Overall, the Indian economy
has been very good and broad based that has given advantage to the IT Industry
to grow on top of it. The channel market during 2007 assumed encouraging growth
– almost 25–30 per cent.–VARIndia gives a sneak peek into as to how the IT majors
performed during the year.
Naresh
Wadhwa, President & Country Manager, Cisco, India and SAARC 2007 Performance:
In the year 2007, we retained our leadership in the networking market,
further deepening our verticalization strategy to tap emerging verticals such
as retail, manufacturing, infrastructure and financial services. We launched Commercial
(SMB) as a separate vertical, launching customized solutions, new financing schemes
like the Easy Lease programme to help SMBs adopt the latest technology with optimal
initial investment. In
October 2007, Cisco strengthened its commitment
to India by opening the Cisco Globalization Centre East in Bangalore. Cisco also
entered into a strategic alliance with Wipro to jointly develop and deliver IT
service solutions to help both companies meet their customers’ needs, particularly
in the fast-growing markets around the world.
2008 Roadmap:
At Cisco, we expect rapid growth and transformation taking place across
all the key sectors of the Indian economy – manufacturing, infrastructure, banking,
government and defence, IT & ITeS, telecom, retail, SMB, etc. and we will continue
to enable and augment this growth wave. 2008 will see Cisco in India focus on
driving innovation both internally, with partners, and externally. We will also
direct our resources / energies toward disruptive solutions for the Indian market.
In the future, we will further our reach deeper into India – beyond the tier-II
and tier-III markets–– into areas such as rural banking, connected agriculture,
healthcare, and retail.
Raj
Rathi, Managing Director, Cyberstar Infocom (P) Ltd. 2007 Performance: 2007
has been a remarkable year for Cyberstar Infocom as we conquered many milestones.
We expanded by more than 50 per cent and have also added five new branches across
India. We have also added two new resident offices and launched important product
lines like Lacie, Belkin, Molex, NMS, Lexmark and Alvarion in 2007. In short,
the year 2007 was a year of achievements and breakthroughs for Cyberstar.
Besides these, we also launched an online
shopping site for Creative http://creative.rediff.com/. We also won Best Channel
Server Partner Award from Hitachi and Best Revenue Growth Award from Creative.
2008 Roadmap: We would continue to expand our wing in the
coming year by planning to open up 5–6 more branch offices in India. Besides this,
we are also aiming to add more products to our portfolio, thereby continuing to
deliver higher quality of service and support on all our product lines. We are
expecting more than 50-per cent growth in business. We would be consolidating
our channel business and help our Channel Partners to grow their business as well
as ours. We are also going to launch a new microsite on Indiatimes which would
be designed to enable easy online purchases for Lexmark, Hitachi, Creative and
other product lines.
R.
Manikandan, Business Group Head, IT Division, LG India 2007 Performance: We
are satisfied with our performance in Y2007. Our LCD Monitors saw more than 200-per
cent growth in Y2007 over the previous year. The DVD Writer volumes spiralled
upwards and also posted 364-per cent growth over the previous year. On the Notebook
PC front, we grew by 106 per cent. One million DVD Writers achieved in Y2007.
2008 Roadmap: In the
New Year, we would like to take forward our global goals and vision. We will bank
upon flat-panelled displays, notebooks and optical digital devices (ODDs) as the
principal drivers. We expect growth across all product categories – PCs, LCD Monitors
and Optical Drives. On Notebook PCs and LCD Monitors, we have high growth plans
in excess of 300 per cent in Y2008 over Y2007. We intend to achieve market leadership
through product leadership. We are also looking at profitable growth and a win-win
business proposition with Channel Partners.
Sudha
Jagadish, COO, Dax Networks 2007 Performance: Overall, it was a
rewarding year for Dax with a 24-per cent growth in routers and 27-per cent growth
in switches. Our channel presence greatly strengthened with ADSP programme in
2007 and now we look forward to grow along with these partners. Dax had grown
by 110 per cent with a turnover Rs.88.3 crore in FY 2006-07. On the channel front,
our ADSP footprint increased and we have been successful in entering the tier
II
& III cities. The Drona reward programme
started in April 2007 was a big success. On the product front, Dax was on par
with the technological advancements with IPv6-enabled switches, 10G Cat 6A cabling
solution and STM installations on core routers. We had several prestigious names
added to our client base. 2008 Roadmap: We look towards
strengthening our product portfolio and further expanding our presence in the
high-end networking space. We expect to grow at the same pace, i.e., 110 per cent
with an expected turnover of Rs.95–97 crore approximately in FY 2007-08. Dax will
unveil a series of high-end switches, which will address high-end networking and
security needs. And this year, we propose to conduct hands-on technical training
programmes and sales orientation programmes for end-users and partners in the
non-metro cities as well.
