Digit Channel Connect April 2009 Issue

DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT � AprIL 2009

e d i t o r i a l

I am sure that you are being inundated by all the gloom and doom that’s been domi-nating almost all the news that’s coming out from various global news-gathering

mechanisms about the state of individual econo-mies and, more importantly, the state of the IT industry at large.

But let me let you on to a little secret. I have been in regular touch with a number of global marketing heads of various large vendor con-glomerates, and there seems to a common refrain running through all their plans for boosting their market share in face of ever-increasing competition. The channel, is what all these marketing battle-scarred veterans have to say, is what holds the key. The key to help unrav-el new markets, to keep a tighter hold on the pulse of the market… the very basis for survival.

In fact, my inbox is being flooded by com-muniqués being sent by some leading industry doyens (not all of them in India) on how the entire customer-facing and marketing person-nel of their organisations are relying on their channel partners to meet their targets. Across the globe large organisaions have reduced their spending on new technologies and are actually on the path of consolidaion and in the process of re-strategising their IT. It is the small- and mid-market organisations which are spending

on IT to grow. They are evolving from mere sales organisations to become more professionally managed companies, using IT as their weapon in the marketplace.

But the game, as you all know, is not just about boosting profits. It’s really about under-standing your customer.

On an aside, I received some really disturb-ing news just a few days back about how the channel community in India has been facing the stark consequences of the slowdown—an enterprising channel partner in the south of India, whose name I would obviously not like to reveal—was forced to take his life because of some major credit defaults.

This shocking and disturbing news item just goes to prove that all the major marketing battles are being fought by you—and our endea-vour at Digit Channel Champs has always been to bring you all the facts—and nothing else.

SUJAY NAIREditorial Director; Digit Channel Connect

That crucial last-mile connectivity

The key to help

unravel new markets for the IT industry lies with the channel community

Write to the EditorE-mail: [email protected]

Snail Mail: The Editor, Channel Connect,KPT House, Plot 41/13, Sector 30, Vashi,Navi Mumbai 400703

[email protected]

s o u n d i n g b o a r d

Falling MarginsThe global economic slowdown has hit even the channel community hard. Though sales are

declining, the margin remains the same. But creating a balance and coping with the situation is a challenge which every channel partner has to face.

Regards,P K Sharma

Comnet Vision, New Delhi

great MagazineDigit Channel Connect is another nice product for the channel community. I liked the layout

and design. The product features as well as the tips make the magazine an interesting read. Regards,

Puneet Singhal Pioneer Enterprises, New Delhi

good tipsDear Editor,I have been reading your magazine for the past few issues, and I should say that it is shaping

up very well. I would also like to attend your Channel Champs program as I feel it would be highly beneficial for entrepreneurs like me.

Regards,gurPreet Singh,

Ambala

C O N T E N T S

DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT 4 APRIL 2009

The gloves are off in the battle for the datacentre. Erstwhile allies in this area are now facing off even as improvements in technology have laid the basis for a level playing field. So how can the channel community hope to profit from all the brouhaha?

PRODUCT REV IEW

16

COVER STORY

HP- BL 460C Blade Server..................... 08

Quick Heal Antivirus............................ 10

Intel Modular Server............................ 18

1212RANJAN CHOPRACMD, TEAM COMPUTERS

EDITORIAL ..........................................................................03

TRENDS ...................................................................06, 08,10

CELEBRITY CONNECT ........................................................27

ANALYST-SPEAK ...............................................................28

R E G U L A R S

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 5

Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj SinhaPrinter & Publisher: Kanak Ghosh

EDITORIALEditorial Director: Sujay NairAssociate Editor: Devarajan MahadevanSr. Correspondent: Maneka Tanwani DESIGNCreative Head: Kabir MalkaniArt Director: Rohit A ChandwaskarChief Designer: Abraham K JohnIllustrators: Shrikrishna PatkarPhotographer: Jiten Gandhi

SALES & MARKETINGVP Sales & Marketing: Navin Chand SinghNational Manager - Events and Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623)Business Manager (Engagement Platforms) Arvind Ambo (09819904050)National Manager - Channels: Krishnadas Kurup (09322971866)Asst. Brand Manager: Arpita GanguliCo-ordinator - MIS & Scheduling: Aatish MohiteBangalore & Chennai: Sanjay Bhan (09341829285)Delhi: Pranav Saran (09312685289)Kolkata: Jayanta Bhattacharya (09331829284)Mumbai: Ganesh Lakshmanan (9819618498)

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICSSr. GM Operations: Shivshankar M HiremathProduction Executive: Vilas MhatreLogistics: MP Singh, Mohd. Ansari, Shashi Shekhar Singh

CHANNEL CHAMPSSr Co-ordinator - Events: Rakesh SequeiraEvents Executive: Pramod JadhavEvents Executive: Johnson NoronhaAudience Dev. Executive: Aparna Bobhate Audience Dev. Executive: Shilpa SurveEvents Programmer : Vijay Mhatre

OFFICE ADDRESS

Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd., KPT House, Plot 41/13, Sector 30, Vashi, Navi Mumbai - 400 703 Phone: 40789666 Fax: 022-40789540, 022-40789640

Printed and published by Kanak Ghosh for Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd.C/O KPT House, Plot 41/13, Sector 30, Vashi (Near Sanpada Railway Station), Navi Mumbai 400703

Editor: Sujay NairC/O KPT House, Plot 41/13, Sector 30, Vashi (Near Sanpada Railway Station), Navi Mumbai 400703

Printed at Silverpoint Press Pvt. Ltd,TTC Ind. Area, Plot No. : A - 403, MIDC,Mahape, Navi Mumbai - 400709

A D V E R T I S E R S I N D E X

Channel Champs Program

E V E N T C O V E R A G E

20

Q&A

IBM ................................................................................................... IFC,IBC,9,13,15,19

Cisco ...................................................................................................................... 1,5

Topnotch .................................................................................................................. 2

Neoteric ....................................................................................................................7

Gigabyte ................................................................................................................... 11

Jupiter .................................................................................................................... 21

Abacus ................................................................................................................... 23

No Criminals in politics .......................................................................................... 26

Pushpam ................................................................................................................ 28

EMC ........................................................................................................................ BC

A call to arms

MicroWorld appoints Shani Peripherals as Gujarat distributor

MicroWorld, a provider of world’s first Real-Time AntiVirus and Content Security solutions, has announced the appointment of Shani Peripherals as its distributor for Gujarat. With this strategic

association MicroWorld aims at expanding its market reach for its popular anti-virus and content security solutions in this key developing, industrial and vibrant state of Gujarat.

