’s still in progress. Apart from distributors and sub-distributors, Plantronics has 30 channel partners and plans to build this further as businesses are moving into tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

There is a channel engagement program named ‘Connect Program’ where they engage with the worthy channel partners, train them, and through them engage with end-users to show the value.

The focus areas includes IT and ITeS, finance and banking, travel, insurance, legal firms, consultancy.

Finally…

This year Plantronics will be focussing on developing the channel network, investing more in enterprise and SME segment and building retail in terms of the Bluetooth and mobile headset.

“Retail will grow 100% as the base is small. In the coming months our products will be largely focused on the Indian market; which will be more competitive with the clear idea of gaining more market share,” concludes Joseph.

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PARTNER CORNER

HOT IN DELHI

Delhi based IT retailer Unique Infoways has opened a novel concept with the launch of House of Technology

BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

H

ousing over 100 well known IT brands the recently opened IT mega mall ‘House of Technology’ (HOT) offers complete range of IT peripherals and accessories under one roof.

Situated in the Delhi Nehru Place metro station, it’s touted as the single largest electronic retail outlet in India.

Not only this, HOT will also become India’s first 24/7 store once it gets the required green signal from the concerned agency.

This novel concept has been introduced by CEO and promoter of Unique Infoways Pvt. Ltd. Vipul Jain.

Jain’s journey into the IT sector began in 199394, when he started Unique Infoways a couple of months after he completed his BE in Electronics.

The company started as a service oriented organisation by providing services to banks and corporates. Though now it doesn’t form it core focus area till 2005 it was majorly selling IT solutions to corporates in and around Delhi-NCR. With retail in mind, after IBM sold Lenovo, Jain

VIPUL JAIN, CEO & PROMOTER, UNIQUE INFOWAYS PVT. LTD.

“RETAIL WE EXPERIENCED THROUGH EFUTURE; NOW WE HAVE INTRODUCED IT IN A BIGGER FORMAT THROUGH HOT.” converted his IBM Think wall shop into a showroom for Lenovo products in Nehru Place.

And taking this forward, in 2009-10 he started a chain by the name of efuture and now has three stores in Delhi-NCR and Nehru Place.

“Retail we experienced through efuture; now we have introduced it in a bigger format through

HOT,” explains Jain.

But during the Y2K year, for two-three years it lost track of its services business because people were keen to get their infrastructure Y2K ready, new players came into the market which started offering their Y2K solutions on the existing hardware and on the software. “We had skills to a level but were not equipped to provide that,” Jain explains.

At present business from the services division is minimal with major revenue contribution coming in from retail but have plans to take this forward in a larger format.

With more than 500 people on its payroll the services business has manpower of around 60 people and has authorized service center for Sony Vaio and does services for IBM servers too; while the staff in HOT numbers around 250-300.

Explaining the different concept on which its efuture and HOT is based Jain says that while the former is a small format consumer durable and IT store, HOT is based on shop-in-shop format.

Apart from HOT there are three efuture stores and six exclusive stores and plans are to add more efuture stores in Delhi- NCR, and it may open them in other parts of the country too later.

“The contribution from efuture Nehru place has been good; though I don’t have authenticated data on this but according to the information that we have this is the largest selling IT store in India.

The sale of efuture Nehru Place is equivalent to a national chain that we have here. We clocked approximately Rs. 160 crore worth of business last year excluding HOT,” informs Jain.

With 3000 walk-ins everyday Jain expects that by August this will stabilize at 15,000 everyday, and has accordingly planned its marketing strategy.

He further expects that 15%-20% of this will translate into business.

Team HOT consists of three categories: tele team, SME team, and on-floor team. On-floor team has around 300 people, tele has 10-12 people and SME team 20.

Jain explains the role of SME team, “We have divided Delhi-NCR into 15-20 zones and each zone is handled by 2-3 people. They visit all the potential places of the zone and introduce us and handover the catalogues, they register their database with us and communicate with us for their day-to-day requirements. And by August end we have plans to increase this team by around 75-100.”

Finally…

Such novel concept is surely to find its takers. This year the focus will be on expanding efuture, and Jain also plans to establish HOT, though not this year, in other cities as well starting with metros and then B and C class cities.

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SME CHAT

ANJAN THAKUR DIRECTOR, CHANNEL SALES (INDIA SUBCONTINENT), INFOR INDIA

“SAAS IS A BOON TO SMBS”

On-demand application is changing the enterprise software market. Anjan Thakur, Director, Channel Sales (India Subcontinent), Infor India, reveals to SME Channels the potential for it in this market.

