PLUS
Dell to Buy EMC for $67 Billion /08 www.smechannels.com
india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 06 | ISSUE 08 | PAGES 44 | OCTOBER 2015 | RS. 20/-
PRICED TO WIN, PRICED TO ROCK:
Announcing New VNX & Data Domain Scheme Presenting the promotional offers from EMC aimed to accelerate profits for you, and for a quicker sales cycle. These promotional SKUs are easy to order, easy to sell and earn you unmatched incentives.
Incentive for Partner Sales Manager Offer on VNX, VNXe and Data Domain* ain*
PRODUCT
REWARDS
PRODUCT
REWARDS RE
PRODUCT
REWARDS
VNXe 1600
10,000 Points
DD 2200 4TB
10,000 Points
VNX 5200
15,000 Points
VNXe 3200
15,000 Points
DD 2200 14TB 15,000 Points
VNX 5400
15,000 Points
DD 2200 17TB 15,000 Points
VNX 5600
15,000 Points
DD 2200 7TB
VNX 5800
15,000 Points
10,000 Points
Incentive for Partner Organization
New Partner Spiff for VNX and Data Domain Effective August 10, EMC is offering a VNX and Data Domain incentive exclusive to Solution Providers. This program will allow each eligible Solution Provider to earn sales performance incentive dollars for Closed Incremental Sales on VNXe, VNX5200 to VNX5800, and DD2200. The program will run through December 31, 2015. See tables below on the SPIFF amount. View the FAQ for more information
VNX MODEL
SPIFF
DPS MODEL
SPIFF
VNXe 1600
USD 250
DD 2200 4TB
USD 250
VNXe 3200
USD 500
DD 2200 7TB
USD 375
VNXe 5200
USD 500
DD 2200 14TB
USD 500
VNXe 5400
USD 1000
DD 2200 17TB
USD 1000
VNXe 5600
USD 1500
VNXe 5800
USD 2000
Scheme on the above products is by respective EMC Distributors 1 Point = 1 Rupee TERMS AND CONDITIONS: All claims for the listed products under the scheme shall be eligible only for EMC approved Incremental Deal Registration linked sales. Aug’15 until 31st Dec 2015
The decision of Cadensworth and Ingram Micro shall be final and binding.
This Scheme will be valid from 10th
Cadensworth and Ingram Micro shall have a right to discontinue the
scheme without any prior notice.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
ASHWINI PANDEY, INGRAM MICRO
PRATEEK AGRAWAL, CADENSWORTH
+91 9967021780,
+91 9344435514
ashwini.pandey@ingrammicro.com
prateek.agrawal@cadensworth.com
EMC2, EMC, RSA, and their respective logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. © Copyright 2015 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. EMC Corporation, 207 Pacific Highway, 8th Leonards
PLUS
Microsoft Launches Services from Local Datacenters in India
/08
www.smechannels.com
india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 06 | ISSUE 08 | PAGES 44 | OCTOBER 2015 | RS. 20/-
SME TREND/ 34
SME BIZ/ 40
COMPUAGE: Eyeing Three-fold Growth
Rashi Peripherals:
Wants to Hit Rs. 2000 crore
SME CHAT
/ 38
Sanovi: “Our DR Makes Your
Business Easily Available”
MY EXPERIENCE
EDITORIAL
DIGITAL SMB KARMA NEGI
karma@smechannels.com
AS THE WHOLE WORLD APPLAUSE INDIA’S futuristic vision of a ‘Digital nation’, our SMB segment – which employs approximately 40 per cent of India’s workforce, contributes more than 17% to national GDP – still lags behind when it comes to IT adoption. While SMBs are eager to adopt new technologies but they lack knowledge and the team to handle the infrastructure. Factors such as lack of skillset, and deep pockets to invest in infrastructure upfront, lack of vendor support and customised products are some of the challenges in the adoption of IT by SMBs. A report by Greyhound Research states that organizations in Delhi NCR have limited understanding of information systems and technology is a barrier for providing improved customer engagement. It stated that 88% organizations in Delhi NCR treat customer engagement as a top business priority for FY 2015‐16. A recent study by Zinnov on ‘Digital SMBs’ reported that, digital enablement is going to present a USD 25.8 billion for tech vendors by 2020. Study by global consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), ‘Ahead of the Curve: Lessons on Technology and Growth from Small Business Leaders’ found that if more SMBs in India adopt the latest IT tools, there is potential for this sector to grow revenues by $56 billion and create as many as 1.1 million new jobs. A study of researches on IT adoption by SMBs keeps throwing the same important information: First, SMBs who adopt IT solutions grow faster than who still have not boarded this technology. Second, when SMBs adopt IT they in turn create more jobs and more revenue growth. Zinnov study too highlights the fact that with the ‘Digital India’ campaign it is likely that the Indian government spending on IT will touch USD 7.2 billion by 2015. Digital enablement of Indian SMBs presents a multi-billion dollar opportunity for tech vendors. SMB need to look at the bigger picture; and take to IT like a fish to water if they want to survive in the market. Many financial institutions now lend financial help to SMBs which can help them tide over the initial hesitation over adopting IT. They also need to invest in skill set and new technology and hire the appropriate person/team who can manage their infrastructure without costing a bomb. With India on the digitisation path Digital SMBs can play an active role in making this vision as reality.
4
SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
Lenovo PHAB Plus LENOVO PHAB PLUS is a crossover between a Smartphone and a Tablet: optimized for single-hand use, with a large 6.8inch screen. Available at an end user price of Rs. INR 20,990 the PHAB Plus comes with 4G LTW connectivity device and Qualcom Snapdragon Octacore 1.5Ghz processor supported with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage. The PHAB Plus features HD panel display with a definition of 326ppi for clearer and sharper images. It is further equipped with 13MP rear auto-focus camera and five advanced lenses and comes with a DUAL LED flash.
SPECIFICATIONS Android 5.0 (Lollipop), 6.8” Full HD (1920x1080), 326 PPI, 32GB storage, 13MP auto-focus rear camera, 5MP front camera FINAL WORDING Good product OVERALL RATING
more
locations
more
flexibility
more control
Traditionally in business, more locations result in lesser control. Not any more. Because there is hardly anything traditional about the futuristic COSEC range of Access Control and Time-Attendance solutions from Matrix. These technological workhorses perform seamlessly across multiple locations - removing all barriers of size, time and distance. They integrate biometrics with RF cards and are engineered to adapt to current and future organisational needs. Thus it is no surprise that Matrix COSEC has been chosen by progressive organisations like Adani, Gujarat Ambuja Exports, Real Image, Sterling and Wilson, Gold’s Gym, Gruh Finance and MRF Tyres.
Functions
Features 10 to 1 Million Users
Access Control
1 to 1,000 Locations
Time-Attendance
Visitor Management
1 to 65,000 Entry Points
Employee Self-service
200+ Features
e-Canteen Management
99 Functional Groups 100+ Reports and Charts
Roster Management
Web based Management
SAP, ERP and Payroll Integration
Time, Role and Zone based Access
Working Hours, Shifts and Holidays
Best-in-class Reporting and Analysis
Late-In, Early-Out and Overtime Policies
Centralised Administration, Control and Monitoring
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RF, Fingerprint and Palm Vein Readers
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Call: +91 95588 19477 | Security@MatrixComSec.com | www.MatrixSecuSol.com
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contents
OCT VOLUME 06 ISSUE 08
2015
ER COV RY STO
india’s first IT magazine for sme business
Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Associate Editor: Karma Negi Executive Editor: Smruti Chaudhury Copy Editor: Neil D’Souza Designer: Ajay Arya Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Satya Sagar Sinha Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Marketing Manager: Hemlata Lalwani 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 E-mail: Hem@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
Time to dump the desktop? /22 It seems the difference between VDI and DaaS is financial, and should be left on organisations to decide what suits them best.
Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 editor@smechannels.com Bangalore Bindiya Jadhav #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 E-Mail bindiya@
SME CHAT Canon/ 26
“Demand for Cloud-& Wi-Fi Printing has Increased”
Socomec/ 32
“10% of Socomec’s Turnover Goes into R&D”
SME TREND
accentinfomedia.com Skype ID: b1diyajadhav
Compuage / 34 Compuage Eyeing three-fold growth
Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mohapatra
PROGILITY/ 36 Progility Aims to Double biz in 3 years
Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016
Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458 Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor,
Sanovi/ 39
“Our DR Makes your Business Easily Available”
more inside Editorial ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 04
Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi 110020, India. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without the prior
Snippets ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 08
written permission from the publisher.
Products ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~41
Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.
6
SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
SNIPPETS PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES
for more log on to smechannels.com
Dell to Buy EMC for $67 Bn Dell together with its owners, Michael S. Dell, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell, MSD Partners and Silver Lake, will acquire EMC Corporation, while
maintaining VMware as a publiclytraded company. EMC shareholders would receive a total combined consideration of $33.15 per EMC share and the
total transaction would be valued at approximately $67 billion. The value of the tracking stock may vary from the market price of VMware given the different characteristics
and rights of the two stocks. “The combination of Dell and EMC creates an enterprise solutions powerhouse bringing our customers industry leading innovation across their entire technology environment. Our new company will be exceptionally well-positioned for growth in the most strategic areas of next generation IT including digital transformation, software-defined data center, converged infrastructure, hybrid cloud, mobile and security,” said Dell. “I’m tremendously proud of everything we’ve built at EMC – from humble beginnings as a Boston-based startup to a global, world-class technology company with an unyielding dedication to our customers,” said Joe Tucci, chairman and chief executive officer of EMC. “But the waves of change we now see in our industry are unprecedented and, to navigate this change, we must create a new company for a new era. I truly believe that the combination of EMC and Dell will prove to be a winning combination for our customers, employees, partners and shareholders.”
Microsoft Launches Services from Local Datacenters in India Microsoft has released Azure services via local datacenter regions in India. As the first public cloud provider from India, Microsoft has opened three new regions – Central India in Pune, South India in Chennai, and West India in Mumbai. Governments, large businesses,
8
SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
small and medium businesses (SMBs) and citizens can use the massive computing power now available locally to fuel India’s inclusive growth, spur innovation and accelerate digital transformation. Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, “The Microsoft
cloud in India will transform the way computing is done in the country. The hyper-scale cloud will empower governments, businesses and users and offer enough computing power that will support all their existing workloads. We are happy to partner with Government and businesses to make the
Microsoft cloud work for India and for Indians.” In addition to the Microsoft Azure services launching today, Office 365 services are slated for availability in October 2015, with Dynamics CRM Online services to follow in the first half of 2016.
SNIPPETS
IBM Public Cloud Data Center Opens in India IBM has opened its first public cloud data center in India. Located in Chennai, the new IBM Cloud data center offers local customers and end users increased performance and speed for data traveling to and from the region. Part of IBM’s $1.2 billion investment to expand its global cloud footprint into every major financial market, the Chennai data center joins IBM’s Mumbai cloud center and is part of an expansive network of data centers that blanket the globe, providing users with the performance
and disaster recovery solutions needed to ensure business continuity. In an effort to accelerate digital transformation both at the enterprise and startup level, IBM is establishing a partnership with NASSCOM to launch Techstartup.in, a digital hub wherein the entire Indian startup ecosystem, including angels, mentors, investors, academia and venture capitalists, can interact with each other to grow the cloud market.