Anil Gupta, Head of National Sales, MicroWorld said, “With a decade long experience of handling premium networking and peripheral brands, Shani possesses the requisite credentials to help expand our reach and market share in this rapidly growing region.”

MicroWorld provides an extensive range of real time antivirus and content security software solutions, for desktops and servers, under the brand name eScan.

“MicroWorld products perfectly comple-ment our vision and goals and we are happy with our tie-up with MicroWorld for eScan security products. We have a network of more than 100 SIs, 200 Value Added Resellers and around 400 resellers across Gujarat and we will deliver the eScan range of products through all these channels in the Gujarat region,” said Kshitij Desai, Director and Founder Member, Shani Peripherals.

Following its recent collaboration with AMD, XFX has introduced its first Radeon HD-powered

4000 series cards in India. XFX Radeon HD-powered 4000 series includes HD 4870, 4850, 4650 and 4350 graphic cards, adding to its line of extreme performance graphics cards.

“Multimedia enthusiasts and gamers in India crave for the best graphics performance for a realistic experience. At AMD, we strive to bring the best graphics perform-ance and thus a thrilling experience to gamers and multimedia enthusiasts through the ATI graphics technology. We are very excited that XFX has decided to bring ATI Radeon 4000 series based graphic cards,” said Patric Wong, Director of Graphics business, Asia-Pacific region, AMD.

Introducing the latest series Sunny Narain, VP - Regional Sales, Asia Pacific, XFX said, “XFX is a major player in the graphics indus-try and is known as a graphics master. Ever since our worldwide launch earlier this year, we have been noticing an ongoing demand from our partners in India for XFX ATI series. In order to fulfill this demand and to provide a complete solution, we are going to offer ATI’s award winning ATI Radeon HD 4000 series in India.”

Narain added, “XFX fans in India can expect to have a range available from us, starting from the mainstream 4350 all the way to the very new and upcoming 4890. This series will be equipped with features like Unified Video Decoder 2 for Blu-ray and HD Video, DX10.1 support, ATI Stream Technology and lots more. Undoubtedly, these will be offered with all the features that XFX is known for”.

All the five models from XFX Radeon HD-powered 4000 series features an exceptional memory bandwidth, board power, compute power and a number of industry-firsts. For example, the XFX Radeon HD 4870 is the first graphics card with GDDR5 memory. The XFX-partnered Radeon comes with all of the popular features that XFX is known for, including access to customized drivers and factory overclocked XXX series.

XFX introduces first Radeon HD-powered 4000 Series GPU

QUICK FACT

of enterprises expect some datacentre expansion, says survey

50%

Gigabyte announces winners of ‘Beat the Pros’ contest

Gigabyte Technology, a manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, has announced the winners

of the ‘Beat the Pros’ competition. More than 26 people beat their 1508MHz DDR2

memory overclock record using one of Gitgabyte’s P45 Ultra Durable 3 motherboards.

With a DDR2 memory overclock of 1800.80MHz, and setting the new world record for highest DDR2 memory overclock, the first place winner was Barani Shahryar from Iran. Barani claimed the title of Gigabyte Beat the Pros Champion and is now the record holder of the world’s fastest DDR2 memory overclock; he also received $1,500. In second place was James Trevaskis from Australia; in third place was Jadid Hasan from Indonesia, with a score of 1734.02MHz.

Rashi Peripherals along with ASUS Technology flew 130 partners to Dubai, on the successful completion of the ‘Asus Rock Solid Scheme’. This 2 nights/ 3 days trip to Dubai held

during 13th-15th March 2009 included a visit to Ski Dubai, Mall of Emirates and a Gala Night hosted especially for the AEC (ASUS Elite Club) partners. The highlight of the trip was the visit to Desert Safari wherein the thrill and excitement of a roller coaster ride on the sand dunes turned out to be a lifetime experience for the partners.

Also present during the trip Albert Tung, Country Manager - South Asia Team, ASUS Technology said, “It was a great experi-ence and a beautiful congregation to be with and to share some memorable moments with our partners. Through a very relaxed weekend in Dubai I could be with our friends and their families who enjoyed a series of activities which was truly what this entire outing was set for and would also like to welcome them for future trips in times to come. Let’s grow towards a long term partnership which takes us beyond business.”

This trip provided an opportunity for all the AEC partners and ASUS management to interact with each other in an informal atmosphere and discuss business roadmap. Around 130 partners present from 24 different cities all across India were seen sharing there experiences and feedback.

Rajesh Goenka, VP-Sales & Marketing Rashi Peripherals said, “Though there is some slowdown, India is still far away from the world recessionary trends. Our IT base in India is still in single digits and therefore the business opportunities are immense. Thus we thought of running the scheme and taking our partners to Dubai.”

Partners from cities like Agra, Aligarh, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Bilaspur, Calicut, Chengannur, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Guwahati, Hanumangarh, Jaipur, Jhansi, Kota, Kottayam, Madurai, Mysore, Nashik, Ranchi, Silchar, Tiruchi, Trivandrum, Varanasi and Vijayawada had also qualified for this scheme.

Asus meets AEC partners in Dubai

T R E N D S


T R E N D S


Gigabyte, a manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, has announced that it has extended its 2 oz. Copper PCB range of motherboards to include mainstream through

to high-end offerings on both the Intel and AMD platforms. When Gigabyte first announced 2oz copper PCBs, this spec was limited to the Intel P45 and P43 chipset offerings only. Discerning users now have a choice of Intel X58, P45, P43, AMD 790FX, 790X, 790GX, 780G, 770 and NVIDIA nForce 720D chipset motherboards with 2oz copper PCBs. Gigabyte motherboards that feature 2oz copper PCBs are the Ultra Durable 3 and Ultra Durable 3 Classis-series that can be recognised by their respective logos.

Gigabyte first introduced Ultra Durable 3 products in Q3 2008 and is currently still the only vendor to offer the 2oz copper PCB specification on consumer desktop models. The major difference between traditional 1oz copper PCBs and 2oz copper PCBs is that both the power and ground layers in the latter enjoy double the amount of copper. This delivers dramatically lower system temper-ature, improved energy efficiency and enhanced stability under heavy workloads such as overclocking.

Doubling the amount of copper improves heat dissipation effi-ciency from critical areas of the motherboard such as the CPU power zone due to the heat conducting characteristics of copper. These cooler working temperatures are clearly demonstrated in thermal diagrams that compare traditional motherboards with 1oz copper PCBs to Ultra Durable 3 motherboards with 2oz copper PCBs.