Anuj
Jain, Managing Director, Eurotech Technologies Private Ltd. 2007 Performance:
The year 2007 did fairly well for us. We experienced a growth of more
than 25 per cent over the pervious year. Eurotech launched rugged 6 core outdoor
RoHS-compliant Fibre Optic cable. We also launched high-performance USB-Telephone
Gateway that enables the user to make and receive Skype call by connecting an
analog phone or a cordless telephone to the
gateway. In addition to this, we also launched
products like Video Splitter, Inter PC Cable, VGA resolution cable and 8-port
USB KVM switches. 2008 Roadmap: We are looking for
expanding our presence in the cities like Hyderabad, Chennai and Cochin and look
forward to appointing 3–4 Systems Integrators, and resellers in all the B & C
class cities. We continue to strive for a growth rate of 30–35 per cent in 2008.
Also, we have a series of new launches lined up in 2008 that would include a range
of Data Networking products.
Navin
Matthew, Sales Director, Enterprise Networks, ADC KRONE (India & SAARC) 2007
Performance: Although the year started slow, the later half represented
vibrant activity with Channels and partner SIs pulling in some spectacular opportunities.
We achieved an overall growth of 12 per cent, but our enterprise business alone
grew an unprecedented 57 per cent. Our major achievements were wins with TCS across
several facilities in India and, more importantly, their project
near Chennai, which is reportedly the second-largest
software facility globally. We are currently executing the first phase of this
project. We also gained market share with some global accounts in India like Barclays.
2008 Roadmap: We expect 2008 to be a strong enterprise
year. With the rupee getting stronger, the RoI on IT infrastructure will come
more under the microscope. However, companies and brands that deliver true value
through reliability and technology base will be able to deliver a better total-cost-of-ownership.
We have specific plans to explore some strategic windows in the external market
environment, which we believe our solutions will fit snugly. This is also aimed
at supporting convincing investment decisions by the IT Managers. More importantly,
we will be embarking on some exciting channel development programmes during the
year.
Pratul
Shroff, CEO, eInfochips Ltd. 2007 Performance: Growing at 50 CARG,
we achieved US$15.5 million in the year 2006-2007. The year 2007 for eInfochips
was marked with growth in team and technology expertise, geographic expansion,
and a satisfied customer base. eInfochips has been ranked amongst the coveted
“Top 100 IT Innovators of 2007” by NASSCOM. We also expanded our reach in the
US with setting up a sales office in New Jersey, USA. eInfochips also partnered
with
multiple universities in Gujarat and Maharashtra
as a part of our Academia partnership.
2008 Roadmap: We aim to
achieve 50-per cent growth in the coming financial year and target revenue of
$30 million for the financial year 2008-09. In 2008, we hope to strengthen our
presence in Japan and our Japanese operations should yield results. We also plan
to take a close look at the Indian market for smart surveillance cameras and other
surveillance related products. In addition, we hope to break through in the Business
Intelligence market segment in the year 2008. Of course, we will continue to strengthen
our position in the chip design services. On the systems side, we invested quite
heavily in 2006 and 2007 on streaming media technology, specifically video. We
hope to harvest that investment in the year 2008.
Avijit
Basu, Director – Marketing, SNIA India 2007 Performance: At the
beginning of 2007, SNIA India had an aggressive goal of bringing its membership
to close-to 80 (we had only12 members in 2004) and we are very happy to announce
we closed the year with 94 members which include practically all the leading storage
vendors as well as leading IT partners, Systems Integrators, ISVs, end-users and
corporate organizations.
2008 Roadmap: In 2008,
we would be ready to increase training across the country through the franchise
route, carefully handpicking our franchise partners so that we do not dilute the
quality of the training programme. Our goal is to include more corporate, Channel
Partners and SIs in 2008 and hopefully to cross the membership to over 150 plus.