Sanovi Enters European Market Provider of Hybrid Cloud software for business continuity and IT recovery Sanovi has forayed into the European market. Currently, the company has its presence in North America, APAC, India/SAARC and Middle Eastern Countries. Sanovi plans to enter the European market, primarily through a partner model, actively working with global partners and local System Integrators. Also, Sanovi promoted Amarjeet Gill as President, to handle European market, in addition to his existing business responsibility for India/SAARC region. In a related announcement, Sanovi is strengthening its Global Alliances program and APAC business through the appointment of Raji Iyengar, as the Vice President – Global Alliances & APAC Business Development. Raji will develop key Global Alliances to further expand Sanovi’s market reach to Enterprise Customers worldwide.
‘Advantage’ adds value to over 2,000 SMBs IPG Mediabrands in partnership with Google organized a week day long customer engagement initiative ‘Advantage’. The event aimed at connecting the Small-Medium Business (SMB) segment with Digital Marketing consultants and offering them consultation on how to utilize internet tools to leverage their business. Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands, said, “IPG Mediabrands is glad to have partnered with Google Advantage and the tremendous response from SMBs is a reflection of its success. Over 2000 SMBs used the platform to connect with experts consultants and other businesses from across practices to learn about the online marketing. We realize that the Indian SMB segment is where lies a huge potential for modernization and adoption of newer marketing technology tools and this initiative was extending a helping hand to them.” “We are delighted with the response we got for Advantage in Delhi and we will continue to build on this initiative to help more SMBs to learn and grow their business,” said Sapna Chaddha Head of Small Medium Business Marketing, Google India.
10 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
MY POINT
“The maturing Indian start-up ecosystem is now contributing to the Indian economy in many ways.” R. CHANDRASHEKHAR, PRESIDENT, NASSCOM
Symantec Secure One Enhanced Version Launched Symantec is rolling out an enhanced channel partner program designed to help securityfocused partners grow their businesses. Symantec Secure One offers partners the ability to unlock higher earning potential through simplified competency and certification requirements, while including a more predictable, profitable Growth Accelerator Rebate. A new distributor program, designed to support and accelerate partner growth, will also be included under the Secure One umbrella. “With an increased focus on cybersecurity and a strengthened portfolio aimed squarely at solutions that address today’s most sophisticated attackers, we’re rolling out Symantec Secure One to enable our partners to leverage our products and services to grow their businesses,” said John Thompson, Global Senior Vice President of Partner and Channel Sales, Symantec.
TP-LINK Ranked # 1 in India According to advisory firm 6Wresearch, TP-LINK emerged as market leader in Range Extender segment in India. TP-LINK India leads second quarter 2015 in Wireless Range Extender shipments, with reference to published 6Wresearch Quarterly Tracker reports. According to 6Wresearch, “Increasing demand for mobility, low installation & maintenance cost as well as easy network expansion as compared to the wired networks have increased the popularity of these devices among the Indian consumers. Additionally, rising internet subscribers, growing SMEs and expansion of Telecom infrastructure are expected to fuel the demand of Wireless Range Extenders in India.” “We are pleased that 6Wresearch recognizes TP-LINK’s number one position in the Wireless Range Extender market,” said TP-LINK’s representative, “TP-LINK has always been a committed company, and our aim is to provide our customers with smooth wireless lifestyle at reasonable cost.” TP-LINK’s quality control is unprecedented and before a new product is shipped, it gets tested in 7,000 unique scenarios, and it only takes one failed test to start the entire process all over again.
SNIPPETS
Protocol Conferred Avaya Platinum Partner status
63% OF INDIA’S SMALL BIZ LACKS WEBSITE: GODADDY
Avaya announced that Protocol is now an Avaya’s Platinum Partner, and will represent the fullstack of Avaya solutions for customer and team engagement and network infrastructure. With a primary focus on the mid-market businesses (with 200-500 users), Protocol has been a value-added reseller and an Avaya DevConnect partner since the launch in 2005. Protocol has a development center in India and also has presence in Singapore and Malaysia. Protocol’s Platinum Partner status reflects their efforts and commitment towards pursuing opportunities for Avaya’s entire suite of engagement solutions announced the press release. Success in converting the mid-market customer is in demonstrating value, from a financial perspective as well as in terms of buying a unified solution from one vendor and partner, so that there is one single point-of-contact. Fadi Mubarak, Channel and Mid-Market Director, Avaya MEA, Turkey and Asia Pacific, said, “We are happy to recognise the contribution of the Protocol team in making this a reality for many customers in the UAE.”
Most of India’s small businesses are largely ‘invisible’ online or have a marginal digital footprint, according to a survey released by RedShift Research and GoDaddy. The survey reveals that as many as 63 percent of India’s small businesses don’t have their own website, with 40 percent stating that their company is just too small to warrant a website. Other reasons for not having a website include lack of technical expertise (19 percent), affordability (17 percent) and that their social media presence meets with current needs. The survey, based on a poll of 500 very small businesses (defined as five workers or less), takes a look at how small businesses in India starting to utilize the Internet and their expectations from going online. Estimated at 51 million, India is home to the world’s second largest base of small and mediumsized businesses (SMBs), accounting for more than 17 percent of the country’s GDP. If leveraged well, an effective online presence has the potential to be a strategic asset and a harbinger for future growth for these businesses: from helping to expand their footprint from hyperlocal to Pan-India, and even global or to growing customers incrementally. This is not an unrealistic expectation and of those respondents who already have a website, 63 percent say their business grew once they their website was up and running, with nearly a third witnessing growth in excess of ten percent. Rajiv Sodhi, Vice President, GoDaddy, India and Australia, said, “Our aim is to educate small businesses on the benefits of establishing an online presence, while making it affordable and easy for them to build an impactful global online identity. While a majority of Indian small businesses are yet to create a website, the research found that size and age does not matter when it comes to a small business thinking of or planning to be website ready.”
EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT
EXTERNAL STORAGE MARKET RISE IN Q2 2015 ACCORDING TO IDC’S APAC QUARTERLY ENTERPRISE STORAGE TRACKER, INDIA EXTERNAL STORAGE MARKET WITNESSED A SIGNIFICANT YEAR-ON-YEAR GROWTH (IN VENDOR REVENUE) AND STOOD AT 68.5 MILLION USD IN Q2 2015. 35%
65% 55%
30%
Former CTO of Yum! Restaurants India Pvt. Ltd., Hitesh K Arora has joined CRMNEXT, as Director – Strategy & Customer Advocacy Quantum has named Bassam Tabbara as CTO.
45% 25%
35%
20%
25%
15%
15% 5%
10%
-5% 5% 0%
Savera Marketing has appointed Pinaki Samiron Dhara as Vice President
-15%
Edimax has named Sanjay Joshi as their Country Manager
-25% EMC
IBM Q1 2015
Source: External Storage Tracker Q2 2015
12 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
HP
NETAPP Q2 2015
HITACHI Growth
TP-LINK India has appointed Sanjay Sehgal as VP-SMB & Telecom
SNIPPETS
IT Spending to Decline 3.5% in 2015 Worldwide IT spending across vertical industries is forecast to total $2.69 trillion in 2015, a 3.5 percent decrease from 2014, according to the latest forecast by Gartner Analysts said the rising U.S. dollar is chiefly responsible for the slowdown. “Appreciation of the U.S. dollar (mainly against the euro, yen and the ruble), along with the relative slowdown of emerging markets (particularly Russia, Brazil and China), had a double impact on IT spending in 2015, and explains the downward revision in the forecast,” said Anurag Gupta, Research VP, Gartner. “Unsurprisingly, most technology firms reporting revenue in U.S. dollars have taken a negative hit on their quarterly revenue earnings.” IT spending in the retail sector is forecast to decline 1.5 percent in 2015. Technologies that help understand customers better, improve engagement through multichannel experience and facilitate the buying process are high-priority areas.
RASHI GIVES DIY MARKET A PUSH WITH 4P PROGRAM To instill confidence in DIY partners Rashi has launched a programme code named 4P to activate and motivate partners especially the DIY retailers. Rashi under the 4P Program - “Proud to Promote Personalized PC - has identified 150 Retailers across 75 cities based on the collective obsession of these partners to highlight the advantages of a Personalized Rajesh Goenka, VP Sales and PC. Marketing, Rashi Peripherals The stores would be equipped with marketing tools such as Danglers, Posters, stickers and other eye catching merchandise. Not only are the shops getting a makeover, but the selling skills of the Retailers too are being up-skilled, with programs for the retailers coupled with customized schemes, the partners are sure to be on the winning edge during the festive season. The activity commenced in August will carry on till October. These stores would also be equipped with demo machines to highlight the advantages that a personalized PC enjoys – over a branded PC. “With a month already in the scheme, we have seen a positive shift in demand for Personalized PC’S, I can personally recall reading a testimony sent in by one of our retailer, when his customer opted for a Personalized PC as an outcome of his interaction with the DEMO PC,” said Rajesh Goenka, VP Sales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals.
VSN International to Grow 200% by 2017 with MS Cloud
Seqrite Unveils Upgraded MD
VSN International, a silver partner of Microsoft, is on track to grow its business by more than 200% over the next 12 months. This growth will be powered by adoption of Microsoft Office 365 by its customers announced the press release. VSN International has been building on its cloud capability with Microsoft, offering enterprise-grade, highly secure and scalable Office 365 services to SMBs that can enhance business efficiencies and collaboration. “Technology provides significant opportunities for SMBs to achieve their business goals and make use of self-provisioned cloud solutions to meet their IT needs. Our pay-as-you-go model of cloud availability benefits SMBs from a scalability and affordability perspective,” said Manohar Hotchandani, Director, Business Development, Microsoft India. “We are committed to work closely with our partners to enable customers be more productive, and will continue to enhance the capacity and capability of our partners to help them deliver superior value to customers,” he added.
Seqrite, the Enterprise Security brand of a leading IT security solutions provider, has launched a new version of Seqrite Mobile Device Management (MDM). The MDM application enables enterprises to regulate and monitor the growing workforce of smartphones and tablets that are used by enterprises all around the world today announced the press release. The cloud-based solution makes it extremely simple for enterprise admins to manage the security and productivity of all mobile devices that are deployed within its network. The new version of Seqrite MDM now has three new features which are aimed at boosting a network’s monitoring capabilities and more. These features are Network Data Monitoring, Call/SMS Monitoring and Seqrite Launcher. Sanjay Katkar, CTO, added, “Our MDM solution works on Android, iOS and Windows Phone, and these new features provide flexibility, user enablement and enhanced security. Monitoring data usage and call/SMS logs gives enterprises a layered approach to their security.”
Norton Security Launched in India In a move to streamline multiple core offerings into one flagship subscription service, Symantec has launched Norton Security in India. The new service is an advanced, multi-layered protection solution that helps shield consumers from sophisticated and evolving threats across all platforms. Norton Security Premium is also available with secure PC cloud backup to provide extra protection against ransomware attacks and help ensure photos, address books and important files don’t get lost. “Today our digital lives are central to the way we connect, interact and transact,” said Ritesh Chopra, Country Manager, India, Norton by Symantec. “We live in a world where cybercriminals are working overtime trying to find new ways to steal personal information. At Norton, we want to give people confidence whether they’re sharing photos online or shopping from a smartphone that Norton Security is working behind the scenes to keep their information and their devices protected.” Norton Security is available now via in.norton.com and is offered as a flexible service to protect all devices. MSRP for Norton Security starts at Rs.1,399.
