Channel partners are vital in our marketing initiatives

We have an aggressive partner enabled program where partners can interact
with customers and understand their problems

How important are channel partners to the company?HP works with large
systems integrators like HCL and Infosys. We also have a very large number of
final tier resellers who help us to take the products to the customers. Our
partners are engaged with large and medium-sized customers and some work with
SMBs. The good part of India is that partners are looking for growth and are
adding skills. They are diversifying the needs of customers.

We also undertake initiatives such as training, roadshows and seminars to
showcase and promote our solutions. It is our intent to ensure that we
understand exactly what the customer wants and prepare ourselves to offer that
in the most effective and efficient manner. We have an aggressive partner
enabled program, where partners can interact with customers and understand their
problems likewise.

Are you planning to add more partners on board?

Our primary focus is to reinvest in the skills of existing partners and SIs.
We want to help our customers by making them understand as to how to go about
the technology. I believe the existing channel base has enormous talent and
growth in the country. We already have a very large number of partners and we
would be happy to tie up with more partners. I am confident that we would have
100 partners who would understand our products and technology. Channel partners
are vital in our marketing initiatives.

Nowadays, most solution providers go by the brands found in the market
rather than the customers' choice. What do you think, is it the plethora of
brands or lack of knowledge? How are you going to break the mindset?

In the file services market we have a series of products. We used to operate
in the market with a series of products called the AIO boxes. We used to call
them the windows. Now, we have revamped and brought in some new products called
the X series so that customers get more choice in the market. We have also made
our presence in the media and education industries as well.

In the market, people know us for the X series for AIOs and now they will
know us for the Ibrix range of products. The rate of growth of data is basically
the opportunity to customers. And with Ibrix, we hope to give opportunity to
customers to evolve. The rate at which the market is growing does not find the
ability for data growth. With Ibrix, we are creating virtualized data that
allows you to manage the data or file manager.

Are the storage solutions designed for any particular vertical in mind?

Ibrix is a leading provider of enterprise class file serving software that
includes data protection, high availability features and data management
services for the high performance computing deployments.

In India, we are dealing with very large number of files and users. So we
should have the capability to deal with the ability and the capacity to deliver
high performance. The pressure is on capacity and scalability, as well as on
increased performance. So I would say that Ibrix is the perfect suite for all
these qualities. Ibrix allows you to build a silhouette architecture and to
virtualize the file services so that it is able to achieve the same goals and
improve the investment. Ibrix is a product which will be taken to the enterprise
segment of the market and will continue to work for the SMB segment of the
market using the X series.

How are you going to gear up for the competition in the market?

File services is one of the fastest growing space in the market and is
registering the fastest growth rate in the industry. There are specific
industries and organizations, which basically deal with only file services. The
creativity and the information are processed and formed in some sort of
animation or movie. We call it a creation of digital content. The files are
growing at the fastest rate and they are retained because they contain
information which is valuable to the business. This market is growing at a rate
which is unprecedented. So with Ibrix on the board, we are ready to face the
challenges in the market.

Minakshi Shetty

minakshis@cybermedia.co.in