We would be participating in major events like Convergence 2008 and other Round
Table Conferences and Workshops. Also, enriching our site and Newsletter with
technical papers and articles on new technologies like Green Storage, File Management,X-tensible
Access Method(XAM), etc.
Sunny
Pokala, Chairman & CEO, Amtex Group of Companies 2007 Performance: It
has been a year of mixed growth for us. We have added to our clients and strengthened
our internal delivery capabilities this year. Globally, we have expanded our headcount
from 800 to over 1,500 across US, UK and India. In India, we have also expanded
the strength of our Delhi office and have set up presence in Hyderabad. Our revenues
in the last financial year 2006-07
were US$60 million. We had a successful foray
into BPO services, early this year. The construction of our IT infrastructure
– the first of its kind “plug-n-develop” centre on the IT corridor in Siruseri
in Chennai is also undergoing significant progress and we hope to have this ready
and functional by end 2008.
2008 Roadmap: We will continue
to see growth in 2008. We will see the growth of our BPO, software testing and
Quality assurance services in India. Our services in the financial services and
telecom industry, where we have strong experience and expertise will see significant
growth since these segments are witnessing tremendous growth. We expect to grow
at 40 per cent and are targeting a turnover of US$84 million. We will be partnering
with a world leader to become their Indian representative and will be making an
announcement on this soon. Business Intelligence will be a key vertical for us
and we look to drive growth in this.
Ajay
Shankar Sharma, CEO, Srishti Software Applications Private Ltd. 2007 Performance:
2007 has been a year of achievements for Srishti. Srishti completed 15
installations of its HIS product in 2007. We experienced a growth of 30 per cent.
Srishti successfully implemented Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS)
with HDTV production facility in the President Estate Clinic (PEC), the family
wing of Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi.
2008 Roadmap: Srishti
is now gearing up to achieve the target of getting orders for installations of
the HIS product at 40 hospitals by April 2008. We are targeting around 100-per
cent growth in our revenue. At Srishti, we plan to widen our geographical reach
in the healthcare sector in India by 2008. We have appointed channel partners
in India and are in the process of appointing channel partners to reach out to
the South-East Asia and Middle East markets and plan to invest close-to half a
million dollars in South- East Asia and Middle East for sales and marketing in
2008-2009.
Jim
Simon, Director of Marketing, APAC, Quantum 2007 Performance: 2007
was an excellent year for Quantum. Specific to India, Quantum doubled its sales
team to help channel partners close more Quantum business. Capping it all off,
Quantum opened a software development centre in Hyderabad, which is expected to
reach 75 employees in 2008 (a US$10-million investment). Quantum continued to
enhance the privileges of membership in our channel programme (Quantum Alliance).
2008 Roadmap: Quantum
will be leveraging its worldwide leadership in tape automation to expand its disk-based
backup (with data deduplication and replication) solutions and software solutions.
Quantum’s focus will be on push and pull. Quantum will invest in (i.e. certify)
our channel partners who have the skill set to sell data protection solutions.
At the same time, we will generate end-user demand to pull sales through our certified
channel partners. We think that 2008 will offer incredible opportunities for
Quantum certified channel partners to profit from the sale of backup, recovery
and archive solutions.
Shyam
Gopal, Regional Manager for India and South East, Brocade 2007 Performance:
2007 has been an extremely good year for Brocade, with us launching a
number of innovative products and solutions to address customer needs in the evolving
data centres. During fiscal year 2007 which ended October 27, 2007, our revenues
were $1,236.9 million, up 65 per cent from the company’s fiscal year 2006 revenue
of $750.6 million. The company had a record-breaking fiscal fourth quarter 2007
revenues from its director.
2008 Roadmap: Server
virtualization due to huge growth in data mostly attributable to the Internet
and e-business. This, in turn, has created significant demands for the storage
of all this data causing a space crunch. A second emerging trend is towards’“Green
computing”. There is an increasing trend towards adopting more environment- friendly
IT practices from both an environmental and business perspective. Thus, this creates
new opportunity for companies like ours. We believe that there are four hot technologies
to watch in 2008. These include: Multicore Innovations and Virtualization for
Servers, Storage and Files, Fabric Applications, Blade Server Deployments and
Power Efficient IT Products.
