"Since retail and SMB segments in India are growing at a slow and sturdy pace, we will target them in the months to come"

Sanjay Gupta is bullish about the launch of SCO OpenServer Release 6 in
India, which he believes will help the company establish a stronghold in the
country. SCO is also focusing more on delivering products through its channel
and helping partners move up the value chain.

What is the current focus for SCO in India? How closely do you work with
the channel community in this region?

SCO forum announced a future roadmap for UNIX. It includes a major upgrade to
SCO OpenServer, which will capture the attention and loyalty of partners as well
as customers. The company has a worldwide presence through the channel of more
than 11,000 solution providers, a developer network of nearly 8,000, thousands
of direct account customers and an installed base of more than two million
systems. SCO India has 300 channel partners and they include ISVs, IHVs,
solution providers and developers, systems integrators and value added
resellers.

How can solution providers and systems integrators move up the value chain
by dealing with your platforms?

SCO platform is a very rugged and virus free platform. Once the SCO product is
installed, it runs for a long time, until the servers and hardware crash. Our
partners are with some of the biggest names in the industry like Intel, HP,
Dell, Computer Associates, progress Software and others.

Sanjay Gupta Country Manager-India & SE Asia, SCO Software (India)

Many of the largest and successful software and hardware companies in the
world have joined with SCO to provide powerful server-based solutions, vertical
market products, as well as turnkey solutions. The SCO Group continues to earn
the trust of distributors, resellers and application developers to support and
extend solutions to run SCO UNIX servers software. Having associated with these
principals, solution provides can move up the value chain.

What kind of new solutions and technologies would SCO launch in the coming
months?

Recently, we announced the launch of SCO Open Server Release 6. In some
days, the company is going to announce new solutions and technologies at a
worldwide event forum. Being the country manger, I wanted to reduce the
announcement of new technologies at the Indian platform.

With this revived interest in SCO OpenServer, what will happen to SCO
Unix-Ware?

SCO UnixWare is positioned to provide Enterprise -level capacity, where SCO
OpenServer 6 is best used in the small-to

medium -sized business environment, with branch or franchise locations.

How do you view India when it comes to profitability? Which verticals are
you targeting in the subcontinent?

India has always been a profitability country for us. We are retaining a
decent market share. SCO does its business purely through channels and they are
the backbone for us. We have many key customers in verticals like including
Government departments, defense agencies, railways and banks running SCO Open
Server.

We look forward to showing them the benefits of SCO Open server 6. Since the
retail and SMB segments in India are growing at a slow and sturdy pace, we will
target them in the months to come. This would give an opportunity to our
partners to grow with new markets. At the global level, SCO is strong in the
retail and SMBS segments.

Can you elaborate more on your support to the channel?

SCO provides live installation program, pre sales, post sales, support and
training to the channel partners. The mission of the company is to help
customers and channel partners design, deploy and support scalable, manageable
and reliable business solutions based on the latest SCO technologies.

SCO has not been very aggressive in India. How do you plan to reverse this
state of affairs?

For the last couple of years, SCO was not aggressive in India. But now the
company has started giving more focus to its marketing activities. Road shows
have been rolled out across the country. That apart, several new technologies
will be announced by us as well.

DQC NEWS BUREAU

New Delhi