Gigabyte extends 2oz Copper PCB motherboard range

Panasonic launches new car audio range

The car audio market in India is increasing rapidly and technology demands are getting higher in the entry and middle segment. These new high-quality head units have

been created to cater to the quality consumer looking for the latest technology and quality sound reproduction.

“Today consumers want multiple source options,” said Sam Kapasi, Brand Director, Sahil International, Panasonic car audio distributors in India, “Just a CD player is no longer sufficient for a car stereo. Now people carry their music in a variety of formats on their iPods and USB sticks.”

The sensibly priced RX322W for example, offers a front USB that is compatible with hard disks and thumb drives and a music port for your iPod and MP3 player, features that are normally present in much higher price segments. The unit also plays popular compressed music formats like WMA, MP3 and AAC audio files. Panasonic car audio products are distributed by Sahil International and sold through car audio dealers in major cities across the country.

With the CL5708, 8-Port PS/2-USB LCD KVMP switch and the 16-port version CL5716, Aten International, designer and manufacturer of advanced connectiv-

ity solutions, has presented the world’s first LCD KVM switch to feature ‘optional’ fingerprint recognition. In addition to enhanced datacentre security, the CL5708 and CL5716 provide the latest in KVM switch technology with extreme scalability, compatibility, user-friendliness and a cutting-edge design.

A single CL5708 or CL5716 Slideaway LCD KVMP (P meaning peripheral) switch with two consoles (one bus) can control 8 or 16 servers. By daisy-chaining as many as 31 additional KVM switches, up to 512 servers can be controlled from a single KVM console. For added security, the optional fingerprint identification system can be used to control access to the CL5708 / CL5716, and all devices under its command. For this feature, an administrator and up to four user accounts can use any one of the recorded fingerprints to log in.

“The f ingerprint reader feature in our new CL5708 and CL5716 adds security and user-friendliness to the server management. The adminis-trator can choose to use either the recorded fingerprint or a password to access the KVM switch. The fingerprint reader is an alternative, more person-alised means for logging into the switch, and complements the security features of the device in an excellent way,” said Kevin Chen, President of ATEN International.

World’s first LCD KVM with fingerprint recognition

QUICK FACT

of developers and investors

believe demand for European

datacentre space heavily out-weighs the

current supply

70%

PRODUCT REVIEW HP – BL 460c is one of the most power-

ful and reliable server blades from the product lines of HP. The two-processor

BL 460c G1 combines energy-efficient comput-ing power and high density with expanded memory and I/O for maximum performance. It is ideal for large enterprise datacenters and offers enterprise-class features for high perfor-mance and reliability without compromising energy efficiency or density at an affordable price. Furthermore, it provides organisations with remote manage- ability to support centralised or remote datacenter environ- ments.

HP – BL 460CBLADE SERVER

Balwinder Singh Director, Targus Technologies, Delhi

T R E N D S


BenQ, a player in digital network devices, has announced the cost reduction of its netbook, Joybook Lite U101 to a price of Rs 24,500 for an introductory period.

BenQ Netbooks display 10.1 inch, 16:9 wide LED backlight screen, weigh 1.1 kg, possesses 160GB storage capacity and have a keyboard that is 90 percent size of generic notebooks, and a longer battery lifespan of 7.2 hours.

BenQ Joybook Lite U101 also features built-in speakers and a 1.3 mega pixel webcam.

BenQ has also introduced a retail policy for its channel partners called ‘BenQ Spot’, where BenQ will support the designated outlets in branding exercise, providing manpower and marketing efforts towards keeping and selling the entire range of BenQ products. BenQ’s plan is to increase engagement with the channel partners by providing them more focused and quality support and equip them better to sell BenQ’s range of products like LCD monitors, digital projectors, laptop and netbooks.

The new retail policy will help channel partners to expand in their area of operations and add value to their selling process. BenQ’s objective is to help the channel partners manage and develop their own organizations aligned with BenQ’s growth.

BenQ introduces limited period offer on netbooks

Top Notch Infotronix India has launched two new models of high-end power

supplies under the ‘PRO Series brand called the PRO-500W AND PRO-600W. These power supplies are recommended for any normal desktop, gaming system or server. All power supplies have 80 percent efficiency. A new feature called ‘Smart Fan’ has been added to these products, which controls the fan speed according to the temperature of the power supply.

All of these power supplies have necessary cables which are needed to power a modern day machine, from a SATA power connector to 6-pin PCI-e connec-tors. All models carry a three-year warranty.

At the product launch, Pradeep Doshi, Director Sales, TopNotch Infotronix said, “We bet it’s the best power supply in the Indian market in its category, and would beat any competition both in terms of performance and value.”

One of the best antivirus product there is. It actually is “sell it

and forget it” package with abso-lutely no support problem. All my customers tell me about receiving good support from the company. It is easy to implement and very user-friendly. According to my custom-ers, it eliminates all kinds of viruses. We also use this product and feel it very good. It is by far the fastest selling high quality product we have dealt with.

From the company there are highly beneficial schemes for chan-nel partners and consumers. And this is marketed well to all vide newspaper, print ads, radio, etc. Since there is good support from company in terms of advertise-ments, etc. we dont face marketing issues - self marketed and high in demand. From a business point of view this also has higher margins than any competing product.

Anees Khalfay, CEO Radiant Technologies, Mumbai

PRODUCT

QUICK HEAL ANTIVIRUS

REVIEWIndian retailers partner with SAP

SA P h a s a n n o u n c e d sustained adoption of its SAP for Retail solu-

tions with significant customer endorsements. Over 72 leading retailers, such as DLF Retail, Khadim Jewellers, Fresh & Honest Café, Super Religare Laboratories and Religare Wellness, Dimexon Diamonds and C Mahendra have adopted and expanded their SAP footprint to simplify business processes, reduce cost and adapt to the changing industry land-scape.

“Today, retailers are faced with an uncertain economic environ-ment and by customers who are smarter and more demanding than ever before. The need of the hour is to sustain business growth through innovation and differentiation,” said Ranjan Das, Managing Director, SAP Indian Subcontinent.

“Technology has provided a new dimension to the India retail

sector. As Indian and interna-tional retail chains continue to plan for growth, they face a press-ing challenge for a single, enter-prise-wide IT platform to manage operations. In the organised retail business technology is needed not only in accounting and human resource management, but also in core functions like buying, merchandising and store manage-ment. The key solutions being looked upon by retailers in India today are ERP/ERM solutions, SCM, inventory management and security solutions”, said Arpan Gupta, Manager, Services, BPO & Industry Verticals Research, IDC India.