Austin
Huang, Regional Manager, India and South-East Asia, Transcend 2007 Performance:
For Transcend, 2007 proved to be an extremely fruitful year. Our consistent
efforts and aggressive marketing strategies resulted in incredible growth in our
business both in India and across other markets worldwide. We are proud to say
that we have experienced 102-per cent growth and the
company’s turnover is above US$100 million.
The major achievement of Transcend has been the success of our aXeRam Overclocking
Memory Kit, which has won critical acclaim in the industry and established itself
as a better performer compared to kits with heavy heat-pipe cooling. Transcend’s
MP3 players have also been able to outperform competing products from other manufacturers
due to our great price/quality value, excellent sound and enhanced features. We
also have recruited a number of influential distributors with expansive reach,
helping us expand our channel base and also reinforce Transcend’s brand image
in the market.
2008 Roadmap: We are targeting to make
the most of the available opportunities in the Flash card market in the year 2008.
We wish to further strengthen our position as the strongest brand in this segment.
We shall strive to get a major share of the market through Telecom channels, especially
those of mobile handsets. In 2008, we are confident to maintain our 3-digit growth
yet once again! One can expect that we shall aim for further enhancement in our
product portfolio and value proposition of every single product that we offer.
Suresh
Pansari, Managing Director, Rashi Peripherals Pvt. Ltd. 2007 Performance:
We have managed to keep pace with the industry growth over the last couple
of years and this year was no different. In fact, this year we managed to grow
over by 40–45 per cent over the previous year. We added a couple of new brands
this year in our portfolio. We could meet new set of Partners in different parts
of
India during CBF III (Channel education activity
for 51 cities) that helped our business to grow in the untapped regions of C,
D and E class cities. We take this opportunity once again to thank all the Channel
Partners and Vendors who supported Rashi for this project.
2008
Roadmap: As usual, we at Rashi will introduce many a new products as
and when our vendors release them. Plus some new brands will be added to further
strengthen our product portfolio. On the strategy front, once again this will
evolve around new businesses, trends and technology that should further help grow
our business.
Rajul
Garg, Co-founder & VP – Corporate Development, GlobalLogic 2007 Performance: We
had a great 2007! We achieved sound business growth, integrated two acquisitions
we had done in late 2006, opened new operations in UK and China and saw great
client and employee traction! We grew about 70 per cent organically in the year.
We grew to just under 2,500 people in 2007. We won the InfoWorld award for agile
innovation for our innovations around the Velocity platform and
distributed agile delivery model. We have
been ranked among Top 15 exciting and emerging places to work for by NASSCOM.
We signed up exciting new clients such as GridApps, Mobio, Corporate Executive
Board, FreightDesk Technologies, TravelGuru, Teklynx, rPath, Acteva, etc.
2008
Roadmap: We have a very positive outlook for 2008. We expect to continue
our robust growth, grow our new geographies, and complete new acquisitions that
we have been working on. We would expect to grow about 100 per cent to about 5,000
people by the end of 2008. We will continue to innovate through Velocity platform
and method to shorten product roadmaps. We will also continue to come up with
newer mechanisms for employee engagement and empowerment.
Geetha
K.B., Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Hardware 2007 Performance: The
year 2007 was a good one for Microsoft Hardware, both globally and in India. Last
year marked our 25th anniversary and also the unveiling of our new line of advanced
peripherals, which are doing very well in the markets now. Besides that, globally,
Microsoft shares surged 19 per cent for the year, our best calendar-year performance
since 2001. Last year, we also increased our
focus on the gaming peripherals category
and have launched a slew of products in the market, and have some more in the
pipeline. To enhance our gamers’ PC experience, we introduced special “Gaming
combo packs”. We also carried out channel promotions like “Dil Chahata Hai”, “25
pe 25” Offer and “Discover India Yatra” for our reseller network across the country,
to celebrate our 25 years of operations globally.
2008 Roadmap:
Over the last four years, we have been growing at an average rate of
80 per cent yoy, and we are targeting a growth of 40 per cent for this year. Hardware
is contributing 50 per cent and Xbox contributes 50 per cent of the total revenues.
