ProCurve leverages on its warranty policy

HP ProCurve launched Adaptive Networks few weeks ago where it went to town
talking about how network self adjust itself to users, applications and an
organization’s needs. But in a market where technologies change way too frequently it
would be foolhardy to bank on the technical aspects of a platform to convince customers.
This is why ProCurve is now leveraging on the lifetime warranty of the Adaptive Networks,
which ensures a greater RoI for users.

bgcolor="#DEF8F7" align="right">

size="2">  alt="ch-new-subhodeep_15june2k7.gif (10377 bytes)">

Subhodeep Bhattacharya:

Partners get added revenue from the labor and specialized support they offer

According to Subhodeep Bhattacharya, India Country Manager, ProCurve
Networking Business, "Lifetime warranty not only targets those organizations which
spend huge amount of money in post-sales maintenance and equipment upkeep, but also to
partners. This warranty is offered on products and in case of a fault, the product gets
immediately replaced."

He further added, "At ProCurve we don’t talk of the usual annual
maintenance contracts. Instead, our partners get added revenue from the labor and
specialized support they offer. To avoid any confusion there is a separate set of
guidelines made available which they need to follow while charging for the service."

Sharing his thoughts on the lifetime warranty, M Jayachandran, Director,
Online Micro Services and a ProCurve partner from Delhi said, "Lifetime warranty and
affordable pricing are the major growth factors for ProCurve, especially in a
price-sensitive country like India."

While agreeing with him, Manikandan, CEO, Vitage Systems looks forward to
extra initiatives from the vendor. "ProCurve should come up with some kind of
certifications or courses in network administration like Cisco’s CCNA. This will
surely drive the demand generation from the network administrators’ community,"
he said.

In an attempt to meet these requirements, ProCurve would be introducing
its globally available programs in the top six cities of the country, by July 2007.
"The courses introduced would be Adaptive Edge Fundamentals (AEF), Accredited Support
Engineer (ASE) and Master Accredited Support Engineer (MASE)," said Bhattacharya
while adding, "We are working towards increasing our technical support staff and have
recently appointed one tech person in Kolkata. We will be adding one more in Delhi. The
high-end technical issues however would be taken care of by our representative in
Mumbai."

In addition to this, ProCurve, which currently has 100 focused partners,
plans to add 30 more partners in the immediate quarter. These will be mostly from the HP
channel community. However, doors are open for new partners focusing on the networking
business and are non-HP partners.

SYEDA BEENISH