Going Well

The recent acquisition of APW President by Schneider Electric is being seen as one significant development in the IT industry. APW President has been pioneers in designing and manufacturing standard and customized racks and enclosure systems in India, serving in particular IT and telecom end-users.

This acquisition is another milestone in Schneider Electric's development in India. With completion of the acquisition, Schneider Electric has clearly become a key player in integrated data center infrastructure market, which further accelerates its development in this domain. Moreover, this strategic partnership further strengthens its comprehensive portfolio of integrated data center solutions, thus making Schneider Electric the single-stop solution provider for every data center requirement-be it for power, cooling, racks, security, management software, or services.

Additionally, Schneider Electric is now well positioned to capture opportunities in the fast-growing Indian IT infrastructure market as well as in international markets, particularly in Asia Pacific and Middle East. The company will also be able to tap the talent pool and increase its solutions execution capabilities from server rooms to extra-large data centers.

On asking what does this acquisition really means to Schneider Electric, Shrinivas Chebbi, country general manager and vice president, ITB India for Schneider Electric said, “APW President has been leaders in data center infrastructure space, especially in areas like racks, and has been an undisputed leader in this domain in the Indian market for the last 30 years. So, in order to pick and address customers' demand in India, this acquisition is the most appropriate fit that enhances our ability to provide complete and comprehensive solution to our customers in the area of energy-efficient data center infrastructure.”

“APW President has the most advanced features in their products, which can address multiple challenges of data center managers like high form factor, integrated cable management, server compatibility, etc. When you combine these capabilities of APW President with APC by Schneider's capabilities to design, deploy, commission, and maintain data centers, you will be able to bring a winning combination in front of customers that can address their challenges of energy efficiency,” added Shrinivas Chebbi.

Approach Towards the Market

This acquisition has made Schneider Electric a single-stop solution provider in the data center market. In fact, the company has always positioned itself in front of the customers as solution providers that provides energy-efficient infrastructure. With the inclusion of APW President, it will not only be accelerating in the very large turnkey data center space but also address the customers of all sizes irrespective of the sectors they belong to.

“We didn't want to differentiate between the large enterprise and a SMB. We have already launched 3 rack and 5 rack out of the box server room and data center solution. Today, practically from a server closet for a customer to a million square feet data center customer, we have energy-efficient physical data center architecture ready,” asserted Shrinivas Chebbi.

Moreover, this is a great opportunity for APW President to explore itself in
the international market because they have tremendous customization and
engineering capabilities. Besides, they are not only present in the Indian market but also in some select international market like Africa, Middle East, and South East Asia.

Nivedan Prakash
nivedanp@cybermedia.co.in