In 2008, we will continue to focus on the gaming peripherals category. We will
also line up a new set of products and will constantly work towards enhancing
the life of our customers. This year, we aim at dominating the PC hardware, game
and electronic entertainment sectors. The company has also set itself an aggressive
target of crossing the millionth customer mark in India in this fiscal. One of
our most important plans this year is to introduce more gaming and ICE products
that will not only make the gaming experience richer but through its advanced
features, will give gaming a whole new dimension.
Sanjay
Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence 2007 Performance: It was a year of
opportunities in the BI space. With three of the largest competitors in the field
taken over by software giants, we were thinking that the best days of the business
intelligence market were over. The journey has begun and major of SI has realized
that customers are looking out for solutions. We have seen our channels that are
now creating industry-specific solutions. We are a young company and have experienced
explosive
growth of over 270 per cent in 2006. NASSCOM’s
100 IT Innovator 2007, Microsoft Gold Partnership, 1KEY certified by Microsoft
Platform Test for ISV solution, Emerging Enterprise from NASSCOM, Participation
at ATRE RED HERRING, Sybase Alliance and HP ISV.
2008 Roadmap:
We are excited about MAIA Intelligence niche BI business model for 2008
and our new ISV-OEM strategy. BI market has only 10 to 15 per cent penetrated
in the user base, we have a huge opportunity, open field, it’s green, and we can
go sell forever in there. In January–February 2008, we are coming up with MAIA
Intelligence CIO Power List an annual listing of Celebrity CIOs and recognizing
them. We see that the channel market will now create specializations with various
verticals like finance, manufacturing, banking and so on. They will grow with
this vertical expertise with niche offerings. We expect in the coming year with
similar trends and grow over 100 per cent in 2007. 1KEY Agile – The complete BI
Suite release. New OEM partners sign up.
Nitin
Malhotra, Country Manager, Kingston India 2007 Performance: Kingston’s
brand awareness in India largely increased in 2007, especially the pen drive product
line.’In order to deliver more efficient and satisfied customer services to our
customers, Kingston established local offices in the middle of 2006, which showed
our commitments to the local market. Working with Accel Frontline, a Chennai-based
warranty services outsourcer with over 36 offices in 34 cities and 100 Service
locations
in India. In 2007, we improved a lot on our
customer services, by referring to the feedbacks from customers. Since our inception
in India in the late 2006, we have become the market leader in memory. One of
the achievements of 2007 was that Kingston became the dominating brand in the
market and that our products were easily available because of our large channel
footprint.
2008 Roadmap: The Kingston Indian team aims
to take a big step in 2008, including the sales growth, market share, brand awareness,
and the quality of customer services. Our key focus in 2008 would be to make Kingston
a brand of choice in the performance user market and expand this market. Significantly,
we would like to build up a lifestyle brand image for Kingston. In 2008, we are
keen to increase market opportunities for our performance products in India and
will actively promote these product lines going forward. The most important thing
is that we will present more and more localized products and sales or marketing
campaigns, and show our care of the Indian market.
Hariharan
Ganesan, Managing Director for India & SAARC, Compuware 2007 Performance: The
year 2007 was a year of growth for Compuware both in terms of number of customers
and partners. We saw a tremendous growth and added 30 new customers, strengthened
our strategic alliances and have already seen a 100-per cent year-on-year growth.
This year, we took a step ahead and established our direct presence in India through
our new office.
2008 Roadmap: The year
2008 is going to be bigger than 2007. We are setting ourselves a big goal and
we are confident of achieving it. We intend to add more customers, build strategic
partnerships and a strong ecosystem. We are again looking at beating our current
numbers by 200 per cent in the least. There are a lot of new initiatives for 2008.
We will focus on: Increasing Reach, Driving Changepoint and increasing our BSM
/ ITSM solution Vantage’s adoption in the key industry verticals.
Iqbal
Gandham, Chief Business Strategist, Nivio 2007 Performance: 2007
was a very exciting year, where we actually entered the market albeit in Beta
mode. Our team has grown from a mere 10+ people to over 40, and we have just completed
our new office. We have almost tripled the number of employees, and now our team
expands from India, to UK, to US, we work in four different time zones, and live
on blackberries, well most of us do. In 2007, we did our formal launch in India
during the
month of May. Well over 15,000 users tested
our product. We have added a node in Delhi. Hence, now we have two nodes – one
in Switzerland and the other in India. A third is being planned. We signed an
investment-based partnership with AMD.