14 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
SNIPPETS
PerfectCloud Launches Cloud Security Solutions PerfectCloud, a provider of enterprise, cloud and mobile security solutions, has launched its security and privacy service offerings in India. It provides a range of services from enterprise-class cloud and mobile security solutions specializing in Identity Management, Security of IoT to data lifecycle encryption, guaranteeing complete security and privacy. MayukhGon, CEO, PerfectCloud, said, “Cloud computing is transforming the IT landscape in India and we see tremendous opportunity in the rapidly-growing cyber security industry. Today, almost 53% of organizations in India indicate they are using Cloud Services, with another 43% indicating plans to begin using cloud services in the next 12 months.” PerfectCloud has introduced two integrated products in the Indian market – SmartSignin and SmartCryptor.
Zebronics ‘Stacks and Unicorn’ for Gamers Zebronics has launched ‘Stacks’ and ‘unicorn’, a range of high-end chassis deemed for Micro-ATX and ATX motherboards, uniquely designed for gamers who require an optimal balance of space and performance. Unicorn is done in double panel layout design; it has a separate compartment for motherboard and another compartment for rest of the components. It helps in controlling the temperate inside the chassis more effectively. It also helps with the cable management inside the chassis. Stacks come with regular mounting layout with PSU mounted on the bottom. The ample ventilation options, cleanable air filter, and a perforated mesh bezel help to keep the entire system cool and dust-free. Promising ‘extensive cooling advantages’ and expandability; is its front panel which attributes USB and Audio ports, with a perforated panel for better air flow. Stacks gaming chassis comes with a dual 120mm side and 120mm front LED fan for air intake, designed to meet the needs of hardcore gamers across the country.
Dell to Empower Future-Ready Enterprises Dell expanded its networking portfolio to address growing complexities in campus networking and skyrocketing bandwidth demands in the data center by introducing various solutions. For the campus, Dell introduced a new unified-campus architecture powered by the new Dell Networking C9010 Network Director switch and companion C1048P Rapid Access Node. In the data center, Dell debuted the Dell Networking S6100-ON, combining multi-rate connectivity, modularity and open networking to deliver unparalleled in-rack networking flexibility. “At Dell, we’re taking a holistic, end-to-end approach to networking from connecting server, storage and workloads together in the data center to connecting desktops and mobile devices in the campus,” said Tom Burns, vice president and general manager, Dell Networking and Enterprise Infrastructure. “We’re excited about these new products and capabilities and the new levels of simplicity and flexibility to help our customers become future ready.” Manish Gupta, Director, Enterprise Solutions Group, Dell India, said, “Our new campus management solutions are designed to address some critical customer requirements such as the management of data growth and simplified network management. Combining the most useful innovations in the networking space such as SDN and taking an integrated approach makes it a very convenient and easily deployable solution. These features have made this an ideal solution for mid to large-scale campus environments and we are expecting good customer response in India.”
Tyco Releases Emerald TS300f Tyco Security Products, part of Tyco, has released CEM System’s emerald TS300f Intelligent Fingerprint Terminal for AC2000 suite of access control and security management systems. This announcement coincides with the release of new features and enhanced functionality across the full emerald range. “emerald TS300f not only provides more intelligence at the door with remote applications but now ensures more security where an additional level of biometric verification is required,” said Rick Focke, Senior Product Manager, Tyco Security Products. “With the release of emerald TS300f comes a range of new and innovative features for the whole emerald series including Time & Attendance mode; PIN & Fingerprint for cardless biometric verification; PIN as Card allowing cardless verification; and Multi Date Check feature for implementing additional validity criteria.”
16 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
WinMagic Partners with Bangalorebased Technobind WinMagic has partnered with Bangalore-based distributor Technobind. The partnership is intended to build visibility and increase reselling of its award winning product SecureDoc in India. The strategic partnership for WinMagic has been a key initiative in line with its company’s focus on innovation and investment, building up its partner ecosystem in India. It is expected to yield more benefits in terms of business growth for both the companies. WinMagic’s focus is on close cooperation and integration with partners and firmly implementing transparent and stable distributor partnerships across India. Commenting on the partnership, Rahul Kumar, Country Director & Manager, WinMagic India, stated, “Through this partnership we will be able to reach out to the large enterprise market in India to help protect their information assets. The synergies of the two organisations will help develop a credible channel relationship. We are delighted to partner with Technobind as one of our key distributors in India.” WinMagic’s solution SecureDoc protects data at the endpoint, where the data is created, regardless of the device or platform where it’s accessed or saved. WinMagic is also planning to launch SecureDoc Cloud VM in early 2016.
SNIPPETS
AWS Makes Partner Announcements At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, released three new AWS Partner Network (APN) Competencies that enable and promote partners who have demonstrated expertise and proven success in DevOps, Cloud Migration, and Internet of Things (IoT). In addition, AWS announced the 2016 Premier Consulting Partners, a designation that recognizes 46 APN partners that provide superior customer service and expertise in building and migrating customer solutions on AWS. AWS also announced that AWS Marketplace has grown to more than 2,300 software listings that
are pre-configured for the AWS Cloud and available across 35 different categories that customers can purchase and launch, many with 1-Click functionality. “Customers are accelerating their journey to AWS as they transform their businesses, and they require a broad range of solutions and partner expertise,” said Dorothy Copeland, Head of Global Partner Programs, AWS. “We are excited to see the growth of innovative partner solutions that leverage AWS and are expanding our investments in the APN across training, solutions development, and go-to-market programs.”
DIGEST FORTINET’S NEW WAFS Fortinet launched its new FortiWeb 4000E and 3000E Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), designed to help customers prevent identity theft, financial fraud and denial of service through specialized, layered application threat protection. FortiWeb appliances now offer advanced security services backed by FortiGuard Labs’ advanced threat intelligence, providing real-time threat protection at the application level. These new FortiWeb solutions are also integrated with Fortinet’s FortiSandbox and offer support for new enhancements in partnership with Acunetix’s advanced vulnerability scanning solutions.
NETGEAR ADSL MODEM ROUTER
Ruckus Unleashed for Small Business Ruckus Wireless launched Ruckus Unleashed access points, based on a new controller-less Wi-Fi architecture which the press release claims reduces ownership costs and delivers up to 50 percent higher Wi-Fi performance for small business environments. Ruckus Unleashed is custom-designed to help small business owners grow their business, deliver an excellent customer experience and manage costs while supporting a variety of mobile devices with minimal IT staff. “Ruckus Unleashed access points level the playing field for local retailers, coffee shops, and restaurants, helping them to deliver a high-quality Wi-Fi experience for customers and employees with much lower total cost of ownership,” said Dan Rabinovitsj, Ruckus’ chief operating officer. “We’re excited to help small business owners make high-performance Wi-Fi affordable and simple to install and maintain.”
Polycom Announces Innovative Solutions Polycom unveiled innovative collaboration solutions at an exclusive customer event in New York focused on advancing the workplace of the future globally. “As we celebrate our 25th year of innovation and leadership, we are announcing breakthrough collaboration experiences that uniquely place people at the heart of collaboration enabling them to work better, smarter and more efficiently. We are delivering the workplace of the future today,” said Peter Leav, Polycom’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Polycom RealPresence Trio is the first smart hub for group collaboration that transforms the iconic three-point conference phone into a voice, content-sharing and video system that can fit into any team environment.
Panasonic i-PRO SmartHD Solutions Panasonic has released i-Pro SmartHD CCTV camera products for the public transportation space. The range of i-Pro SmartHD CCTV cameras provide high resolution and high visibility images regardless of environmental conditions, with 18 wide-angled, low-distortion models that are resistant to blind spots. The clear-sight coated cameras offer the real-time capacity of removing factors that hinder vision such as rain, mist, and snow, and the LED enabled devices can highlight objects in surroundings with low-level illumination, for total situational awareness. These intelligent models are sensitive to changing dynamics in the environment, with features such as auto tracking and scene change detection, which detect abnormal situations and scrutinize suspicious movement without human monitoring and immediately notify the control center.
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NETGEAR released a new modem router D6000, AC750 Wi-Fi ADSL Modem Router with dual band Gigabit. It’s designed for larger homes and for home environments supporting devices such as smartphones, notebooks, tablets, laptops, computers, smart TVs, gaming consoles, and Blu-ray players. The NETGEAR AC750 WiFi Modem Router upgrades your WiFi to support AC devices and provides WiFi speeds of up to300+450 Mbps†of USB hard drives & printers.
WD MY CLOUD FAMILY WD has introduced significant enhancements to WD’s family of My Cloud personal storage devices in India. These include a new, redesigned My Cloud OS 3operating system, Software Developer Kit (SDK) to enable better app integration, and new My Cloud Mirror Gen 2 personal cloud storage device with faster processing capability than previous generations. The My Cloud Mirror Gen 2 personal cloud storage device will have an approximate price of INR 23500 for 4 TB, INR 30000 for 6TB, INR 37500 for 8TB, and INR 55000 for 12 TB variants.
MEDIATEK CHIPSETS ON AMAZON DEVICES MediaTek said it will power an array of Amazon consumer products, including the Amazon Fire TV, and Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets. These are the latest in a series of Amazon devices powered by MediaTek that offer consumers rich multimedia experiences with minimal power consumption. The new Amazon Fire TV is powered by MediaTek’s MT8173, a 64-bit quad-core processor and the world’s first multimedia SoC with ARM’sCortex-A72 cores.
VIEWSONIC LIGHTSTREAM PROJECTORS ViewSonic expanded its LightStream series with the new advanced PJD6352LS short-throw projector. The ViewSonic LightStream PJD6352LS networkable projector features 3200 lumens, native XGA 1024×768 resolution, and an intuitive, user-friendly design. When plugged in ViewSync WPG-300 Wireless Presentation Gateway Dongle, PortAll—a hidden compartment with an integrated MHL/HDMI port enables to discretely and wirelessly stream multimedia content from a mobile device to the projector.
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SNIPPETS
CRMNEXT Sets Foot in Indonesia with Dimension Data CRMNEXT launched its full-fledged Indonesian operations in alliance with Dimension Data, a provider of cloud architecture solutions. Elaborating on the inaugural event, Sushil Tyagi, Director (Global Sales), CRMNEXT, said, “Dimension Data brings the right synergies to deliver cloud CRM solution on private or public cloud. Together, we would be able to offer the right solutions to the Indonesian customer to implement a true cloud solution for today’s digital Age.” Speaking on the occasion, Hitesh K. Arora, Director (Strategy and Customer Advocacy), CRMNEXT, said, “Businesses can start small, do a thorough pilot and then scale up as per need on a reliable true-cloud infrastructure. We’ve proven this for Asia’s largest enterprises including the largest Digital-Native Bank. This kind of convenience driven by agile, cost-effective technology has repeatedly given significant savings on running costs and is primarily offered only by CRMNext. Hence, we believe we’re here to stay and serve the Indonesian business community.”