What is driving the enterprise software market in India?

According to a recent research report by IDC, the business applications market is expected to reach USD $ 400 million in 2013. This will further grow at an average growth rate about 13 percent till 2016.

SMBs are the biggest contributor; they have always been early adopters and contributors of technology as they strive hard to get maximum business value with minimal investments. Adoption of On-demand or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications has changed the game emphasising the need to explore the area of flexible deployment option as a service for customers.

Additionally geographic expansion, diversifying into new markets has been a driver in the SMB space as well for ERP and hence all these aspects ultimately bring huge scope of adoption of business application in the SMB space.

The growing need for service providers to offer vertical specific solutions for each industry is another significant driver for enterprise software applications market. Specific micro-verticals help customers to adopt solutions that best fit their demanding requirements of different sectors and help them bring operational efficiency.

Whilst flexible deployment option is a key aspect to attract customers, additionally diversified platform enablement has also helped contribute to the larger adoption now.

Similarly, BI is now considered to be a tool for all users. Additionally, smarter analytics have also helped enterprises generate trends, follow patterns in their fight to take strategic decisions and Infor believes this information needs to be in the

hands of all users to help them make key decisions in their everyday tasks.

Which verticals are driving the enterprise software market?

Some of the key sectors such as retail, manufacturing, banking, have been at the forefront of adopting business applications as they have diversified business functions spread across multiple locations and need to assimilate data to address customer requirements speedily. Fierce competition coupled with organic growth of small and medium enterprises have also contributed to the growth of the overall business application market and the market share is not restricted to large enterprises alone.

In India we are seeing huge potential in the food & beverage, fashion, heavy equipment, discrete manufacturing and automotive sectors.

What is the importance of SMBs in Infor’s overall strategy?

Infor is one of the world’s largest suppliers of enterprise applications and services, helping more than 70,000 large and mid-size companies improve operations and drive growth across numerous industry sectors.

We believe that with the market dynamics compelling businesses to strategize and react faster, their lies a huge void across industries including that of SMBs, to which smarter technologies can play an important role.

And how do you help SMBs in selecting the right kind of technology?

Infor helps SMBs by understanding their greatest need of providing specialised industry applications designed according to the exact needs of vertical industries. These applications help SMBs cut costs, improve operational efficiency, and make better decisions faster without the hassle of undergoing major implementations or requiring extensive customisations to the software.

The strong myth of enterprise software being expensive and needing customisations and neverending implementations are now being replaced by easy to install and use applications which are economical and offer deep industry functionality built in.

Infor has outlined a strategic roadmap for its customers so that customers get solutions pertaining to their industry.

Understanding the fact that the ‘one size fits all’ approach does not fit well, Infor as a company helps customers choose their deployment option accordingly and this way we help business expenditure with maximum ROI. Flexible deployment options from Infor allows customers to run their businesses in the cloud, on-premise, or both helping them adapt to the exact need.

Are SMBs going for enterprise software?

SMBs in India are embracing enterprise software solution, as this technology has become the backbone of every industry today. However, due to the pressing issue of achieving maximum ROI at the least cost of IT investment, their approach on selection of the right solution needs a lot of handholding, as business decisions if taken incorrect can be disastrous for them.

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SME CHAT

“ADOPTION OF ON-DEMAND OR SOFTWARE-AS-A SERVICE APPLICATIONS HAS CHANGED THE GAME”

when the solutions are deployed On-demand.

However, there lies a question mark on the security of the solutions as the control gets outsourced.

Hence, industry analysts feel, enterprises are evaluating their needs and incorporating a hybrid model where they like to keep the most critical data processes under their control (such as finance) on-premise whereas selective business processes are now being hosted on the cloud, in order to optimise cost yet be operationally efficient in all aspects.

Infor has three million subscribers in the cloud typically using non-core applications such as enterprise asset management, expense management and human capital management.

How do you leverage on the huge market potential of the Indian market in this respect?

Infor realises the huge potential of India enterprise software market and has appropriate strategies to explore opportunities in the year 2013.

Our strategic alliances with Indian partners are built in a way that can help businesses pursue growth opportunities with agility, and adapt to changing market and regulatory environments with ease. Keeping a close watch on the evolution and newer trends, we innovate our offerings specialised to the needs of every customer in the respective sector.