“As per IDC estimates, the spending on enterprise-wide applications (SCM, ERM/ERP and CRM) by the India retail segment was estimated to be around $48 million in 2008. This is expected to increase at 17 percent year-on-year,”

Security WatchCritical security flaw in IE (again)The problemMicrosoft recently issued a critical security warning regarding a malicious code that is making the rounds and attacking vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 7. The infection had the potential for wide-spread damage since IE 7 is the latest non-beta version of Microsoft’s browser and is bundled with XP service pack 3 and also Vista. The code, infects a users’ system with a Trojan horse. It may even start downloading other malicious elements into the users system. Microsoft says that the code can creep in even through legitimate websites in which the script has been inserted to run in the background. Earlier versions of IE are also vulnerable. It is being said that Microsoft Corp.’s

developers missed the bug because they didn’t have the right testing tools. Microsoft’s testing tools — including “fuzzers,” which are automated tools that drop data into applications, fi le formats or operating system components to see if and where they fail — also missed the bug.

The solutionMicrosoft has released an emergency update patch MS08-078 which addresses the vulnerability. The patch fi xes a fl aw in the data-binding function of all available versions of the popular browser. Users who have automatic updates turned on will receive the patch automatically while others can access it via a download from Microsoft’s web site.

Top Notch launches PRO-500W and PRO-600W power supplies

Q&A


RANJAN CHOPRA takes a holistic look at the channel ecosystem and details the strategic moves that his organisation is making to combat the slowdown in a

conversation with MANEKA TANWANI

WENEED TO

SUPPORTEACH OTHER

Ranjan ChopraCMD, Team Computers With a stint at Philips and Apple Computers, Ranjan Chopra’s career spreads across 16 years. He is currently the CMD of Team Computers, a Rs 230 crore company. Chopra is an electron-ics engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur.

In 2009, Team Computers intends to get into business transforma-tion services. For this, it is looking to tie up with consulting compa-nies. On the BI side, the company will be moving into BI 2.0 and advanced-level dashboard design. With a presence across 40 cities, the company is looking to settle for a turnover of nearly Rs 250 crore in the current financial year.

Q&A


DCC: Who are your partners? What are the characteristics that you look for in your partners?

Almost all players in the IT space like Cisco, HP, Microsoft, IBM and Lenovo are our partners. The word ‘partner’ means sharing the pleasure and pain, both. During good times, everybody takes part in it. But during challenging times, we need to take a call and support each other. This determines a good partnership. Many a times, executives of large companies get carried away and become arrogant. This is avoidable as a relationship goes downhill because of this. Open communication lines, positive outlook and respect are all very crucial. Though it is difficult, both the vendor and channel partner should try to make it a win-win situation.

DCC: Can you tell us about some of the chal-lenges faced by the Indian channel community today? How has this downturn affected it? What are the measures that you have taken to counter the economic scenario?

One of the core problems right now is demand contraction. Customers are not going to spend on capital expenditure that they did earlier. While the operational expenditure part is secure, people have slowed down in terms of building infrastructure. We are seeing the slowdown of almost 60-70 percent. The challenge is in bringing down the break-even cost quickly.

Also, there are certain policies that need to be looked at. For example, return policy should be boosted. If there are defective goods found, they need to be replaced quickly. There are a lot of credit risks involved today. If we give credits to our customers and they go bankrupt, there is not much we can do. Again, if we have ordered goods for a company that goes bankrupt, our partners should buy those goods from us or help sell it to other clients. This is easier said than done. It is a dirty job that no one wants to get involved in. So IT organisations should help channels manage their risks. That is the mean-ing of true partnership.

There has been a drop in infrastructure buying. But even with the slowdown, there are certain sectors like government, education, healthcare, insurance etc. that are still buying. They have not

been hit that badly. We did not deal with these sectors traditionally, so we plan to start exploring them. Second is to seek new customers in compa-nies that are leaders in their own segment as they will continue buying.

The last step would be to bring down the break-even point by getting the bottleneck out of our systems in terms of people and processes. That means we have less patience with under-

performance now. DCC: Recently you had an event with

Google. Can you tell me what this partnership is about and what benefits does it bring for your customers?

Essentially, just like the Google experience on the Web, we are offering our customers to Google for their business. They have documents and informa-tion lying within their organisation. So this will help them search this information using Google technology to make a well-informed decision. We understand the Indian market and are hence are in tune with customer needs to match it to the solution we give them.

DCC: Do you think that the Indian channel community has matured? How would you compare this situation to that in the west?

There has been a fair amount of consolidation going on. Some people are in the business for quick returns. These people will sell or move out. Channels have to make a fundamental decision about whether they want to be general purpose contractors where they have end-to-end solutions or become specialists. Here again they have to decide the area in which they want to specialise like security, storage, virtualisation or just sell notebooks. A channel partner has to see what works best for him.

If we compare the current situation to ten years ago, it has definitely matured. It is no longer a no-entry barrier game. It is going to be very difficult to survive and grow. It is going to be very challenging unless the channel community decides what solu-tion it is going to offer.

The channel market there (in the west) is much more mature and they are a step ahead of their customers as far as understanding technology and being abreast with latest developments. We are definitely lagging there. But it is worth noting that the Indian market has caught on very rapidly. We are a couple of years behind the American market.

We have caught on with the Asian market. If I compare India to Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong etc., I think we are pretty much there.

DCC: How does 2009-2010 look to you? What are the trends in the IT industry that we will witness?

Credit worthiness of customers is going to be a big challenge. They may delay payments or not pay at all. The risk has gone up. This will continue in the coming year.

Customers have become much more focused in doing more with less. So the focus on process and dependency of business on IT for using information is going to go up. Even Gartner has said that in the coming year organisations will look keenly at boosting their process efficiencies. Tools like Business Intelligence, Business Process Management, enterprise applications (ERP, CRM and others), servers and storage technologies (virtualisation), collaboration technologies etc. are on the way up. Solutions that help business-es gain more customers, increase efficiencies and cut costs will see most adoption.

Team Computers: Providing IT Solutions Under One Roof Team Computers has made a strong position in the IT Industry since its establishment on June 2, 1988 in New Delhi. With sheer dedication, the company has spread its network across the Indian sub-continent and made a mark as premier service provider of all the IT Solutions. Started by a personality whose mantra is to never give up in life, Team Computers has come a long way. Speaking to media about the start up of the company, CMD, Team Computers, Ranjan Chopra said, “I worked in Philips and Apple Computers for a few years after completing my engineering, but I didn’t find the work challenging enough.

