Rittal enters APAC & Middle East

Racks and enclosures manufacturer Rittal GmbH & Co has put into action a new
business strategy to increase customer and channel partner awareness about its
data center solutions. It will set up five IT hubs in the Asia Pacific region
and has flagged off the first one with a center in Mumbai. The others will soon
be opened at Hong Kong, Dubai, Tokyo and Shanghai.

Talking about Rittal's decision to use Mumbai as its starting base for such
an important and cost-intensive strategy, the company's Sr VP-International
Sales-Asia Pacific and Middle East, Dr Harald Werner said, “India is one of the
most promising business regions for us which is why when we embarked on this new
initiative we wanted to start with India.”

As the company makes a shift from a manu­facturer to a complete data center
solution provider, it expects the same transition from its channel partners. It
is clear that it does not want to work with dealers who just trade in its
products, but are actively seeking partners who are open to offering a wide
palate of solutions around the data center.

“We expect to announce this by end of March 2009 as we are putting the
finishing touches on it right now,” said Werner, adding that over time only the
partners who offer these services will be able to scale their business.