Blue Coat Strengthens ETM Ready Program
Dell’s New Hadoop Solution to Simplify Big Data and Analytics Dell has released a new solution for Hadoop, co-designed with Cloudera and Syncsort and powered by Intel, that streamlines the planning, design, construction and deployment process of transforming data into a ready state for analysis, then loading it for business reporting or for querying; a process known as ETL (extract, transform and load). The Dell | Cloudera | Syncsort Data Warehouse Optimization – ETL Offload Murli Mohan, Director & GM, Dell Reference Architecture helps achieve Software Group faster insights in an intuitive way without needing to learn new skillsets, hire additional resources, or retool IT environments announced the press release. Murli Mohan, Director & GM, Dell Software Group, said, “Current business needs have changed drastically today. With customer and business requirements changing at a phenomenal pace, companies are looking at deriving most relevant insights at minimum cost and time. In order to address the challenge, Dell along with Cloudera and Syncsort has designed some of the most advanced big data and analytics solution which is much faster, easier and cost effective to implement. The primary objective behind designing the solution is to help companies capitalize on the benefits of ETL offload.”
Blue Coat has added seven new partners to the Blue Coat Encrypted Traffic Management (ETM) Ready Program, bringing the total number of partners to 17. This group of leading security vendors forms the largest industry collaboration to help customers expose and combat threats hiding in encrypted traffic while also protecting privacy and ensuring compliance. Launched in March 2015, the ETM Ready Program is designed to prepare and certify Blue Coat Technology Alliance Partners to integrate SSL visibility solutions into the Blue Coat architecture, resulting in best-in-class security products to effectively detect and eliminate the hidden threats in encrypted traffic.
Gigabyte Announces 1st Round of Winners
Microsoft, FISME to enable SMBs adopt cloud by mid-2016
Gigabyte said it has chosen the first round of winners for its ongoing Gigabyte Heroes of the Storm Sweepstakes. On top of the thousands of instant winners of the Kerrigan Hero and Succubus Skin for Heroes of the Storm, 10 lucky new Gigabyte users registered their eligible 100 series motherboards at the event page and are now walking away with one of the following; a Z170X-Gaming 3 motherboard, an Aivia Krypton mouse or a Force H3 headset. “We love gaming, and we will continue to provide new technologies and features to support the gaming community to make the gaming experience even more enjoyable,” said Henry Kao, Vice President of Gigabyte Motherboard Business Unit.
Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), an apex industry body, and Microsoft have come together to enable more than 10,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises across the country to adopt information technology and cloud computing. This will help them to connect better with their existing customers and reach out to potential customers across India announced the press release. India’s SMB segment is playing a significant role in India’s economy. According to the NASSCOM and Frost & Sullivan report – India SMB Market – Monetizing Emerging Opportunities (2014), it employs approximately 40% of India’s workforce, contributes more than 17% to national GDP, has close to 45% share in manufacturing output and accounts for about 40 per cent of India’s total exports.
20 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
SNIPPETS
Micromax Forays into PC Business Micromax Informatics has forayed into the clam shell laptop category with the launch of the Canvas Lapbook. Canvas Lapbook weighs just 1.3 kilograms to ensure the ease of use and portability. Powered by Intel Quad Core Processor and pre-bundled with genuine Windows 10, the device draws its appeal from providing productivity, entertainment and connectivity on the go. Commenting on the launch Shubhajit Sen, CMO, Micromax Informatics Limited, said, “We strongly believe that productivity devices will be the devices of the future and we will continue to bring highly desirable innovations for the deserving Indian consumers. With our entry into the laptop category, we aim to drive the growth of the category and garner a market share of 10% in 12-18 months,” he further added.
KASPERSKY LAB DISCUSSES BUSINESS STRATEGY AT PARTNER PITSHOP Kaspersky Lab along with eCaps, National Distributor for enterprise products, successfully concluded Partners meet last week at Hotel Pearl Palace, Cochin, to discuss about their future business strategies with a focus to develop market in emerging geographies, for its rich and wide suit of offerings. Over 20+ partner companies attended this event with 40 participants. The objective was to make the technical team comfortable before taking the solution to market through the business team. Altaf Halde, MD– South Asia, Explaining its strategy, Altaf Halde, MD– South Kaspersky Lab Asia, Kaspersky Lab, said, “Kaspersky Lab will focus on an extensive range of services to provide end-to-end solution specifically suited to meet the needs of the particular segment especially larger enterprise clients, having 1000+ nodes, as we now have an excellent Endpoint product – Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business (KESB), which has taken us up a few notches higher in the Leader’s quadrant besides IDC and Forrester also naming us the top 3 Global Leaders in the endpoint market. Our ultimate focus is to expand the reach of our products by increasing our channel base.”
Matrix to Showcase telecom Solutions at MyBroadband Conference Matrix Comsec will participate in MyBroadband Conference 2015, major ICT event in the region, and will showcase its complete range of VoIP & GSM Gateways, Business Phone Systems, Converged Voice & Data products and all new range of User Terminals. During this event, Matrix will showcase its award-winning NAVAN CNX200 – Office-in-a-Box Solution. NAVAN CNX200 is a single box solution for all voice, data, internet, wireless, mobility and messaging needs of small businesses with up to 24 users. NAVAN CNX200 delivers advance IP-PBX functionality, high-speed Internet, wireless voice & data access, data routing and virtual private networking from a compact and converged platform. Matrix will also demonstrate its SPARSH M2S – Mobile Softphone App for Android/iOS smartphones. Ideal for dynamic workplaces, SPARSH MS delivers centralized call management on smartphones such as Corporate Directory, Call Hold/Transfer/Forward/Conference, Voice Mail, BLF, Instant Messaging, Video Calling and lot more at fingertips. In addition to that, Matrix is also pleased to showcase its all new range of Digital and IP Phones with EON510, SPARSH VP310 and SPARSH VP330E respectively. w
Savera to Distribute HP Products Savera Marketing will distribute a wide range of the HP products which includes PCs, laptops and other peripherals across Mumbai, Thane and Raigad district. According to the press release Savera would like to expose its team towards PSG (Personal Systems Group) and IPG (Image Printing Group) experience. This tie-up indicates the strength of Savera and endows them in terms of fiscal growth and partner penetration across PC business it further added. Gopal Pansari, MD, Savera Marketing, said, “We are very proud to be partnered with HP, we are looking forward for a great experience to work with HP team. We are confident now to create positive vibe in the industry and shall be able to distribute the best IT Hardware products in the world by a listed company – HP. This is a great fusion of our service capabilities with the quality products of HP to accommodate a single window to enhanced profitability to a greater number of people across the country.”
Power2SME, TiE Announces Spirit of Manufacturing Awards 2015 Power2SME, the first ‘Buying Club’ for SMEs in India, launched the second edition of ‘Spirit of Manufacturing Awards’ in association with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global network of entrepreneurs, professionals and new companies established to foster entrepreneurship and nurture entrepreneurs. This annual award series aims to empower the indigenous manufacturing industry and is in line with the recently launched ‘Make in India’ initiative announced by the Indian government announced the press release. The season two of annual awards will focus on applauding and acknowledging innovation among home-grown manufacturing start-ups. The registrations and nominations will close by 20th September ’15 at http://spiritofmanufacturing.com/. The nominations are open for manufacturing start-ups with less than 10 years of existence. The winners will be announced during month of October at the award function, to be held at the side lines of TiECON 2015.
SME CHANNELS 21 OCTOBER 2015
COVER STORY
TIME TO DUMP THE DESKTOP? It seems the difference between VDI and DaaS is financial, and should be left on organisations to decide what suits them best. BY KARMA NEGI
karma@smechannels.com
T
oday, every business demands reduced cost, security, control and productivity. They are ready to adopt technologies which can help them achieve all these and more. If you remember, couple of years back Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI came on to the scene with a bang; promising to fulfil the ultimate fantasy. After a lot of hype and big start VDI failed take off the ground because it just couldn’t ‘deliver’. The high upfront cost was something to be balked at; then there were scalability and security issues which dogged the adoption of VDI on a large scale. So all in all VDI exactly didn’t perform the way it was expected of. The sauntered in Cloud, and the market took notice of it, watched it and embraced it, as the answer to all the questions they were asking for. From storage to server everything went on the Cloud, and so did Desktop, and it was cheap! Desktop-as-a-service is not a new concept but has been around in the market for time. It’s said that Desktone, founded in 2007, pioneered this service. The company was later acquired by VMware. According to IDC, the Asia Pacific market for mobility is in very early stages, with 80 percent of organisations ill-equipped to harness 3rd platform technologies, including Mobility, Cloud, Social and Big Data Analytics, to compete in
22 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
the market. In India, the present market worth of Desktop as a Service solution is $13.65M and expected to reach up to $38.21M by 2017. More organizations are quickly coming to realize the many benefits of moving away from physical desktops in favor of solutions such as VDI and DaaS (desktops as a service). Some major DaaS providers, today, are VMware, Amazon, Microsoft, Citrix, NComputing. Last year, NComputing launched DaaS solution designed for service providers enabling them to quickly roll-out hosted DaaS to SMBs with lower cost and complexity than other approaches to DaaS. Microsoft recently announced the availability of Microsoft Azure services via local datacenter regions in India: Central India in Pune, South India in Chennai, and West India in Mumbai. Further adding, “Governments, large businesses, small and medium businesses (SMBs) and citizens can use the massive computing power now available locally to fuel India’s inclusive growth, spur innovation and accelerate digital transformation.”
VDI still relevant Irrespective of what some sections of the industry say some vendors opine that the VDI is still a viable option. Maybe not for the small and medium businesses but for large enterprise its
COVER STORY
In India, the present market worth of Desktop as a Service solution is $13.65M and expected to reach up to $38.21M by 2017.
SME CHANNELS 23 OCTOBER 2015
COVER STORY
“DESKTOP VIRTUALISATION IS NOT FOR EVERYONE; NEITHER IS IT THE ANSWER TO ALL THE PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH DESKTOPS.” GIRISH GUPTA, DIRECTOR-TECHNICAL SERVICES, INDIA SUBCONTINENT, CITRIX
relevance still remains. “VDI isn’t on the decline,” says Ramesh Vantipalli, Head of EUC & Systems Engineering Manager South, VMware India. “As IT organizations increasingly move away from physical PCs in favour of virtual desktops, the idea of DaaS is becoming more and more attractive.” He add that the heart of this attraction is DaaS’ ability to make deployment and management of the desktop environment far less difficult for IT, while giving users maximum flexibility and a better, customizable user experience. VDI will continue to be an attractive solution for organizations that have the internal technical ability in enabling a move from physical to virtual desktops. Girish Gupta, Director-Technical services, India Subcontinent, Citrix, explains, “Yes, VDI’s performance was not up to the mark, and it had to do with virtualisation as a whole. Desktop virtualisation is not for everyone; neither is it the answer to all the problems associated with desktops.” He emphasises that most of the customers, today, have understood and realise the value of having a desktop virtualisation and also understands how it needs to be covered within the organisation. “The technology has matured a lot and there is an absolute need for that technology and that’s why we continue to sell our products.”
Reduce IT management complexity
Gain flexibility and agility and speed their time of delivery
24 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
Time to dump the desktop? Today, SMBs are looking for solutions with lower cost and complexities for efficient delivery and management of the corporate desktop. When it comes to IT infrastructure, the ability to effectively manage unforeseen business shifts, seasonal peaks and valleys, and ad-hoc temporary use cases is critical. On-premise VDI has to be planned in such a manner that it is used through the year. Using it sporadically means that the up-front capital investment required for VDI doesn’t pay off for short-duration uses. “Instead, companies have found cloud-hosted DaaS, to be ideal for temporary use cases. DaaS gives you all the benefits of VDI on a temporary basis, without any of its large infrastructure cost and time requirements. You just subscribe to cloud-hosted virtual desktops and apps on a monthly basis and, when they’re no longer needed, stop paying for them. Given these cost and efficiency benefits, SMEs should adopt DaaS in order to be more competitive,” says Vantipalli. As small and medium companies look for solutions that demands less up-front investment the whole idea of providing desktop at significant cost savings compared to legacy desktops has resulted in SMBs re-evaluating their desktop strategy.