Solutions for Silicon Even as an employee, he operated like an entrepreneur, taking risks and scouting for opportuni-ties. Ranjan Chopra’s attitude as the head of Team Computers remains the same today. Every entrepreneur needs an eye for opportunity and the ability to take calculated risks. Even as a schoolboy in 1960s Calcutta, Ranjan Chopra looked for ways to supplement his allowance. And, he started taking business risks while in his teens. As the CMD of the Rs 135 crore Team Computers says, “There is risk of some sort in just about every decision. I took risks but had faith in my capabilities.”

“The word ‘part-ner’ means sharing the pleasure and pain, both. During good times, eve-rybody takes part in it. During chal-lenging times, we need to take a call and support each other.”

The gloves are off in the battle for the datacentre.

Erstwhile allies in this area are now facing off even as improvements in technology have

laid the basis for a level playing field.

So how can the channel community hope to profit from all the brouhaha?

A call to arms C O V E R S T O R Y



C O V E R S T O R Y

It was during the launch of its Unified Computer System (UCS) in March that Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers made an announce-ment that had a clear message for Value Added

Resellers (VARs) across the globe. The networking giant announced that UCS would “revolutionise” the datacentre—marrying its conventional network-ing expertise with server infrastructure. Chambers claimed that UCS would transform datacentre archi-tecture by unifying hardware, network and storage access and virtualisation. And Cisco channel execu-tives were quick to point out to the VAR community that it would do best to adopt UCS, even as firms try to re-architect their IT infrastructure.

The gloves are off in this battle for the datacentre market. Erstwhile strategic partners sometimes find themselves on opposite sides—and in some cases, like in the case of Cisco’s UCS, a number of stor-age vendors, services firms and Systems Integrators have announced that they will be jumping on the UCS bandwagon. Examples are established players like BMC and VMware who will partner with Cisco. IBM and HP have not ignored Cisco’s foray into the computing arena of datacentres, which encroaches into their personal space. And these giants are just three players in what promises to be a booming market.

The lure of the datacentre is also acting as a trig-ger for some (possible) big-ticket deals which promise to thoroughly shake up the entire global IT industry. Recent news reports indicated that IBM was in talks with Sun Microsystems, for taking over the latter for $6.5 billion in an all-cash deal. Big Blue is eyeing, among other things, Sun’s arsenal of datacentre software.

In 2008, HP picked up Electronic Data Systems (EDS), a large-scale computer services provider, to help its customers build better datacentres.

In fact, a number of industry watchers predict that even more consolidation and a period of M&As are in the offing for the IT industry. The borderline between different systems is also increasingly getting blurred—and computing needs are now addressed by entities that perform like utilities.

In fact, even in India, hitherto untapped markets—like the government—are taking to datacentres in a big way. And more and varied uses of the datacentre are now coming into vogue. For example, the Goa police is in the process of setting up a 24x7 data-centre to combat terrorism and strengthen intelli-gence-gathering activities. According to latest news reports, this hub will be connected to a multi-agency

controlling centre to improve coordination between various intelligence agencies spread across the country.

Why Green is the way to goWith growing awareness about the carbon footprint of various technology operations, the datacentre space has been the intense focus of much ‘Green’ activity. The focus is now on optimum utilisation of various technology applications. Reports indicate that an organisation can hike efficiency of a datacen-tre by more than 200 percent just by merely focusing on server utilisation. More and more techniques are now being developed that ensure datacentre cool-ing by using minimal amounts of non-renewable energy resources.

Hot and happeningEnterprises are gearing up to spend more on

datacentres, despite shrinking IT budgets. A survey of 300 technology purchase decision makers in the US indicates that four out of five organisa-tions are planning major datacentre expansion in the coming months. That is because for jacking up productivity and slashing IT costs, datacentre management is what most firms are turning to. According to analyst firm IDC, organisations are expected to spend a whopping $100 billion on datacentres in 2009.

Ergo, despite the slowdown, the datacentre market has some big bucks riding on it. Technology manag-ers are constantly pressurised to reduce operating costs, leading them to focus their strategies on data-centres. Further, organisations want access to the latest cutting-edge strategic technology tools—new server architecture, fresh storage configurations, virtualisation, WAN optimisation, cloud computing and disaster recovery (among others)—which they can capitalise on by engaging a managed datacentre service provider. In fact, IDC says that there is a huge untapped market and opportunity for managed serv-ice providers—and entities offering end-to-end solu-tion offerings stand to gain the most.

The future scenarioDatacentres will continue to evolve, and organisa-tions will also get the benefit of adopting new deliv-ery models. Among these delivery mechanisms, predict a few industry analysts, will be services such as Infrastructure as a Service and Utility Computing. Companies will continue to have the option of devel-oping and managing their own in-house datacen-

Datacentre construc-tion requires a massive investment in time and cash before a facility is completed.

It’s no wonder, then, that companies who have embarked on building a new data center have not halted their projects. In interviews with more than a dozen companies, each with $100 million in information-tech-nology investments, Joseph Pucciarelli, program direc-tor of technology financing and executive strategies for market researcher IDC, found that not one planned on scaling back their projects.

“You are talking projects that have been in the works for years,” Pucciarelli says. “These are complex multi-cycle construction efforts.”

Yet, the future is a different matter, he says. Economic uncertainty has caused many companies to review plans to expand IT infrastructure. In the past six month, new orders for data center construction have essentially halted, Pucciarelli says. “Everyone is waiting to see in which direction this period of economic volatility is going to pan out.”

Economic blues could slow datacentre construction

“In the near-term three leading credible names in IT very aggressively pushing datacentre will greatly accelerate adaption

and proliferation of datacentres hence growth will beat all projections made so far”DEVENDRA TANEJA CEO, PC SOLUTIONS, DELHI

C O V E R S T O R Y


tres, utilising the services of an outsourced service provider, or using the facilities of a cloud computing model.

On the same lines as managing cloud computing infrastructure, a datacentre manager will use many of same technologies that power a cloud. The emphasis—with respect to datacentres to come—will be on agile technology, which will be quick to respondent to particular computing recruitments. Datacentre managers might be in-house employees but they must adopt the attitude of an external service provider. Virtualisation will continue to rule the roost; datacentre managers will continue to place emphasis on cost-cutting as the global economy shows no signs of easing up.

The going will not be all smooth, though. For example, finding the right staff to handle a datacentre will be a tough task, both in India as well as globally. According to AFCOM Data Center Institute, more than 60 percent of all IT workers with mainframe experience were at least 50 years old. The demand for datacentre expertise will continue to soar.

As space for datacentres (will all the requisite facilities like power and water supply) continues to be snapped up, a few activities might be outsourced to third party providers. A few organisations might also be not able to free up funds for the capital expenditure required for setting up a datacentre.

