"Indian channel not yet mature to handle specialized solutions"

Just when IT vendors were beginning to think that channels in India have
matured with many systems integrators (SIs) evolving into solutions providers (SPs),
there comes the remark from Shriram Krishnamachari, Country Manager, Macromedia
India, that "Indian IT channel has a long way to go when it comes to
selling specialized solutions." And for this reason, Macromedia has chosen
to retain the direct selling model for the latest release of Breeze 5.

Breeze 5 is a high-impact online conferencing and collaborative web
communication solution, which harnesses the ubiquity of Macromedia Flash Player
to instantly enter an online meeting or access rich, on-demand presentations.
"Our channels are not mature enough to handle online conferencing solutions
like Breeze 5," said Shriram.

However, with varying feedback from the IT community about the maturity of
channel in India, the company is still debating on whether to go in for a
channel structure to sell Breeze or not! "Breeze 5 now has everything
organizations need to fully realize the benefits of accelerated and more
effective training, marketing, selling, and enterprise conferencing," said
Shriram.

SHRIRAM KRISHNAMACHARI

According to him, it provides online communications that are easy to access
with the Flash Player and rival the effectiveness of in-person meetings.
"Even first-time users can instantly realize the incredible value of web
communications by avoiding the expense of travel and communicating more
effectively," said Shriram.

Unlike other offerings, Breeze 5 enables enterprises to extend and integrate
web communications and conferencing, even inside a firewall. IT departments can
deploy the solution enterprise-wide without changing existing client
infrastructure because Flash Player is already deployed on multiple platforms,
including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

Customized meeting templates in Breeze 5 permit sales and marketing groups to
reduce preparation time for recurring seminars, team meetings and sales
presentations. BFSI, manufacturing, telecom, hi-tech, education and Government
are the few different customer segments Macromedia would be focusing on for
selling its solution.

NELSON JOHNY