2008 Roadmap: We
are not prepared to discuss something as yet, since there are a few exciting partnerships
in the pipeline which we would not wish to jinx. We will be able to talk about
it in early April. You will hear about Nivio more, Nivio will be out there more,
with the consumers. Unfortunately, we cannot discuss the new parts to our product,
but there is something very exciting just around the corner. Our team will continue
to do what it does best, i.e., be original, we will not follow, but carve a new
path. 2008 is Nivio’s year, and the year of applications on demand, online computing,
and changing the way we work.
Sriram
Viswanathan , Channel Manager – India & SAARC, RSA 2007 Performance: The
year 2007 was excellent for RSA, the Security Division of EMC in terms of our
customer acquisitions, growth in business and the solution stack adopted by the
customer base. We grew our business by more than 100 per cent over Y2006. Major
inroads into the Consumer Authentication
Business (for online channels) with the
financial institutions and compliance based SIEM solutions across multiple vertical
segments.
2008 Roadmap: We expect adding at least 75
new clients. We will continue to grow our existing customer base and position. We
would be ramping up our partner engagement model aggressively across the mid-market
as well as the enterprise segment. There would be new product introductions in
the Data Security and Encryption Space. Our key focus would be on the BFSI, ITeS
and government verticals.
Rana
Gupta, Director, SafeNet India Limited 2007 Performance: As expected,
2007 turned out to be the best performing year for India Sales office. SafeNet
India delivered unmatched performance in all the areas and strengthen its position
for further growth. Information Security continued to be a growing concern for
the Indian market as various infrastructural initiatives go live and that has
been reflected in the strong growth that has been witnessed by SafeNet. This year,
India office has got a
tremendous growth in both enterprise and
rights management business. While accounts are still crunching the numbers, it
is safer to say that India Office witnessed a strong double-digit growth in 2007
– upwards of 30 per cent. 2007 saw us continuing our strong support to banking
and finance segment catering to the high security needs for the high value transactions
while expanding into Electronic Payments market. In Rights Management product
line, the anti-piracy as well as licensing concept have been taken by developers,
resulting in another strong growth area for us.
2008 Roadmap:
The year 2008 is expected to bring new heights to SafeNet’s business
in India. We expect to contribute value to India’s growth story while continuing
with the strong double-digit growth for our top and bottom line. We are expecting
to continue the growth rate that we witnessed in 2007 going into 2008 as well.
Selling through channels will still remain our sales strategy, and we will continue
to work closely together with our partners to develop the market.
Alamuri
Sitaramaiah, Director – Sales & Marketing, Fluke Networks, India 2007 Performance:
The year 2007 marked a consolidation of Fluke Networks’ business and
of considerable growth. A high double-digit growth has been achieved, marked with
significant brand awareness among our enterprise customers. Significant wins have
been achieved with enterprise customers, including the Ministry of IT and several
enterprise customers. The enterprise
segment has seen 100-per cent growth, marked
by deeper penetration of enterprise and managed services providers.
2008
Roadmap: There will be more focussed activity on key channel development. The
company has a growing channel presence and plans to further expand its channel
base across the country in 2008.
Niranjan Singh, Acro Engineering
Company 2007 Performance: The year 2007 was tremendous for us. We
experienced a good growth. 2008 Roadmap: We have high expectations
this year. We will do more than 2007, almost 100 per cent more. We will open 2–3
branches in the west and south India.
Ivan
Tsai, Product Head of Tagan in India, Nanopoint 2007 Performance: It
has been a good year for us globally. A significant landmark in 2007 was our ESA
project initiative with NVIDIA. In India, we have just begun our journey in 2007
having signed up Tirupati Enterprises as our specialist distributor for TAGAN
range of high-end PSUs in India. Globally, we have recorded significant growth
across all our product lines. In India, the beginning has been good and we expect
to achieve a good
market share in 2008. We have also developed
a brand new 1500W power supply prototype and expect to launch commercial versions
in early 2008.