Globally, surveys have shown that power outages (or limits on power availability) will freeze datacentre operations at least once at almost all organisations. Needless to say, the situation in India will be even grim-mer, given the state of power supply in various parts of the country. In fact, uninterrupted power supply is one of the main problems that mire Indian datacentre operations.

More and more datacentres will continue to embrace virtualisation. Though cloud computing is still at a nascent stage in India, its adoption will only increase in the years to come.

In another prediction for the future scenario , AFCOM Data Center Institute says that one out every four datacentres will be crippled by a business disruption so severe that the entire organisation’s ability to conduct normal activities will be severely compromised. A recent survey conducted also indicates that a number of datacentre manag-ers are concerned that IT budget cuts might also lead to performance issues and disruptions in datacentre services.

The datacentre and the channel: A crucial link

The recent buzz in the industry regard-ing the datacentre, with major play-ers announcing new initiatives and

the market poised for a major shake-up is opening up new avenues for channel part-ners. For example, Cisco’s UCS offering is aimed at helping VARs offer a complete computing solution to their clients. Solution providers, globally, are keenly eyeing this new business opportunity.

Last year, during its Business Partner Leadership Conference, IBM introduced a new alliance it planned to ink with customers for the enterprise datacentre business. Big Blue, in fact, identified the channel partners as its “primary route” to the datacentre market. It was involved in a series of programs that helped partners understand strategies for greening data-centres, and programs for consolidation. Energy efficiency improvements in data-

centres are also opening up new avenues of revenue for the channel community. The $700-odd billion being spent by the US to stimulate the beleaguered economy is also expected to give a big boost to spending on datacentres, as infrastruc-ture improvement, power grid develop-ment and more extensive broadband networks are all on the agenda.

“Even in today’s difficult environment, businesses are willing to invest in IT solu-tions—if they cut costs, drive efficiency and productivity, preserve capital and create competitive advantage. And that’s exactly what “smarter” solutions do,” said Sam Palmisano, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, IBM, in a recent letter to channel partners. And datacen-tre offerings are an integral part of IBM’s “smart” solution arsenal.

The primary reason why vendors are

preferring to take the channel route to fuel their datacentre expansion plans is because partners are in a better position to under-stand the unique needs of their customers (with respect to datacentres). That helps vendors to hone their marketing plans so that they can segment the datacentre market accordingly.

There’s cheer for software vendors too—Novell recently announced that it has tailored its SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, saying that the solution is meant for the next-generation datacentre, offering greater energy efficiencies, higher avail-ability and comprehensive virtualisation support. Expect even more action on the software front in the datacentre space as manufacturers target this booming market—these sure will be exciting times for the channel community in India as well as overseas.

Brewing competition among large firms seeking greater

influence over corporate data centers may soon involve a round of significant acquisi-tions, according to an analyst’s research note.

Large companies including IBM, Hewlett Packard and Cisco Systems are all liable to

consider large purchases as they build out their respective datacentre businesses.

These tech titans will consider M&A in addition to partnerships specifically BMC Software, Juniper Networks, Brocade Communications Systems and Netapp as possi-ble acquisition candidates.

Analyst singles out candidates for datacentre acquisitions

PRODUCT REVIEW

Chetan Shah XPRESS COMPUTERS, Mumbai

INTEL MODULAR SERVER

It is one of the best and cheapest blade server available in the market today. It enables business in a box with seamless installation,

migration, and growth capabilities. It has the ability to support up to 6 server compute modules, 2 hard disk drive options, 2 Ethernet Switch

Modules, integrated SAN, and a management module. It is a flexible and powerful system for the small to mid-size enterprises. For solu-

tion providers (SPs) who would like to develop a storage solution, the Modular Server simplifies the process to a great extent.

DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT APRIL 2009

PA N I PA T, PA T I A L A , K A R N A L , C H A N D I G A R H , B H A T I N D A , P H A G WA R A ,

A M R I T S A R , J O D H P U R ,J A B A L P U R , M O G A , B H O PA LMarch 2009

DIG IT CHANNEL CHAMPS

Ajay SinglaPresidentPanipat Computer Dealers Association.

“A very good event for interaction andproduct training between the channel and the IT vendors. This should be organised in cooperation with the local association”

pan

ipat

Mayank SinghArea Sales Manager, LG

“Support the customer for better deals”

Gautam JainProprietor, Computer Shop

“The magazine is very informaive and very well-produced. It makes a good read.”

S K SinghChairman, Association of Computer Professionals

“From event point of view it was a good one.”

Himanshu KalaniArea Sales Manager, L G

“A very good initiative and the best part was the level of interaction with all

participating companies and the local associaion.”

Pradeep GargProprietor, H S Computers

“Yes, it is a good magazine for us to enhance our knowledge base about IT prod-ucts and dealing with business issues.”

Arun KumarPartner, S K Computers

“The overall format of the event was very good and choice of location was convien-ient. It would have been better if the time

chosen can be later in the evening.”

pat

iala

The Digit Channel Champs program had an exteremely successful run in the month of March 2009, with LG, NVIDIA and Gigabyte being the principal sponsors of the circuit. The program has now started gaining acceptance among channel members, equipment manufacturers and association members.

Due to the slowdown that is impacting most urban areas in the country, Channel Champs is one of the few programs that helps to penetrate the Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets across the country.

C I T I E S

Sunny KapoorProprietor, National Computers

“The event was very informaive and am definitely interested in attending future

Channel Champs initiatives.”

karn

al Kamal Kant BhasinPresident, Karnal Computer Dealers Association.

“I would like to highlight the issues like improvement in profitability for channel partners and services and warranty issues by vendors. Commitment levels by company representatives are geting worse.”

Mayank SinghArea Sales Manager, LG

“Channel community should focus on the quality product, buy genuine products

with bill and they should also take care of customers in after-sales service”

Umesh SainiProprietor, Shresth Computer Solutions

“Good initiative, only issue was the location of the event for some of the partners.”

Vineet BhatiaProprietor, Printing World

“I have read this magazine and I find it very informative.”

It is very important for a program like Channel Champs to have its finger on the pulse of the channel community. The Patiala leg of the program was of immense help to all concerned.

Both Digit Channel Connect and the Channel Champs program have managed to penetrate even the deep interiors of this vast nation. The participants had some words of wisdom to share with us.

Channel Champs graced this historic city in the north of India, with association heads, top vendor executives, entrepreneurs and the community at large all praise for the way the program is shaping up

20


bh

atin

da

Ashu Proprietor, G1 Computers

“More events should happen in same for-mat - it was informative and helpful.”

