Symphony IT Distribution enters India

Zurich-based distribution company, Symphony IT Distribution has entered the
Indian market and has tied up with storage vendor ADIC and software firm Nitix
to begin its distribution business here. The company has appointed Arun Rao as
its country business director to manage the business in India and the SAARC
region. Prior to this, Arun was with Computer Associates as national
manager-storage.

Symphony will be headquartered out of Bangalore and has begun the process of
putting its channel network in place. "For ADIC, we would tie-up with four
to five tier-1 SIs and another 30to 40 partners, including tier-2 SIs and
resellers," informed Arun. According to him, the company would be looking
at partners with revenues between Rs 30 crore to Rs 100 crore. "For Nitix
too, we would be putting a similar channel in place, and there would be an
inherent overlap with that of ADIC," elaborated Arun.

"Globally, it's a very strong brand commanding over 40% marketshare in
its space. In India too, I am confident of garnering between 10-20% marketshare
over the next few months," remarked Arun. ADIC has already won about 19
customer installations across the country.

On Nitix, while admitting that the product line, autonomic computing will not
be an easy sell, he feels the solution is powerful enough to attract customer
attention. "What we would be truly bringing is value-added distribution and
would focus our strengths on these two products instead of aggressively adding
more and more vendors," asserted Arun.

GOLDIE