Business application providers have understood the critical need to offer specialised services by industry type, rather than one size fits all model, which often menat business expenditure with little value that often left SMBs being dubious on adoption.

Realising this strong need of customised solutions requirements, solution providers have now shifted from offering all bouquet of applications together and have now started incorporating business applications designed for specific industries.

We have segregated business models according to enterprise type and cater to specific micro

vertical solutions ideal for SMB segment, so that implementing applications are addressed on the basis of the investment pattern, business dynamics and the required outcome.

How has software-as–a-service changed the game for SMBs? With the growing demand to gain maximum operational excellence, SMBs often struggle with investment in IT infrastructure, which further is a hurdle towards their business growth. Software-as –a-service has emerged to be a boon in this case, as the total cost of IT infrastructure gets reduced,

What is you approach towards addressing the SMBs? To help a stronger outreach towards SMBs and mid-size enterprises, Infor has a strategic partner eco-system that helps our solutions and vision to be translated down to the customers for their best benefit. We ensure, we invest in partner education series, recognition and ongoing engagement, so that technology solutions are no more limited to a select customer portfolio.This way we keep an eye to establish brand Infor’s strong positioning, whilst addressing the critical needs of CIOs/ CXOs of all business segments in India.

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SME CHAT

HEMAL PATEL CEO, CYBEROAM TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD.

“TO DEEPEN OUR ROOTS IN ENTERPRISE SOIL”

Home grown company Cyberoam is a name to reckon with in the UTM market. CEO of Cyberoam Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Hemal Patel in an interaction with SME Channels gives insights into what makes the company tick.

Ever since its inception, Cyberoam has grown manifold, pls. let us know about its journey from the beginning?

After three start-ups in IT services, I decided to do something different in life. With this thought came the idea of forming an IT product company in India and nurturing it into a global brand. That marked the beginning of setting up an organization which would compete with the best brands in the world. We started with only 10 employees and today have a formidable strength of more than 450 professionals working in more than 125+ countries across the globe with 90+ distributors.

Every passing day was a moment to cherish. Since 1999 we have grown at 30%-40% y-o-y.

Among all the countries India, Middle East, Australia, UK and Europe drive our maximum growth.

How Cyberoam has been positioned in the global and domestic UTM market?

As per our analysis, the UTM market is evolving faster than ever before. UTM market has reached its inflexion point and will witness further evolution for the next couple of years as it progresses through this highly mature phase. Between 2007 and 2010, UTM market has largely addressed SMBs and gained higher acceptance into small and mid-sized businesses but following the rise of disruptive IT trends such as BYOD, Virtualization, Cloud etc, even large businesses have felt the need

to consolidate their network perimeter security and have evinced increased inclination towards adopting UTMs. With this change, UTMs have also evolved to provide next generation security and faster performance needs of large enterprise businesses.

Keeping in tune with the market needs, at Cyberoam we constantly upgrade our product portfolio.

We have successfully aligned our offerings and after SMBs, we are now strengthening our position in government and large customers too.

Cyberoam has not only succeeded in penetrating one of the most difficult technology markets but has made its mark and presence felt across the globe.

We have earned our position vis-a-vis best names in business by appearing in Gartner’s UTM MQ and recently got global recognition for our enterprise offering at 8th Annual 2013 Hot Companies and Best Products Awards under “Best Security Hardware” and “Best Unified / Integrated Security” categories.

What has been your success mantra?

It’s transparency, empowerment and innovation.

Be it in product, service, marketing or finance.

Moreover, any innovative idea is of no use until implemented flawlessly. These contribute immensely to an organizations and individuals success. We are very much a ‘people’ driven organization and leave no stone unturned to recog-

nize, motivate and reward our talent capital. That’s our key strength.

Cyberoam started with focussing on the SMEs but now you are tapping into the enterprise market, how has been the journey so far?

Firstly I’d like to thank all partners and customers for embracing Cyberoam with open arms. I would say that we have strengthened our position amongst the SME and SMB segment and continue to do so. At the same time we wanted to stretch and provide technology that would cater to the need of the enterprise class as well.

And the NG Series has been the apt product.

It is the fastest UTM appliance in its category for SOHO and SMBs as well as provides enterprise class network security solutions. Slowly and steadily we are sure to deepen our roots in enterprise soil.