Arwinder SinghProprietor, Dhiwash Computers

“This is my first event and it was very good. I would like to attend such

events in future too.”

Vinod SinglaPresidentBhatinda Computer Professional Association

“Service is the main issue affecting the channel community today. Channel Connect is really a very good magzine.”

Sukhwinder SinghProprietor, Sysco Systems

“This is my second channel champ event and both were good experiences. I would like to subscribe for the Channel Connect

magazine.”

Balbir ChauhanPartner, Intelligent Technologies

“Events like these should be held twice or thrice in a year.”

chan

dig

arh

Surjit Singh ManhasLG, Deputy Manager – DDS

“The channel champs event needs to be more vocal - where channel partners can discuss ground issues. Channel Connect magazine is very informative and good.”

Rajiv ChandiProprietor, Aar Kay Traders

“Events like channel champs are one of the better opportunities to promote our business and network with peers and

vendors.”

Jasdeep SinghDirector, Olympus Overseas Inc.

“I liked the way R Manikandan discribed briefly about LCDs. I would have liked more information. We would like to share this with our customers.”

Deepak SharmaDirector, Spectrum Computers

I have attended this event in Oct 2008. It is still a pleasure to be a part of it. I would like to subcribe for Channel Connect magazine too.”

Harjit Singh AroraProprietor, Ansh Computers

“Have attended this event before an find it very useful. I would like to subscribe for

Channel Connect magazine.”amri

tsar

Basant MehtaPresident, Jodhpur Computer Dealers Association

After-sales from vendors is an issue for us - there are delay in payments from the vendor. Hope you can bring his up.”

Suniel KumarArea Manager, Gigabyte

“The event was excellent, the setup was very good. The cordination with

execution staff was excellent.” jod

hp

ur

Anik MathurCEO, Anik Consultancy

“I would like to attend such events in future. Only I request you to please keep such events on saturday.”

ph

agw

araChannel Champs is not just a program for improving the

sales opportunities for the community. Participants at this city—the economic powerhouse of Punjab—had some important points to make.

It’s official now. Participants of earlier legs of Channel Champs are now coming back for more. In a just a few months, Digit Channel Connect has gained immense popularity.

More proof that Channel Champs is a program which is absolutely the best in its class. Even cities which were considered remote and far from the action are now abuzz with activity

Amritsar had already seen an earlier leg of the Channel Champs program. More and more participants expressed their desire to come back for more.

At Jodhpur, a few participants expressed a few of their concerns regarding the channel business. Needless to say, the feedback reached the right ears.

22


ChandrashekarArea Sales Manager, LG

“The event and setup was good. This is my first exprience with Channel Champs and would like to recommend the same to my peers.”

jab

alp

ur

Rajendra Kumar VermaSales Officer, Professional Group of Education

This is my first Channel Champs event. The format of event is short, I would

reccomend you to make it longer. I read Channel Connect magzine and find it

useful.”

Dilip LakheraAsst Director, SCA Technology

“I have attended the event in the past with Acer. This was a good experience and would like to attend such event in future.”

24

Ashish JainPresident, BITOAA, Bhoj Information Technology and Office Automation Association, Bhopal

“The main issue affecting the channel community is non-clarity in transaction and payment problems. Channel Connect should address these issues ensure aware-ness between channel community and understanding the ethics of business.”

bh

op

alSubodh Pandey

Proprietor, V S Computer

“Good show! Please inform me about the next event. I am interested in subscribing

to Channel Connect magazine.”

Bhupendra GaurProprietor, Latest Device Pvt Ltd

“This is my first channel event and I would like to attend such events in future.”

mo

ga Rajnish Kumar Singla

Proprietor, Perfect Computers

I would like to subcribe for Channel Connect Magazine. Also, please keep me posted on planned events in future.”

Raj PahwaProprietor, Raj Computers

“Very informative and useful - I would like to attend more of these in the future.”

There is something all participants want from the Channel Champs program... they simply want much more of it. Jabalpur was no exception.

Digit Channel Champs is becoming even better as we learn from the members of the community. Ditto for the magazine—that’s what Moga had to say.

Association heads have never been more candid. At Bhopal, in a no holds barred session, these industry leaders had some very important points to share.

DIGIT CHANNEL CONNECT 25 AprIL 2009

ins ights

Life at the helm of an IT solution firm may be a status symbol for some, passion for a few and a serious business-impacting

agenda for others. Whatever be the reason, the sheer pressure of the task is extremely demanding.

Typically when one starts a business in India, it is unlike what happens in western countries – with a career counselor who will coach the basics of managing the entrepre-neur life, offering strategy advice, managing people and finance, persuading and leading sales and marketing teams. The breed of entrepreneurs are highly motivated self-made folk who have little professional help and at time minimum education.

The result is an entire breed of business owners who have little time for pleasure or family, are mostly stressed out and easily agitated. It is at later stages of these highly motivated men and women when life hits them hard – health and family issues, badly managed household, losing on the finer points of life itself. What is required is to have a clear understanding of a healthy work-life balance. If need be these business owners should hire professional help. These consultants can help in being career coaches by helping the busi-ness and later help balance work and personal priorities, teaching simple things like how to

create a manageable to-do list. “Once you have your priorities in place and

learn to manage the business and personal matters, you just find yourselves around people who want what you want out of life,” says Samuel Kurien, a small-time business owner from Kochi, “I have started working four days a week instead of seven and have three hobbies to my credit.”

Some simple Monday morning things-to-do are to ensure that you make the to-list, stick to it and manage time. Time management plays an extremely key role here. Prepare a

weekly plan for pleasure and family and keep it as a top priority along the lines of business priorities. For a healthy work-life balance it is extremely important to have an ethical means of business – commitment, honestly, people-orientation and dedication are key. Business growth, specially in situations when economic conditions are not favourable, will depend on these factors.

It is time to take that break and introspect – are you doing justice to yourself?

It has been said before, and it is worth repeating a million times. It does not take an MBA—nor a complete reading of your latest Philip Kotler to keep a tab

on what marketing strategy to adopt to boost your image, market your brand, push a prod-uct or sell a service.

But the moot question is, just what does it take to be a marketing expert? Marketers are coming up with some innovative solu-tions—and the train of thinking is leading to some solutions which are path-breaking, to say the least.

Take a market like the USA. Consumers there have oodles and oodles of ‘marketing’ chutzpah—thanks to the constant hammer-ing of various marketing programs, the inces-sant bombarding of high-profile advertising campaigns and what have you.