WHY
Cut costs
Improve workforce productivity
Delivers an enhanced user experience
“DAAS GIVES YOU ALL THE BENEFITS OF VDI ON A TEMPORARY BASIS, WITHOUT ANY OF ITS LARGE INFRASTRUCTURE COST AND TIME REQUIREMENTS.” RAMESH VANTIPALLI, HEAD OF EUC & SYSTEMS ENGINEERING MANAGER SOUTH, VMWARE INDIA.
What SMBs need, today, is a robust, secure and affordable solution that will accommodate shrinking IT budgets and varied end-user demands, while enabling them to evolve end-user computing in a seamless way. “The excitement to move to cloud itself answers the question as to why desktop services work,” answers Gupta. “SMBs will move from VDI to DaaS and the only thing that will change is the way we deliver our product and technology. It will make desktop virtualisation more relevant, and all the problems associated with VDI will fizzle away because of the stability and elasticity that cloud provides.” “With the cloud now being a viable business option, the time is right for SMEs to take advantage of cloud-hosted desktops and apps to transform end-user computing into next-generation workspaces,” add Vantipalli. “We feel the adoption of DaaS is positive,” says Vishal Parekh, MD, Kingston Technology – India, “Though we have several infrastructure challenges. However, the point in focus shall be the system’s readiness to adopt DaaS. This would include both, the provider’s system and the client system. Unless these are technically sound, they
COVER STORY
“THOUGH THERE HAS BEEN AN IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY WITH THE THIN CLIENT VENDORS VDI AND DAAS – THIS TECHNOLOGY IS KEENLY GAINING TRACTION FROM THE INDIAN SMB MARKET.” VISHAL PAREKH, MARKETING DIRECTOR, KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY – INDIA will not be able to perform as smooth as the SMB would want it to, which shall lead to performance lags and poor satisfaction.”
Challenges With the workforce becoming mobile – accessing work through various devices and from anywhere – security too has become a pain point. “IT is also under immense pressure to enable this new mobile workforce without sacrificing security and control. IT must ensure that corporate data and applications are secure and they also must control the costs associated with the man-
agement of end user devices,” says Vantipalli. Top priority is accorded to business continuity by SMBs but the challenges of tight budgets and recruiting the appropriate IT team remains. They are forced to do more with less. While DaaS gives them the flexibility, scalability without being too hard on the pockets, migrating to DaaS still remains one of the key concerns for SMEs. Vantipalli says that DaaS provided by leading companies like VMware Horizon Air Desktops and Apps, is actually very simple to adopt and deploy. Users can customize their desktops to look and feel exactly as they’d like. They can also install
their own applications and data. “And, because VMware Horizon Air Desktops and Apps can connect to peripherals such as local and network printers and monitors, employees can use their desktops just as they have in the past. It’s simple, fast and requires little to no user training,” he adds. “DaaS requires lots of bandwidth,” is another concern for SMEs as they believe that they will be downloading a ‘desktop’ every time they use DaaS. Average DSL is more than sufficient to accommodate DaaS says Vantipalli. “Though there has been an improved productivity with the thin client vendors VDI and DaaS – this technology is keenly gaining traction from the Indian SMB Market. Our infrastructure is still evolving Making the Data available on time for processing i.e. analysis is also a concern,” says Parekh.
Finally It’s difficult to say if DaaS will replace VDI because there are many players in the market who may have no qualms about spending on something as long as they have the control over it. All-in-all, DaaS makes sense for the SMBs for whom the pay per user/per month model helps them in streamlining their infrastructure within the limit of their budgets.
SME CHANNELS 25 OCTOBER 2015
SME CHAT
GAUTAM PAUL, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF CONSUMER SYSTEMS PRODUCTS (CSP) GROUP, CANON INDIA
“DEMAND FOR CLOUD-& WI-FI PRINTING HAS INCREASED” Canon hopes that Laser MAHE segment will contribute a huge pie of the business in the next couple of years. In a chat with SME Channels Gautam Paul, Assistant Director of Consumer Systems Products (CSP) Group, Canon India, talks about their solutions for the SMB segment.
What are the latest trends in Laser and Inkjet printers? The Laser printer category has been witnessing different consumer behaviour with companies looking at high volume printing. Laser printers are also getting utilized by Government and SMBs at large. Indian offices across various verticals are adopting Laser MFPs to improve their productivity, save cost, be more efficient and to simplify their printing infrastructure. Customers have shown a gradual shift from single function printers to multifunction printers since they look for overall solutions from printers and not just the standalone printers. With increased adoption of mobile phones by customers and their increasing online presence, demand for Cloud-printing and Wi-Fi printing has also seen a significant increase. At the same time affordability is also a key determinant for customers when they buy a printer. Home printing has also given more meaning to Inkjet printers. Due to lowered running cost, smart-device connectivity in printers and Wi-Fi printers are rising and people at home are looking for these options in their Inkjet printers. How does these two score over one another? In today’s changing consumer landscape, both Inkjet and Laser printer are offering compelling prepositions to different customer segments.
26 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
Inkjet printers are primarily positioned for consumer requirements whereas Laser printers cater to SMEs, Government and SOHO segments. Laser printers are used for bulk printing and with new innovations and technology we are also witnessing colour laser printers being used by organizations. Inkjet is majorly inclined towards home users and also for business applications where organizations require high quality photo printing, graphic printing and where there is more use of colour printing like advertising and graphic designing agencies. In both Laser and Inkjet, Multi-Function Printers are emerging as leaders in terms of growth. A gradual shift in preference from Laser printers to Inkjet printers has also been witnessed owing to significant reduction in the per page printing cost. As a leading printing vendor, how has been your growth in these markets in the past one year? As per the latest IDC data, the market share of Canon is 19% in Laser printer market and 22% for inkjet printer market. (IDC Market Share). While the laser category has witnessed a decline, Canon has retained its share in the market. Canon holds a strong position amongst all the players in the Printer Market in India. We are also looking forward to make new business, where Laser MAHE segment will contribute
a huge pie of the business in the next couple of years. Laser MF200 series have gained momentum in the SMBs and corporate houses. Earlier this year, we had also launched our new range of affordable inkjet printers- PIXMA MG2570S and PIXMA iP2870S keeping in mind the needs of the home segment, who are looking out for high quality affordable print solutions. With our new dedicated Partnership programs for VARs and SIs namely Canon Corporate Reseller Program (CCR) and Office Cartridge Reseller Program (OCR), we plan to target the B2B markets. Which market segments offer the best opportunities for growth? It has been observed that the inkjet printers have started gaining grounds in the commercial establishment, and Canon wants to see a significant pie of growth in that segment. We are also looking forward to make new business, where Laser MAHE segment will contribute a huge pie of the business in the next couple of years. SMBs and SOHOs are the target segments that we are targeting through our new launches like MAXIFY and MF 200 series. What is Canon’s channel partner strategy? Canon has been working very closely with chan-
SME CHAT
“WITH OUR NEW DEDICATED PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMS FOR VARS AND SIS NAMELY CCR AND OCR, WE PLAN TO TARGET THE B2B MARKETS.” nel partners and Value Added Resellers (VARs) in all major cities to bring its printers and related services to SOHO consumers. We also plan to reach out to Tier I & Tier II markets through sustained marketing campaign, easy upgrade offers and add-on solutions. Canon has a new dedicated Partnership programs for VARs and SIs namely Canon Corporate Reseller Program and Office Cartridge Reseller Program to target the B2B markets. With their help, Canon will be focusing on cities namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.
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PARTNER STRATEGY
CISCO LOOKS TO
STRENGTHEN
PARTNER STRATEGY In the current disruptive time and technology, Cisco is refocusing on its partner strategy to make them more relevant in the market. The company has added new faces in its global partner organization to bring in innovation and new ideas. BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com
W
ith the new management in place under the leadership of Chuck Robbins as CEO, changes were made in the core team of the organization and Wendy Bahr named the Senior Vice President, Global Partner Organization, Cisco, who was earlier senior vice president of Cisco’s Americas Partner Organization. In her maiden visit to India, which comes under super focused geographies for Cisco, Wendy took stock of the situation in the market. She met representations of the ecosystem partners and media personnel as well. A Cisco veteran of 15 years, this is Wendy’s first visit outside of US especially to India, making her priorities clear. Wendy remarks, “It is a delight to be here, meeting with our team and partners. I have been re-educating myself as the landscape is changing rapidly in India. It is an exciting time -- full of opportunity, but also needs a lot of effort. I have been in five states and in five cities in two weeks.” She adds, “I am excited to see our traditional partners are actually embracing the new ideas and new technologies including software defined architecture, IOT, solution selling, etc.” Actually, a large percentage of Cisco traditional partners see this as their future and they
28 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
want Cisco to help them with skillsets, world map, match making and with new partner types, whether they are the ISV’s or MSIs. Some of its MSI partners, like ILFS and L&T also see value in partnering with Cisco and access to Cisco technologies and innovation. And then, of course, their traditional partners have actually been doing a lot of this and working in a solutions vertical approach and they are most excited about its opportunities for smart cities and IOT. In particular, IOT is huge in terms of the opportunity here in India. She maintains, “So, we are seeing interest at different levels from different partner types, but common across all of them is excitement and enthusiasm about our perspective and what we are doing is to transform our partner organizations to be able to support a new market.” The objective of Cisco and its partners is to collectively deliver tangible benefit to the clients and that’s what really makes the partners excited. As per Wendy it is going to be a journey and all the partners that she is in conversation with are very excited. But some of them are surely nervous as to how Cisco will go about it and how together can go about it together. So, Wendy and her team have been talking to the partners about the importance being open to
adapting and transforming. How they go to the market and how they work with their customers. The first is of course where they all are comfortable in and what are the technology innovations that they should work in. For example, the security portfolio of Cisco, which is now complete and Cisco encourages the partners to adopt. So also the company is talking about ruggedized enterprise networking, routers and switches for IoT environment in manufacturing and also collaboration solutions, etc. Apart from the traditional partners, Cisco is also talking to partners outside the ICT partner ecosystem because the opportunity is there from other vertical markets including supply chains, logistics, manufacturing, etc. Asked about her own mission she answers, “Most of the conversations I have been having with partners is about how we both exchange values, because in this new model, we have new partner types and existing traditional partners, we need to better understand the value, the benefit in this relationship is that we need to exchange because that is the foundation of any good program or incentive or relationship.” “So, we have been very fortunate in the past to have a very strong value exchange in our partner program that I want to keep, and I want to build
PARTNER STRATEGY
WENDY BAHR, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL PARTNER ORGANIZATION, CISCO
DAISY CHITTILAPILLY, DIRECTOR, PARTNER ORGANIZATION, CISCO INDIA AND SAARC
“I AM EXCITED TO SEE THAT OUR TRADITIONAL PARTNERS ARE ACTUALLY EMBRACING NEW IDEAS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES INCLUDING SOFTWARE DEFINED ARCHITECTURE, IOT, SOLUTION SELLING.”