CIOs and IT decision makers entrusted to protect critical enterprise information networks now see UTMs with improved level of confidence and trust products that come with an evidence of trustworthy network security. To this end, Cyberoam has successfully achieved one of the most stringent global IT security compliance standards, Common Criteria EAL4 +. Having achieved this landmark success for its network security appliance, Cyberoam has gone a step further towards entrenching its presence and visibility in enterprise segment.

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SME CHAT

“OUR VISION IS TO BECOME USD 100M COMPANY IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS.”

What has been your differentiating factor? What are the challenges you face in the market from the bigger brands’ perspective?

Value for money and Channel focused with excellent support is our main differentiating factor over and above attractive features.

Since we have partnered customers from all walks of life globally, we have developed a comprehensive portfolio of network security that capably supports emerging business use cases, supporting IT needs and providing next generation security and performance needs as demanded by today’s IT driven networks.

Moreover, Cyberoam also provides capabilities for simplified security management, available for customers as well as partners. Our ISO 20000 certified Customer Support offers committed post sales assistance via multiple support channels. A Cyberoam customer never needs to look for another vendor for reasons of scalability or while migrating to a platform such as Virtualization. End-to-end product and technical support is our key differentiator.

Our worldwide distribution channel which is well trained and equipped with latest industry know-how serves as critical security partners to our customers as they transform their IT and

businesses with emerging technologies.

How much of investment goes into R&D y-o-y?

We have been continuously investing in R&D and have recently set up our own Threat Research Lab also. We shall be doubling our investment in R&D in the next two years.

What kind of innovations are you working on at the product and solution level?

We constantly try to upgrades our products and solutions and I am proud of my R&D team which is silently working towards the betterment of the product. From time to time we will keep churning out solutions that are the need of the hour.

Cyberoam’s efforts have been towards evolving the notion of Network Security beyond the thought of defending networks. With this, Cyberoam is helping CIOs and IT decision makers emerge as “information enablers”.

At present, Cyberoam is helping businesses and organizations tap new opportunities in BYOD, Enterprise Cloud and Virtualization by turning their networks into treasure trove of information and at the same also protecting them against advanced security threats.

What are your focus areas at this moment?

We already enjoy entrenched presence in SMB and SME segments. Cyberoam is taking its leadership in enterprise and government segments while creating a unique differentiator of fulfilling security, productivity and connectivity needs for its customers in most impactful and efficient manner.

Our vision is to become USD 100M company in the next two years.

How are you focusing on branding and marketing?

We are constantly collaborating with maximum partners and end customers. By the end of this fiscal year, we intend to connect with more than 3000 CIO / IT managers across the country. Our focus is on bringing innovativeness in day to day marketing activities.

Moreover, we are creating new revenue opportunities for customers to take them beyond box selling and help them transform into a trusted expert provider of end-to-end IT and network security. We are introducing exciting avenues in managed security space by making available lowcost and dynamic technology offerings including cloud based solutions for our partners.

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PRODUCT

REVIEW

NETGEAR READYNAS PRODUCT FAMILY

FUJITSU SCANSNAP SV600

BY MANAS RANJAN info@smechannels.com

FUJITSU SV600 is a new lineup in the ScanSnap series, which delivers simple and speedy paper-to-PDF digitization in a compact design.

SV600 is a new document scanner which utilizes a new technology “Versatile Imaging Technology” (hereafter referred to as VI Technology). The scanner is bundled with software for Windows OS, and software for Mac OS (Driver software, business card management software, OCR software).

VI Technology combines deep depth of field lens, high directivity LED lamp and CCD linear image sensor to minimize the unevenness in image quality when scanning and produce uniform document quality.

SV600 comes equipped with book image correction and page turning detection. It is also bundled with “Rack2-Filer Smart with Magic Desktop”. Besides the release said that SV600 is ready to scan in 3 seconds after switching on the scanner and less than 3 seconds are needed for scanning large A3 size documents.

It is also equipped with “Multiple Document Detection” that enables scanning and cropping multiple documents in one scan. Furthermore it comes bundled with “Adobe Acrobat Standard” for editing PDF files and “CardMinder” for managing business cards, which equips the user to utilize the scanner right after purchase.