And now, marketing gurus are rushing back to the drawing board. “What,” is the collective whisper that’s arising, “if we cut out the middleman?”

It’s simple: consumers have now figured out how it’s done. Some big-ticket names are now getting into the act. And they want their loyal clientele to define the rules and lay the

foundation for a strong brand.And consumers are biting. As marketing

gurus have said, the best brands are owned by people who love them. The customer is king, as the old adage goes, and never has it been truer.

It is not just the big marketing conglomer-ates who are defining the game. Small entre-preneurs and even smaller mom-and-pop

outfits are looking at customers to define their marketing strategy.

The writing is on the wall, so to speak; it has never been more lucid. The customer is queen; she rules the roost. So is it time for the Indian channel community to go back to the basics? Watch this space for much, much more as Digit Channel Connect keeps you tuned in.

A well-balanced life

25

Marketing 2.0: By the masses

PRASHANT KUNCOLIENKAR CEO, COMPUTRONICS INFOTECH, gOa

“We believe that by keeping our exist-ing customers happy, they will talk good about us. Instead of talking about price first, we emphasise on after-sales service and quality of products. We act as consultants to our clients and advice them on solutions that fits their exact need. A satisfied customer will always recommend us to others”

DR S PHILIP LEwIS PROPRIETOR, ElECTRO MECH CORPORaTION, BaNgalORE

Balancing your work and family effec-tively depends on your mindset. Time management is an important factor. Commitment, sincerity, hard work and dedication are the order of the day. That is the only way to lead a stress-free life. I believe that the laziest man is always the busiest man. Plan well and you will have time for family, work and relaxa-tion.


C E L E B R I T Y C O N N E C T

“Although Toshiba is a very good brand, it lacks consumer visibility in the market. The product is overshadowed by its strong competitors such as HP, Compaq, etc. Roping in Vidhya Balan has also not created a much of difference in its sales.”Swaraj Gupta, Director, Digitronics Infosolution

“Sales of Toshiba products have certainly gone up since the company has appointed the star as its brand ambassador. The fi rm has pulled up its socks and has been engaging in a lot of promotional activities lately. All efforts have been showing good results with Toshiba becoming a strong competitor to the market leader HP.”Maneesh Choukse, CEO, Systematix Corporation, Bhopal

“Toshiba has got a tremendous boost in its sales with the appointment of Vidhya Balan, but other factors such as TV advertisements as well as attractive price deals are other few factors that have contributed for greater brand awareness. But the company could have signed up more popular stars like Katrina Kaif or Preity Zinta for better outputs.Rakesh Sharma, CEO, DIGITECH, Siliguri

“The overall market condition has been very ugly. The sales have dropped and the retail sentiments are low. So, at this time when the the economic situation of India has been hit and so has the consumer income, there cannot be a direct impact of roping in any brand ambassador on the sales of the product. Toshiba too has not seen any positive impact in the market with regards to increasing sales.”Mohit Hegde, CEO, Creative Infotech

She’s graced many a role, and is called the thinking man’s

actor. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Vidya Balan as she turns on her magic charm for Brand

Toshiba...

Toshiba’s business relationship in India goes back to more than 60 years. We found, however, that Toshiba seems to be considered as a newcomer to India, and we were looking for the person who transfers our message to the Indian people and market.

Luckily, we could fi nd Vidya Balan who has a very intelligent and clean image that matches our brand. And we assigned her as Toshiba Brand Ambassador in India.

We have been transferring our brand image and product-related messages through TV commercials, newspapers and magazines, using Vidya Balan.

Since Vidya Balan herself is a Toshiba product user for a long time and satisfi ed with the quality and the performance, our message is transferred properly to the Indian people.

Yuzo Kato, Managing Director, Toshiba India

C E L E B R I T Y C O N N E C T


TOSHIBA’S CYBER CZARINA

SO HOW IS THE SHOW GOING ON?


ANALYST SPEAK

These are not ‘price list reductions’ but represent an overall price reduction on infrastructure outsourcing deals that may apply to news deals and, albeit only partially, to renegotiated deals

28

IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Services Price reductions in percentages

Datacentre services 5 to 15

Desktop/help desk services 5 to 10

Network services 10 to 15

Application hosting services 10 to 20

Source: Gartner (February 2009)

Potential average outsourcing price reductions in 2009-2010

Potential average outsourcing price reductions in 2009-2010

Gartner advises clients and providers to avoid stretching their positions to the extreme as pushing for an extremely low

price will not make providers safer, deliver good services or promote a positive relationship. Not accepting a renegotiation of terms and price in a tough economy will not contribute to client’s viability. Also, especially in hard times, there is only one viable balance and that is win-win; for if one side loses, the other loses too.

Gartner says too many enterprises are in denial about carbon management

A high proportion of IT professionals responsible for Green IT programs are unsure whether their enterprises are

considering carbon pricing. A recent survey found that 36 percent of respondents that were responsible for Green IT programs in enterprises said it was possible, or they didn’t know, if carbon pricing was influencing their organisation’s planning for the next 24 months.

A total of 45.7 percent of respondents said that carbon pricing was not influencing their organisation’s planning, while 18.3 percent said it was influencing their organisation’s planning for the next 24 months.

The survey results indicate that for most countries, the percentage of enterprises plan-ning ahead for carbon pricing goes beyond those obliged to consider it under established regula-tions. However, Gartner advised IT manage-ment teams that haven’t already done so, to start building the processes and information systems to gather the necessary data as this can be time-consuming and organisations are likely to be subject to carbon reporting and pricing in the future.

In 2008, Gartner asked 626 enterprises about their plans for carbon reporting and pricing, and current and future implementation of carbon reporting, tracking or management systems. The respondents represented an even spread of sectors and company sizes from 1,000 to more than 10,000 employees.

“While the number of enterprises using or planning to use carbon tracking systems exceeds those legally required to do so, given the inevi-table requirements to support carbon report-ing in the future, the percentage of enterprises preparing is low,” said Simon Mingay, Research Vice President at Gartner. “Regardless of actual or anticipated regulations, mid-size and large enterprises should at least be building carbon information systems, because pressure will come down the supply chain to be transparent about carbon emissions.”

The survey provided some noteworthy responses from individual countries when respondents asked if the possibility of carbon pricing is influencing their organisation’s plan-ning for the next 24 months. The UK and France

recorded some of the lowest percentages at 7.9 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively, while in India and China, 21.1 percent and 20 percent of enterprises, respectively, indicated that carbon pricing was influencing planning.

28

Digit Channel Connect April 2009 Issue

Documents

Transcript of Digit Channel Connect April 2009 Issue