“WE ARE VERY CONSCIOUS ABOUT THE FACT THAT INDIA IS CURRENTLY THE FOURTH LARGEST START UPS COMMUNITY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD AND I THINK IT IS GOING TO ACTUALLY GO UP.”
on that success with these new partner types,” she adds. Asked about the focus on the tier-2, and 3 markets, Wendy says that Cisco would continue working with its traditional distributors to work in the tier 2 and 3 cities, who can help enhance Cisco reach into more tier-2-3 cities. So, for the smaller partners in those areas distributors will remain as the interface to rout to market from distribution and training purpose. But she agrees that with the technology innovation happens there will be some partners who will be irrelevant to the company and surely there will be some bit of consolidation, and that is pretty normal. Wendy maintains, “We see that in many countries, which is pretty natural. We have some
to consolidate, some new partners and some new partners coming in like the Coaxis as an example. But we feel very strongly that the partner community continues to look to Cisco to leap and we just need to be careful that we are working all size partners, because they are very large.” Today, Cisco is working with more than 2500 partners in India and the endeavor is to go to smaller and smaller cities, because with the national broadband, digital literacy will become a big thing and mobile off course is growing and digital literacy will be at the far flung corners of India. So, Cisco understands the potential of that market place and is constantly trying to both unbolt partners as well as build new offers, which will enable success on those markets.
Today, when the challenges are not only emanating from the traditional partners but also from the startups, Cisco also finds it as a splash in the water. Therefore, the whole management is taking it with seriousness. Wendy says, “We agree that the landscape is getting more complicated every day, there are more disruptive technologies, more and more start ups in the market. And there is a paradigm shift in terms of the business models. John Chambers has always been very much vocal about it. He always says do not get comfortable, do not get too complacent event though you are very successful, as some times success is too danger because you get too comfortable. Therefore, he always says ‘Disrupt or be disrupted.” Wendy adds, “So, we have to push ourselves, we have to disrupt. We also have to look for other new opportunities. We have Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple making an announcement that they will be working with Cisco to take our network, our operating system, our technology and make it more secure, make it faster and better experience for when Apple products are used inside an enterprise. That is very different and disruptive too.” The Apple does not usually work with other companies and this is an exciting example of how Cisco is teaming up with other manufacturers to create new opportunities as well. So, that’s just one of many examples of how Cisco has to continue to evolve to how to disrupt or be disrupted. Daisy Chittilapilly, Director, Partner Organization, Cisco India and SAARC, says, “We are very conscious about the fact that India is currently the fourth largest start up community country in the world and I think it is going to actually go up. We are tracking this market very closely and we have a corporate level venture capital to address this. We have corporate venture capital investment in India to the tune of $240 million on various interesting companies.” Wendy maintains, “Start ups are really a big part of our ecosystem strategy. We are always very open and loyal to our existing partners. They do have access to a lot of the expertise that Cisco brings to the established partner community, whether that is engineering, support for codevelopment of solutions and even for marketing support.” Daisy adds, “Once the value proposition for the end customer is clear, then they have access to pretty much all the resources that are existing. There Is Cisco development network which they have access to all the support, which is in addition to the financial support that we bring in.” Wendy concludes, “In addition to this we have $20 million pledged to invest in over 120,000 networking academy resources and many times, which the start ups can leverage from Cisco.”
SME CHANNELS 29 OCTOBER 2015
SME BIZ
EMERSON NETWORK: WORKING ON SOLUTIONING With the huge amount of disruption happening on the market place, the established players are also feeling heat and trying to change their business model to be relevant to the market place. BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com
T
he results from a recent survey indicates that APAC market including India is slightly slower in adopting newer data protection technologies and practices that are being adopted in Europe and North America. On the background of Emerson Electric Co. being demerged making its Network Power unit, the least-profitable division (as quoted in various global reports) separate entity and explore options for other operations to help pump up earnings and a sagging stock price, there are rumours and apprehensions started flying, a nonchalant Ankesh Kumar, Channel Products & MarketingIndia, Emerson Network Power deflects all the questions around the speculations and rumours but maintained that whatever is happening at corporate level is better for the better alignment for the changing business practices. And, there is no change in Emerson Network Power’s strategy for now. “This is a blatant truth that we are going through uncertainty. Previously one knew his/her requirement from the technology perspective – be it server, storage, networking, power or cooling, etc. He knew the road map of the technologies implementation. But the way the technology is changing now and the business environment is changing now - a lot of startups are coming up and suddenly becoming large organizations and revving their infrastructure suddenly without any
30 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
planning, is something very new to the industry. Therefore, modularity and granularity is becoming the call of the day. The power availability and the cost and need of real estate enhancing the possibility of solutions’ availability in cloud is also posing a different set of challenges,” said Ankesh. That is where the movement is happening and the partners do not know how to scale up and address the challenges as the customers do not know which technology is better. Having grown big, the customersneedaround compliance, securityand availability is also growing. Ankesh said, “If you are of 30-40 employee organization, you do not need availability model but once your organization grows you need to be looking at the availability model, which gives ROI.” He maintained, “When we looked out our products portfolio, which are the physical infrastructure solutions can be combined as a rack and row and come with all equipment and management, we found that 70-72% of the hardware component which goes into the deploying such infrastructureis manufactured by us. So we decided that instead of going inbits and pieces, or breaking it product wise we should consolidate. So today even a customer needs a single rack of solution he does not need to bother about compliance, security and availability. It is door delivered ensuring the best of the form factor and best of the energy solutions. He does not need to bother
about where he needs to do flooring or electrical wirings, etc. Everything is being taken care of. He can move the infrastructure from anywhere to anywhere. Today he may be having requirement of single rack with 3 kVA power but tomorrow as he grows to 6 kVAto 30-to 40 to 100 kVAneeds. We can make that available to him without having to dismantle the existing infrastructure.” Emerson is calling it as the Smart Solutions, which is nothing but integrated infrastructure and customer only needs to start putting server, storage and networking on top of it without needing a special room or specialised environment. Ankesh adds, “Our solutions starts from the rack and goes upto the row and to the room. We also have solution which is based on containers. If you have the remote site and you need the data centre, we have the container full of solutionswhich are good enough to kick start your operation without much of worries.” So when we call solution even for example the single rack comes with battery, monitoring devices, security, door alarm, fire alarm and active cooling, etc. and it starts from 1 kVA and goes upto 6 kVA. Then if the requirement grows further, then one can go for SmartRow, which goes from 10 kVA to 40 kVA. If the customer has the 80 kVA then he can go for two SmartRows. And then if the customer wants a pre-fabricated data centre, the company also can offer that. As per Ankesh, Emerson Network Power is working with a lot
SME BIZ
ANKESH KUMAR, CHANNEL PRODUCTS & MARKETINGINDIA, EMERSON NETWORK POWER
“IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO ADAPT THEN YOU ARE MADE FOR SOMETHING ELSE”
very disruptive. You do not know what is going to come. Earlier there used to be some kind of predictability. For example nobody in India imagined (2-3 years back) mobile apps can be of so famous and effective. You can do shopping through apps which is happening today and it is needing optimised data centre.”
Partners’ landscape
of telecom companies for container based data centres. Thecontainer comes pre-fabricated with the customer’ requirement and just goes to the site where customer needs it. Ankesh also maintains that Emerson has created a huge container based data centre for Facebook and also working with an Indian customer as well. In accordance to the recent changes in the market place including internet boom and increased mobility, every services and every company irrespective of startups or large organizations trying to embrace internet and trying to create app based services. This has created a lot of pressure in terms of having a very robust infrastructure. People want to develop more and more data base solutions where everything is dependent on the backbone. One side people are talking about virtualization the other side people talking about putting everything on cloud. So also they are talking about to keep certain applications in-house and others in cloud and various other combinations. Big data and IoT are happening very fast. The only problem what I see is the connectivity. So
though we are talking about the connectivity is still the issue. Telecom companies are also improving their networks. However 4G has also been roll outs and Emerson is actively working with the telecom providers to roll out 4G solution. Ankesh adds, “What we are hoping is the upgradation of the data centre because there are many data centres which are of very old (10-12 years). They updated their IT systems but the cooling systems are still not upgraded. Also the overall data centre infrastructure market is also booming. And companies are looking at creating modern data centres. It means they can access to real-time alert from the data centre to even rack-level and equipment-level alerts.” Earlier the hardware piece in the Data centre is moving into software. Earlier all the components were working independently. Now since one component is affecting others. The customers want some sort of tools or controller which can offer them the single view of entire data centre. With this backdrop, Ankesh maintains, “Recently the time and technology have become
Today thepartner ecosystem is also changing and they are more and more getting into services and solution selling. Reason being the online properties including Amazon,Flipkart and myriad of others are taking the price game to a different level and a partner cannot compete with them. So they want to increase their value by offering services and solutions, which enables them profitability and margin. Ankesh adds, “As a vendor we cannot do the services and solutioning – we only do the training and enabling. Today for example, if we want to sell 3 KVA to 10 KVA there are ten competition in this space and our only focus will be on pricing. Butif we integrate my rack, cooling and software the game changes. This is where the partners play a big role.”
Finally… “So for the partners they should watch out for the current trends. We never thought of the public calling booths will disappear and today actually it is nowhere. If you are not going to adapt then you are made for something else - especially in the technology industry where things are changing very fast!” he concludes.
SME CHANNELS 31 OCTOBER 2015
SME CHAT
ARUNABH GHOSH, SALES DIRECTOR, SOCOMEC
“10% OF SOCOMEC’S TURNOVER GOES INTO R&D” The UPS market is highly commoditized, a high-volume, low-margin market. In a chat with SME Channels Arunabh Ghosh, Sales Director, Socomec talks about the market and plans.
What is Socomec’s presence as far as Indian market is concerned? Socomec is a France-based industrial group; it started its operations in India through business partners in 1991 to promote its UPS and changeover switch ranges. In 2006 Socomec decided to have its own subsidiary in India and established its headquarter in Chennai, with regional offices spread in major locations, serving the length and breadth of the country. Our state of the art manufacturing facility is located in Gurgaon that manufactures UPS, Changeover switches and Load break switches. With the induction of Redington (India) Limited as the national distributor and roping in of a few business partners the channel journey began in 2009. At present we have approximately more than 55 Business Partners, 60+ Active VARs and many Channel partners, and associates across the geographies who promote our products and services. What kind of solutions are you pushing in India? Socomec has four business applications: Critical power, power control and safety, solar power and energy efficiency. Under critical power we offer UPS solutions using the most advanced expertise and cutting-edge technologies. Our UPS solutions start from 600 VA to 900 kVA and cater to all the market segments such as critical building,
32 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
commercial and public building, infrastructure, manufacturing and process industries. Power control and safety & Solar business application offer product such as changeover switches, automatic transfer switches, load break switches, fuses, photovoltaic switches, surge protectors etc. Energy efficiency business application deals with complete range of metering, monitoring and power quality.
ity, high efficiency etc. are not widely recognized by customers. It requires huge effort to transfer this advantage and highlight the financial benefits on a longer run. In recent years depreciation of Indian rupee against US dollar or Euro’s was major concern in the market as it is directly affects the pricing strategy. Although price plays a key factor for decision makers, it’s necessary now to show the customer the value of their investment or Return on the investment which calls for innovative products or solutions.