FEATURES n Able to scan newspaper or magazines

of any size (up to A3 size*4) n Preserve your precious paintings,

books and originals (up to A3 size*4) n It is equipped with “Book Image

Correction” to correct the distortion caused by the curve of an opened book. n It is equipped with “Page Turning

Detection” to automatically detect when a page is turned during scanning. n The new feature of “Rack2-filer

Smart”, “Easy Book Creation”, can automatically set the size of the display n It is ready to scan in 3 seconds after

switching on the scanner

PRICE Rs. 75,000

WARRANTY

NETGEAR ReadyNAS 3220 and ReadyNAS 4220 are the latest network-attached-storage (NAS) products to run on the revolutionary ReadyNAS OS, introduced in March 2013, that delivers high value, high performance storage with enterprise features to small and medium-sized businesses (SMB).

Available for the first time in 2U rackmount form with 12-bay capacity, the new ReadyNAS 3220 and 4220 enable easy storage for businesses supporting up to 500 concurrent users.

ReadyNAS 3220 and 4220 feature a sleek new interface and the ReadyCLOUD web portal for full file management from any browser.

These cutting-edge rackmount devices are designed as ‘storage made easy’ and are built on a custom platform that lets you do more with your vital business data than you ever thought possible. With ReadyNAS, you’re getting the most storage value for your IT budget.

ReadyNAS 3220 and 4220 are virtualization-ready with iSCSI support, thin provisioning capability, and certification for interoperability with VMware and Microsoft — powerful tools for businesses taking advantage of virtual infrastructures.

1 Year

CONTACT scanner.sales@in.fujitsu.com 09873437209

OVERALL RATING

n Price: ReadyNAS 3220 starts from Rs. 4, 00,000 and ReadyNAS 4220 from Rs. 5, 50,000 Warranty: 5 year, Contact: NETGEAR Technologies, P: 91 11 26207270

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NEW ARRIVALS

PRODUCT

WD

WD RED SATA HARD DRIVE WD RED LINE of SATA hard drives are specifically designed for home and small office NAS (network attached storage) systems with one- to fivedrive bays.

These are available in a 2.5-inch form factor offering 1 TB and 750 GB capacities and a new 3.5-inch 4 TB capacity. Powered by NASware 2.0 technology, WD Red is compatibility-tested with top NAS system manufacturers and optimized for performance and reduced power consumption.

Top industry analysts see NAS continuing to represent one of the fastestgrowing segments of the worldwide SOHO storage systems market. From both revenue and terabyte perspectives, NAS will continue to experience strong growth through the forecast period (to 2015), driven by a major shift of storage deployments toward IP-connected systems (Worldwide Personal and Entry Level Storage Tracker IDC 2013).

Shipping now through select distributors and resellers, WD Red hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty. MSRP for the new 2.5inch WD Red 1 TB, model #: (WD10JFCX) is Rs 6700 (excluding local taxes) and the 3.5-inch 4 TB, model #: (WD40EFRX) is Rs 15,652 (excluding local taxes). n Price: Rs 6,700 (plus local taxes (2.5-inch WD Red 1 TB) and Rs.15,652 (3.5-inch 4 TB), Warranty: 3 Years limited, Contact: Srinivas Sampangi, Tel: 9880293193, Email: Srinivas.Sampangi@ wdc.com

QNAP

QNAP SECURITY VS-4100U-RP PRO+ SERIES QNAP VIOSTOR NVR VS-4100U-RP Pro+ series, available in 8, 12 and 16 channels featuring high reliability is powered by Dual-core Intel processor and 4GB DDR3 memory.

The new series deliver quality performance with up to 250 Mbps throughput to ensure steady recording of multiple megapixel IP cameras. Moreover, the HDMI output and hardware decoder provide the ability to deliver up to 200fps Full HD local display.

The VS-4100U-RP Pro+ series support up to 16TB raw storage capacity to accommodate high quality H.264, MPEG-4, M-JPEG, and MxPEG video recording.

The VS-4100U-RP Pro+ series satisfy the requirements of SMB users who desire high performance network video recorders coupled with excellent reliability and features. The VS-4100U-RP Pro+ series delivers quality performance coupled with abundant features for small to medium-scale surveillance tasks. The VioStor NVR is now compatible with over 2,100 IP camera models of various brands. n Price: Rs.2,15,000 + tax. (for 16 channel), Warranty: 2 years, Contact: Sanjay Biswal, Email: sanjay@qnap.com, Tel: +919953036535

DIGILITE

DIGILITE DL-H61M-WW MOTHERBOARD DIGILITE DL-H61M-WW comes with Gigabit LAN and Multi Display Output by D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI. The DL-H61M-WW supports Intel Rapid Start Technology and Smart Connect Technology. This motherboard comes with solid capacitor design for CPU VRM POWER. The DL-H61M-WW supports Intel K-Series CPU and Intel HD Graphics Core 2000/3000 Enhanced Visual Features. The Digilite motherboard is fully configured to provide gamers with the latest Gen.3 PCI Express technology, delivering maximum data bandwidth for forthcoming discrete graphics cards.