2008 Roadmap:We expect that in 2008, TAGAN
will be a dominant PSU in the PC enthusiast, gamer and graphic workstation user
markets in India. We would like to record a significant market share in our first
full year of operations in India. We will also be targeting additional product
announcements in 2008. Innovative marketing campaigns to help differentiate the
TAGAN premium PSU product lines will be our key focus in 2008. In addition, we
will, with close association from leading GPU, Memory, MOBO and Processor vendors,
help develop emerging DIY, Gaming and PC Enthusiast communities in India.
Manisha
Sood, Country Manager, India and SAARC, SanDisk 2007 Performance: India
is a key market for SanDisk and we view this as a high-growth market. We appointed
two national distributors – Rashi Peripherals and Ingram Micro to ensure that
we have the right channel coverage in India. When SanDisk entered India, last
year, there was a need to educate channels and retailers about flash memory cards.
The company undertook several training programmes that
covered a large number of our resellers.
Today, SanDisk products are available across all the key cities in India. We completed
one year of operations in India and substantially strengthened our position here.
SanDisk was instrumental in lowering the duty from 22 per cent to 4 per cent in
India. SanDisk also played a key role in changing the dynamics of the grey market,
which had a whopping 84-per cent share (according to IDC). Today, the organized
market for flash memory cards is steadily growing.
2008 Roadmap:
SanDisk is a pioneer and the leader in the flash memory segment and we
will continue to tie up with partners as a strategy to increase our market share.
We will increase our channel coverage to help us reach more customers and continue
to pursue our branding efforts with channel partners, resellers and at point of
purchase at retail outlets. The company will also focus on product training for
channel partners and resellers. We are looking at strengthening our position as
a leader in the flash memory market through strategic investments in educating
channels, running exciting promos with channels and consumers and finally optimizing
branding at point of purchase. Keeping the tradition of SanDisk, the company will
continue to launch newer and innovative products for our customers.
Morikazo
Sano, Vice-President – Sales & Marketing, Buffalo Incorporation 2007 Performance:The
year 2007 was full of growth and achievements for Buffalo in India. Our growth
is almost 100 per cent compared to the year 2006. We have done almost business
of $1 million in India so far. (Includes wireless, storage and NAS). We successfully
placed Buffalo Wireless product in the highly price-sensitive Indian market.
Our better quality, high-performance routers and
access points are irresistible to the customer.
NAS is a joy product for channel community to have better margins for their efforts.
2008
Roadmap: The year 2008 is very important for Buffalo. Wireless product
positioning was our first step in the Indian market, which is basically to make
the consumers understand that Buffalo promises quality products to the market
and Buffalo, as a brand is a serious player in India. Now, our focus is on storage
and NAS market. New product line-ups right from lesser pricing lesser feature
products to higher pricing higher feature products. There will be networking and
storage solutions for every segment from Buffalo.
Intel’s Roadmap for 2008: Ramp the
45 nm technology and commercial production of Wimax technology products. Intel
technologies to look out for in 2008: * Lead Free and Halogen Free Processors
* 45 nm process technology based Dual Core and Quad Core becoming mainstream
desktop processors * Intel vPro processor technology with 4 series chipset
supporting Intel Active Management Technology 5.0 – higher standards of optimized
built-in Manageability and security features * Intel Virtualization Technology
for Directed I/O * FSB scaling up to 1600MHz in Extreme segment * New
Chipsets supporting DDR3 1333MHz * Intel Centrino Pro processor technology
for Notebooks supporting Intel Active Management Technology 4.0 * WiFi/Wimax
combo support in notebooks * Intel Quick Path Interconnect * Intel Multiflex
server technology
Intel’s products to look out for in 2008: * Core 2 Extreme edition 45 nm process technology processors * X48BT2
extreme edition desktop board for Gamer and power Users * D5400XS dual socket
desktop board for Gamers and power users, scale up to two processors and eight
cores in two sockets, Four PCI Express slots with NVIDIA Quad SLI support
* Intel vPro processor technology based on Q45 chipset and 45 nm Dual core / Quad
Core processors * New 4 series Chipset-based motherboards * “Montevina”
notebook platform mid of next year with 45 nm mobile processor / 4 series chipset
also with Wi-Fi / Wimax combo * New platform for the Mission Critical (Currently
Itanium 2) segment * 45 nm Dunnington processors for Xeon MP platform
* New platform for Dual Socket servers * Intel Modular Server