What are your advantages? As undisputed specialists in power conversion, electrical breaking technology, main supply changeover and measurement, Socomec dedicates nearly 10% of its turnover to R&D. As a result the group can achieve its ambition of always being one technological step ahead. We committed to provide right solution for right applications. Socomec has a vast array of manufacturing and technical expertise that naturally extends to a complete range of service designed to facilitate the design, implementation and operation of our solutions. Our service teams have built their reputation on reassuring guidance, flexible skills and reactivity.
As the market is moving from on premise infrastructure to cloud infrastructure, how is Socomec addressing this market? Socomec through its research and development constantly monitoring the market evolution and design the solutions according to market needs. It was well predicted and developed Green Power 2.0 UPS to serve rapid increase of data processing and storage needs, along with new cloud computing service requirements. Green Power 2.0 UPS from 10 up to 4MW is the ultimate UPS solution to face these new challenges.
What are challenges you face? Having said that we have right solution for the right application with uniqueness of technology in our offered solutions, transferring this technological advancement to customers language in terms of TCO, high availability, reliabil-
What kind of advantage do you see in the market while the market for Emerson is likely to be shaken due to disinvestment? The UPS market is highly commoditized and is thus a high-volume, low-margin market. Rev-
SME CHAT
“WE HAVE ALSO CAPACITATED THE CHANNEL PARTNERS TO POSITION OUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES SPECIFICALLY INTO THE SME SEGMENT WHICH WILL FURTHER HELP TO INCREASE THE REACH AND MINDSHARE WITHIN THIS SEGMENT.”
enue growth is not very high, but quantity growth continues to drive growth of this market. Most of the manufacturers face this issue. As this news was announced at the end of Q2, we are waiting for further development . Who are your major customers in India? We have acquired top customers of each segment
such as IT, ITES, manufacturing, process, data centre, healthcare and infrastructure who put their trust in us. What kind of market activities are you undertaking in order to make more visibility and enhance market share, which inter can help the sales.
We reach out to our customers and prospects through different media like seminars, expos, online advertising and many more. We are also driving some segment specific focused marketing activities to communicate with them. We have also capacitated the Channel Partners to position our products and services specifically into the SME segment which will further help to increase the reach and mind-share within this segment.
SME CHANNELS 33 OCTOBER 2015
SME TREND
COMPUAGE
COMPUAGE EYEING THREE-FOLD GROWTH The IT distribution company has chalked aggressive plans and aims to become a billion dollar organisation by 2017-18 BY KARMA NEGI
karma@smechannels.com
T
he only thing that is Constant is Change so goes the saying. Yet the fear of failure makes most of us resist it but neither can we deny or ignore its importance; and this doesn’t ring much truer than for the constantly changing tech industry which changes more constant than any other industry. For IT distribution company, Compuage Infocom, had it not adopted change and moulded itself according to the changing market demands it would have been a sitting duck and out of business a long time back. But it did not bury its head in the sand like an Ostrich rather it embraced change; evolving itself time and again. “By adopting change not only we survived but became profitable and we continue to grow,” says Atul Mehta, Chairman and MD, Compuage Infocom. “Smartphones are growing in both retail and online. With the coming of technologies like Cloud, Analytics, IoT people need to evolve otherwise they will not survive. It rings true for partners too; if they fail to adopt change they will find their existence at stake. We all need to evolve,” he adds. As of march 2015 the revenue touched approximately Rs. 2400 crores and Compuage wants to grow almost three times and become a billion dollar organisation by 2017-18. “We have aggres-
34 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
sive plans and are talking about 30-35% y-o-y growth. And from Rs. 2400 crores we will be able to move to Rs. 6500 crores of revenue, and of course profit is paramount,” he adds. The product portfolio of Compuage is divided into segments: component, PC, peripherals, enterprise. Each segment is further separated: PCs, peripherals, software, networking, power protection, smartphones and tablets. Evolution is evident as from a only component company 10 years back, when PC components contributed 100% business to its business, its contribution now stands at less than 25%. Moving forward Mehta says the enterprise portfolio will become stronger because of the changing dynamics, the way the trend operates, and the way industry is evolving. Providing technical support services is another separate segment for Compuage, which provides services combined with the products as a solution apart from having pre-sales (which is 5% of its sales team) and post sales team. “This is how we keep on changing and adding to the solutions we provide to resellers,” Mehta adds. The entire business of Compuage is done through resellers and none of its products is sold directly. Cloud is another segment that is on the cards. Mehta says they are evaluating the options as the India market is not mature; though the transition
ATUL MEHTA, Chairman and MD, Compuage Infocom
“WE WANT TO OFFER A SPECTRUM OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO OUR RESELLERS SO THAT THEY GET ATTACHED AND ASSOCIATE WITH US.” is taking place slowly but it is happening. While nothing is planned in the current year plan; cloud features in the three-year plan (till 2017. While he says the Mid-east and Africa markets are exciting and have huge opportunities but, Mehta says, they are being very realistic and the goal is to first fulfil the existing opportunities in India subcontinent before they expand further. It was three years back that Compuage entered the enterprise space and Mehta says it has been a good learning experience. With the job well done now Mehta says they are moving in to the second part -- strengthening its portfolio. Other segment where Compuage has its eyes on is the burgeoning physical security and safety market, followed by cloud computing apart from data analytics or data storage along networking and power. “We want to offer a spectrum of products and services to our resellers so that they get attached and associate with us,” Mehta signs off.
Date: NOV 6, 2015
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SME TREND
PROGILITY
PROGILITY TO DOUBLE BIZ IN 3 YEARS Today, Progility is a vendor independent system integrator and its core business is voice, and is the largest partner reseller for Unify in India BY KARMA NEGI
karma@smechannels.com
T
he ‘smart cities’ project has thrown up a plethora of opportunities for those who are ready and have the arsenals to meet the demands and requirements, and in grow with it. There is going to be demand for vendors and partners alike who can offer and supply integrated solutions to make it a reality. After acquiring 100% per cent shares of Unify Enterprise Communications Pvt Ltd India, Progility now aims to grow and believes that with everything on IP nowadays, it has the skills to work in all the domains for seamless integration. This also led to the change in the business model from direct to partner driven model in India. Now it’s known as Progility Technologies Pvt Ltd. “There is huge potential for growth with smart city projects coming in to the country and this calls for SIs who can do everything end-to-end. There is opportunity for SIs too who are looking at diversified skills which means right from voice to video integration, data, to AV to IP surveillance,” says Anil jain, MD, Progility Technologies Pvt Ltd. He adds, “Progility has the skills to work in all the domains for seamless integration because today everything is on IP and that’s where our skill lies, hence we are targeting to grow both in terms of headcount, geographic so that we are able to cater to the growth rate what the govt is projecting and also get a big share of the smart city projects which are coming up.” Today, Progility is a vendor independent system integrator and its core business is voice, and is the largest partner reseller for Unify in India. Having set for itself an average growth rate of 25% per annum, if all things go well, it sees the business doubling in the next three years.
36 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
Present in 42 cities, it has 10 big regional offices namely Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. Then there are smaller centers in Guwahati, Jaipur, Baroda, Bhopal, Indore, and opening new center in Dehradun and Jammu & Kashmir. “J&K is one of our key focus areas as lot of growth and investment is expected to happen here, hence we decided to open a new office. Within a quarter we should have our operations running in both these markets,” he says. Smart cities includes the integration of voice, video, AV and Jain says that if they are able to take even 5% of that market share in terms of volume it will be huge. Meanwhile, they are working closely with large SIs who are doing everything end-toend and will become service providers to those SIs who are going to pick up the large orders for the smart cities and build with them the networks that the customers are looking for, “plus we have the Siemens heritage with us,” stressed Jain. Within this background Jain announced they will be working jointly with the Siemens group and Progility to address this large market. As hosted solutions require a license Progility has no such solutions of its own but is active resellers of some of the providers. Jain agrees hosting is the future and they need to be prepared by having its own hosted solution but says nothing concrete can be said till the regulatory changes take place and in the meantime they can learn the skills of selling licenses. Healthcare is one of the biggest markets where the company has a strong presence with its voice solutions in this segment. Manufacturing is another important vertical in India and Unify has com-
ANIL JAIN, MD, PROGILITY TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD.
“SME IS FAR BIGGER AND DIVERSIFIED THAN LARGE ENTERPRISE MARKET.” menced manufacturing isolated PoS supplies and have also launched it in the market. “Main verticals that I am looking at are BFSI, defence, big corporate but the fastest growth and quick turnaround is always in the SME,” informs Jain, “It is far bigger and diversified than large enterprise market.” “I have always been very successful in the SME segment; here the sales cycles are smaller and the customers are ready to look into new technologies. Hence, my focus is on large projects and these specific verticals but a big chunk of the focus will be on SME,” he informs.
Finally... On voice front Progility will remain exclusive with Unify. “To reiterate my SI role is vendor independent but when it comes to voice we will be a single vendor. For the entry level market which is non IP based market doesn’t require UC and we have brought in our own range of PBX which is under Progility which are only up to 50 lines for customers who are not looking for higher IP solutions,” Jain informs.
SME CHAT
SATHISH THORRIKONDA, DIRECTOR, VIGILANT TECHNOLOGIES (TELANGANA AND ANDHRA PRADESH)
“EYEING BANGALORE AND PUNE” Vigilant Technologies deals in end-to-end Telecom solutions. In a chat with SME Channels Sathish Thorrikonda, Director, Vigilant Technologies (Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) talks more about the business and market.
Brief us about your company? Vigilant is a leading IT & Telecom service provider with an experience of 10 years, having innovated in the field of IT/Telecom. Our proficiency lies, in blending knowledge, experience and innovations for delivering quality solutions at par, with global standards. A commitment we achieve with our dynamic team of engineers, working in unison with the research and marketing divisions. What is your turnover and growth percentage? Last financial year we closed at Rs. 50 million top line, and this year we aim to achieve Rs. 120 million. What is your strength in terms of market reach and others? We have very strong subject knowledge and we offer end-to-end solution when it comes to Telecom. We have vast experience in designing, deploying and maintaining massive telecom networks. Leveraging on this we have taken few initiatives to penetrate in the market effectively, we have also taken steps towards digital marketing. We have also expanded to Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam and have plans to start branches in Bangalore and Pune.
What kind of solutions and products you are dealing in? We deal in end-to-end Telecom solutions viz, EPBAX, IP-PBX, VOIP Gateways, GSM Gateways, IP Phones, MPLS, Cloud Computing, Biometric Access Control Systems etc.
“WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A PRODUCT WHICH IS QUICK TO OFFER FROM OVER THE CLOUD FOR SPECIFIC MARKETS AND STARTUPS.”
How do you find telecom market in India? Telecom market in India has gone through many roller coaster rides in the last couple of years. But we are happy the way India is progressing in this area, and our association with companies like Matrix Comsec encourages highly.
keeps innovating new technology and solutions. Once again, the range of products and 24/7 support is the key strength of having associated with Matrix. The challenge is to keep innovating as per the market demands and the Telecom market in India is very dynamic.
How do you find Matrix products? Matrix is SUBSTANCE brand. Substance is in the DNA of Matrix solutions. Substance in the form of technology, depth, genuineness and going beyond the mere outer façade and offer more values in all the areas. This is what differentiates Matrix from the lot. Matrix positioning is based on offering more of these true inherent values which customers expect from infrastructure solutions. What is the potential and challenge for Matrix in the market? Matrix is the only Indian company, today, that
How should the company improve its market share? Company has understood and has been adding bigger team, System Integration to effectively penetrate in the market which was a challenge faced few months back. As a partner what kind of products you want to add this year? As 4G is getting launched by all, the Telcos are in full swing, hence we would like to have a product which is quick to offer from over the cloud for specific markets and startups. We would also like to strengthen our existing product portfolio as well.