This motherboard also supports Intel Rapid Start Technology and Smart Connect Technology and comes with Dual Channel DDR3 memory technology, 2 x DDR3 DIMM slots, maximum capacity of 16GB, multi VGA output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI, 5.1 CH HD Audio and 32Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support. n Price: Rs. 4500, Warranty: 3 Years, Contact: Anant Chaturvedi, Email: Anant.chaturvedi@smartlink.co.in, Tel: 9987038234

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SME TREND

XEROX

FOR XEROX SMBS MEAN BUSINESS Xerox has adopted an aggressive GTM strategy to tap the SMB market and has identified top 200 cities to strengthen its position in this segment BY: KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

S

eeing the huge potential in the top 200 cities in the country Xerox, in the first half of this year, came out with a slew of printers to meet the requirements of the SMBs in the market. SMB is considered the fastest growing segment, with an impressive growth of 50% CAGR. With one-third of the IT spend in the country coming from them, and the growth being faster than enterprise and government segment Xerox is intensifying its focus on this segment.

“The growth happening in B, C and D towns are mostly coming from the SMBs,” asserts Vipin Tuteja, Executive Director (Technology, Channels and International Business), Xerox India.

Before embarking on the SMB journey Xerox assigned an external researcher to do an assessment for them as to where most of the opportunity lies and they came up with a list of top 200 cities which would give them 80% of the opportunity all across the country. These top 200 cities include metros, B, C and D towns.

With this the business was not only reorganised to make it 100% channel, the Company also realigned and strengthened its channel network to cover these top 200 cities, in terms of both sales and service. Last year, it successfully covered 185 and rest will be covered this year.

“We also made sure that each and every channel partner is able to sell all different type of products and supplies including paper to our end-customers. So now there is one partner facing the end customer rather than five partners going to the same customer,” informs Tuteja.

Its partner network includes SIs, VARs and

resellers to cover these top 200 both in terms of sales and service. While the SIs and resellers are 300 in number it plans to increase its partner network to 3000 by the end of this year.

Today, Xerox partners offer the end-customers the complete bouquet of Xerox products and services. Apart from this, Xerox’s Partner Business Managers are aligned with the channel partners to help them develop and make them more effective and productive in the market place. Each Partner Business Managers is assigned anywhere from 3-5 partners and it’s their responsibility to help the partner grow their business.

Xerox has two businesses: one is technology and channels, and second is services business. In services business its follows a direct GTM, and engages with large enterprises, large corporate customers; but for technology and channels the products are sold through indirect channel.

In the beginning of this year Xerox extended its A4 and A3 printers range for the SMBs and also launched entry level mono products into the market. It also launched some high-end products to cater to large requirements of the SMB market especially in the entry mono and color segment.

To strengthen its engagement with its partners Xerox started a slew of initiatives beginning the Q3 of last year. It identified and came up with 12 channel initiatives and launched a calendar with each month representing a certain initiative.

Xerox Partner First Program is a 3-tier program with Elite+, Executive and Advantages+. Beginning of August a training program will be held where trainers from UK will be come down to train partners on new technologies, products etc.

VIPIN TUTEJA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (TECHNOLOGY, CHANNELS AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS), XEROX INDIA.

“THE GROWTH WILL COME FROM THE SMBS AND THE GROWTH HAPPENING IN B, C AND D TOWNS ARE MOSTLY COMING FROM THE SMBS.” Under the PartnerNet Portal partners will be able to access sales and marketing tools, analysis and research materials, e-learning courses etc.

Xerox Partners League is a platform to appreciate its channel partners where once a year all the SIs and VARs are invited. This year it will be held in Kovalam, Kerala. The Partner Advisory Council is a two way communication that happens between Xerox and its partners where the latter share their feelings about the market, the products, strategy, their requirements etc.

Finally…

Tuteja says what differentiates them from others is its approach to the market place which is based on selling solutions and not boxes.

With the market expected to grow by 10-12% he says they aim to grow more than that. It also plans to revise its prices between 5%-10%.

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13

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Energy Storage Solutions

UPS Systems for Telecom Applications

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