We want diversified partners who can offer different technology product lines

The data center business is seeing good uptake but there is a dearth of
specialist solution providers who can cater to the burgeoning market. Do you
agree?

Yes. There are no dyed-in-the-wool solution providers who can offer a
consolidated data center solution as a business opportunity. Most of them either
offer just piecemeal hardware or software solutions. But this does not mean that
vendors are not doing enough to provide the right amount of knowledge to
customers. However, whenever any vendor shares information there is invariably
some sales angle for pushing his own product in the bargain. There is a need for
vendor-neutral solution providers who can enlighten people on how to start a
project around data centers and give them a consolidated view of the challenges
they are likely to encounter.

This year you have set a target of touching Rs 160 crore from last year's
Rs 129 crore in revenues. How do you propose to achieve this?

We believe that while the percentage of IT spending in enterprises will be
single digit, it will be in double digits in the small and medium business (SMB).
This is why we have taken a strategic decision to focus on the SMB market this
fiscal.

Pramod Agashe COO, APW President

We are going to work very closely with the channel, which will help us go to
those areas where we might not be directly present. We are also creating
products best suited to this clientele like the rack or intelligence rack, which
is an integrated rack solution. It is a preconfigured rack where all customer
data can be stored.

What are your channel plans?

We have created a new channel program called the President Business
Association (PBA). It's a loyalty club and we will offer a lot of benefits to
partners who are enrolled in this program.

Now we want to have more partners directly working with us and getting
trained and certified by us. We now want to have a simplified channel structure
and are aiming to have 50 partners within the PBA network by March 2009.

What will be your distribution model?

We don't see ourselves working with any national distributors. We can work
best with solution providers who have been trained by us to build these racks.
We will manage the logistics initially.

Have you identified the company who will take the 30 percent stake held by
APW Electronics in your company, since the latter is in receivership?

We are in talks with an organization for the same. The UK-based APW had
filed for receivership and since January 2008, we have been discussing with
other vendors for transfer of this stake. We want a technology partner whose
offerings will complement ours so that we have a unified stack of solutions to
take to the customer.

What kind of partners are you looking for?

We want diversified partners who can offer different technology product
lines in verticals like BPO, manufacturing, health care, entertainment etc.
Though our partnership, we want access to mutually beneficial technology.

Archana Swamy

archanas@cybermedia.co.in