SME CHANNELS 37 OCTOBER 2015
SME CHAT
CHANDRA SEKHAR PULAMARASETTI, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, SANOVI TECHNOLOGIES
“OUR DR MAKES YOUR BUSINESS EASILY AVAILABLE” The UPS market is highly commoditized and is a highvolume, low-margin market. In a chat with SME Channels Chandra Sekhar Pulamarasetti, Co-Founder & CEO, Sanovi Technologies talks about the market and plans.
How big is the data-recovery-asa-service market? According to a report by marketsandmarkets the DRaaS market is estimated to grow from $1.42 billion in 2015 to $11.92 billion in 2020, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 52.9% from 2015 to 2020. In regional segmentation, North America is expected to be the largest market in terms of market size while Latin America, Asia-Pacific (APAC), and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) are expected to emerge rapidly in this market at high CAGRs. While Gartner’s has given a more conservative report projecting the market at $2 billion by 2018 and a CAGR of 25%. If we calculate India is 2-3% of the global disaster recovery market (DR) which puts India DR market at $120 to 150 million. These smart cities alone can be a million dollar worth on the DR market. How does your software help organisations in keeping their
38 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
data safe? Depending on what you are looking at our software helps organisations to be run continuous service availability no matter what. There are two parts of the business: continuity and migration. When there is an outage of any kind it makes sure that alternative sites are available too. The core advantage of Sanovi is that our DR infrastructure works reliably within very less time window – when the production goes down and comes up within a very short time. The purpose of our DR is to make your business easily available. What is the contribution of India to your overall business? India contributes 50% to our revenue and the rest comes from outside India (70% from Middle East and 30% from US). We are operating in Middle East, APAC and US market, and we recently entered European market. We set footprint in US market last year which now constitutes 60% of the DR market as the deal sizes tends to be larger
“INDIA CONTRIBUTES 50% TO OUR REVENUE AND THE REST COMES FROM OUTSIDE INDIA (70% FROM MIDDLE EAST AND 30% FROM US).” because the companies are larger. Who all are your clients? All top banks in both private and public sectors are our customers today: ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank, India Overseas Bank etc. We have 150 enterprise clients, and 175 cloud SMB customers who primarily came through service providers like Netmagic, Tata Communications etc. Wipro is one of the large partners for us. Enterprise customers work though both direct and SI partners.
GEC AWARDS
2015
Entertainment at Enterprise Channels Awards, Dubai
Sanjib Mohapatra, Publisher, Enterprise Channels MEA giving award
Sanjay Mohapatra , Editor, Enterprise Channels MEA giving award
Sanjay Mohapatra , Editor, Enterprise Channels MEA giving keynote speech
A golfer swinging the stick at the Enterprise Golf Tournament, Dubai
SME CHANNELS 39 OCTOBER 2015
SME BIZ
RASHI
RASHI WANTS TO HIT RS. 2000 CRORE Value added distributor Rashi Peripherals wants to focus on maturing its recently added mobile phone category before it moves to other product lines BY: KARMA NEGI
karma@smechannels.com
T
he India IT distribution market is a tough one, fraught with challenges; many distributors have changed their strategy and become more of solution providers from mere box pushers in order to survive the harsh realities of the changing dynamics of the market. Therefore, it is no surprise that not many new players are entering the distribution business. “The absence of new players entering this market is a sign that the industry is stagnating,” informs Kapal Pansari, Director, Rashi Peripherals. “This is the reason why in the last couple of years the channel segment has been consolidating.” Rashi Peripherals started as a component and peripheral dependant organisation and without losing focus on it and to meet the changing market demands transformed itself by moving into other product
KAPAL PANSARI, DIRECTOR, RASHI PERIPHERALS
“COMPETITION IS FAR MORE IN THE BRANDED ONE THAN IN THE COMPONENT BUSINESS.”
40 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
categories for growth. Partners too have moved from component business to branded ones Pansari adds but stresses, “Competition is far more in the branded one than in the component business.” “In the component it’s the partners who are pushing the product while in the branded segment it’s the brand which is driving the product into the market,” he adds. Recently Rashi added mobile as a new product line and will concentrate on maturing this product category. It’s also looking at other product categories like server and storage segment, software, enterprise class networking products to add into its portfolio. “We have not ventured into these but will soon start looking at them probably by next year,” says Pansari. Pansari adds they are prepping themselves for Lenovo server (with the completion of integration IBM server), as they being their largest commercial distributor partner this product will fall in line with Rashi’s portfolio. This year he hopes to touch Rs. 2000 crore in turnover. With earlier modes of communication like email, SMS, telecallers no longer remaining the only means of effective marketing tools to reach out to partners and addressable customers Rashi has taken to Social Media marketing rather aggressively as part of its marketing strategy. With everybody on Facebook nowadays schemes are released on this media platform. From billing point of view its channel base is 9000 partners but the total database number around 26000. In addition there are 51 branches across the country from sales point of view, and 57 service centers.
REVIEW
PRODUCT
NEW HP PAGEWIDE XL PRINTERS
HP PageWide XL Printers do the job of two printers in one single device, providing monochrome and color prints at break-
KONICA MINOLTA BIZHUB C221
through speeds up to 60 percent faster than
BY MANAS RANJAN
translucent prints, black-&-white whiteprints
info@smechannels.com
KONICA MINOLTA BIZHUB C221 is developed to handle a wide range of jobs for the new Entry Colour Market. They are equipped with Konica Minolta’s renowned Emperon Controller and an array of printing functions that enhances affinity with higher-end MFPs, as well as smart mechanisms that reduce noise, weight and size. In addition, it is compatible for access to mobile devices and cloud services. The model provides added benefits through simple and user-friendly scanning functions for a variety of usage environments. Direct printing from and scanning to USB improves efficiency as it eliminates the need for a PC to use the device. Bizhub C221 delivers outputs of 22 pages per minutes in colour (A4). Two paper cassettes and a manual bypass feeder are standard equipped for a maximum paper feeding, capacity of 1,150 sheets. The upper cassette holds A4 size paper and the lower cassette holds A3 size paper. In bizhub C221 scanned data can be saved in various file formats according to requirement including PDF, JPEG and XPS. In addition to this various PDLs (Page Description Language) – including PCL for general business applications such as Microsoft office, PostScript used for graphic design and DTP, and XPS which supports Windows Vista or later office systems – are supported for smooth print outs. Mac OS is also supported by the commonly used PostScript PDL.
the fastest monochrome light-emitting diode (LED) printer. Included as part of the new portfolio, the HP PageWide XL Blueprinters are also designed to deliver more pages of and digital blueprints with superior quality.
FEATURES
The new printers will enable reprographic
n Incredibly compact A3 colour multi-functionals
houses, print service providers, enterprise
n Emperon controller for advanced
corners to produce computer-aided design
printing performance n Scanning functions for a variety
of uses
central reprographic departments and print drawings & will open new business opportunities with geographic information system
n Advanced network support
maps, point-of-sale applications and posters.
n Convenient functions that are easy to use
the customers have been seeking for years
The HP PageWide XL Printers deliver what
n Outstanding environmental performance
and will revolutionize the production printing
PRICE
black-and-white and color output in a single
market, offering affordable, high-quality device at the fastest speeds available.
WARRANTY On Request
CONTACT
HP PageWide XL Printers are the first products introduced under the new HP PageWide sub-brand. HP business printers and will be scaled for upcoming HP 3D
OVERALL RATING
Multi Jet Fusion printers, the new portfolio delivers on the announcement made last year, providing low operation costs driven by life-long printheads, high ink efficiency and cloud-based support.
n Price: On Request , Warranty: Covered under 3 months warranty and after that the printer gets covered basis click charge, Contact: Sridhar Rao: 9845551891
SME CHANNELS 41 OCTOBER 2015
PRODUCT
NEW ARRIVALS
NETGEAR
NETGEAR DUAL BAND WIFI ROUTER ACER
THE NETGEAR MODEM ROUTER D3600 WITH802 11n Dual Band Gigabit is designed for Faster WiFi speed up to 600 Mbps. The NETGEAR Modem Router D3600 with dual band technology provides WiFi connectivity throughout your home for all your Internet-enabled devices. It also has GIGABIT wire, which makes it Ideal for HD gaming & WAN for fibre connections and NETGEAR genie manager for easy installation and home network management. You’ll enjoy its ultra-fast speed, reliability, secure wireless Internet connections and QoS technology that enable applications such as smoother HD video streaming and low-latency online gaming. Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director, India & SAARC, NETGEAR said, “With the growing use of internet, demand for better in-home WiFi has also increased. Hence, we at NETGEAR have introduced D3600 WiFi Modem Router to cater to these demands. We expect to retainthetrust of our customers by deliveringa faster Wifi speed that too at an affordable price.” Dual Band WiFi provides two separate WiFi networks 2.4GHz for legacy devices and 5GHz which is less interference prone for media streaming. Furthermore, the NETGEAR D3600, Modem Router, comes with features like parental control, which enables web filtering for all your connected devices and Guest Network Access which shares a separate & secure access for guests. n Price: INR 9,000, Warranty: 2 years, Contact: 080-45464687, Email ID: salesindia@netgear.com
ACER ASPIRE WINDOWS 10 DEVICES ACER RELEASED TWO NEW WINDOWS 10 devices, the Aspire R 14 convertible notebook, and the Aspire Z3-700 portable all-inone PC. Both devices with dual-digital microphones feature Acer Purified. Voice with enhanced digital signal processing (DSP) that cancel background noise and improve speech accuracy, allowing people to have an optimized Cortana experience. For a better Windows 10 audio and visual experience, the Aspire R 14 and Aspire Z3-700 feature Acer TrueHarmony Plus technology with Dolby Audio, providing powerful audio with immersive surround. Both devices also ship with Acer BluelightShield, with four professionally tuned modes to choose from, which can effectively reduce eye strain by reducing blue light emission from the screen. The new Aspire Z3-700 all-in-one PC features a built-in battery that will last for 5 hours, allowing consumers to perform desktop productivity or entertainment tasks anywhere around the house. The 17.3-inch Aspire Z3-700 has a chassis of just 15.6 mm slim and 2 kg light, while two kick stands allow it to stand or lay flat like a jumbo tablet. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact:
NCOMPUTING
NCOMPUTING VSPACE SERVER 8.3 AND L350 THIN CLIENT NCOMPUTING VSPACE SERVER 8.3 AND THE L350 THIN CLIENT - adding to its solution-set for the education market and small to medium-sized businesses. Till date NComputing has deployed over 1.4 million units in India with majority of the deployments in these sectors. This new range is strategically developed to catapult companies and institutions towards the next level of growth announced the press release. This is one of the major releases this year for NComputing’s flagship vSpace desktop virtualization platform. The NComputing vSpace Server software aims to provide the best value for customers deploying Windows based desktop computing. The vSpace Server 8.3 is the latest release with support for the most recent Microsoft Windows Server operating systems. Complementing the vSpace Server software are a range of NComputing thin client devices that provide options for different customer use cases. The L350 is the latest offering in the vSpace thin client family and becomes the premium model with the highest performance specifications. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: Monali Handa, mhanda@ncomputing.com
42 SME CHANNELS OCTOBER 2015
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