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Where is Quantum placed in the whole storage ecosystem?
Quantum is a trusted partner and long-standing leader in data protection, meeting the needs of both small and large-scale customers with tape drive, tape media, tape automation, and disk-based backup products and services.
Quantum is also the world’s largest supplier of tape drives, and Quantum’s DLTtapeâ„¢ technology is the de facto standard for tape backup, archiving, and recovery. Quantum also offers the industry’s broadest range of automated tape libraries used to manage, store and transfer data.
Late last year, the company expanded into the area of disk-based backup, with a solution, DX30, that emulates a tape library and is optimized for data protection.
What kind of opportunities do you think exists in the Indian market for Quantum's products?
India is an important component of Quantum's Asia-Pacific business. As one of the four biggest markets in the region and one of the two fastest growing it is receiving close attention from Quantum. We are specifically focused on providing data protection solutions to the finance, manufacturing, ITES, Software, Telecom segments currently. We have already doubled the size of our operations in Bangalore and will open offices in Mumbai and Delhi this year.
Let’s take the case of the Quantum DX30, a disk-based system that is optimized for backup and virtualized tape. The DX30 offers the industry’s most innovative approach to backup through disk-based solutions that complement tape libraries, optimize backup performance, and provide seamless interoperability, while preserving customers’ existing investments in backup hardware, software and operational procedures. We are very bullish about the DX30’s adoption in India and will adopt a consultative approach in implementing these solutions in India. In just over two years since we have opened an office in India, we have acquired a huge customer base here. Our customers currently can be classified into:
Multinational companies segment constitute the largest customer base for us in India. Some of customers include GE Capital Services, National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Intel, Silicon Graphics, i2 Technologies, ABN Amro Bank, GE GTS, Sanyo and more. We are working aggressively to build on the successes that we have had in this segment.
Indian businesses segment constitute a growing percentage of our business here in India. Some of our clients in this segment include UTI Bank, South Indian Bank, Command Cell, ControlNet, Infosys, Tata Consulting Services, Kotak Mahindra, Indya.com, Wipro Technologies, SG Software and much much more. This will be our focus segment in the coming months/quarters.
How would describe the storage needs of Indian enterprises?
As is the case globally, in India too, storage plays a key role in the enterprise network. With 24X7 computing, instant and continuous access to stored data is central to every Indian organization’s success.
In fact, the Indian market has just realized the importance and benefits of having networked and automated storage environments. Also, increasingly users in India are looking for simple, cost-effective, reliable and highly modular storage solutions. They couldn’t care less if the solution was a SAN or NAS implementation. The Indian market, has in particular, been a major draw for our modular storage solutions — where customers are able to easily build on their previous storage investments and "buy as they go." This is a major reason why Quantum has been hugely successful with its M-1500 and M-2500 series libraries, which offer high flexibility and modularity. Typically, Indian customers like to start small and then slowly scale up their storage capacities and investments. And at Quantum, we are clearly focused on providing custom fit storage solutions that fit the requirements our customers best.
Which were the major deals that you lapped up recently?
The biggest single order for us in the last twelve months has been from GE Capital Services. GE Caps has the largest installation of M1500 libraries in the entire Asia Pacific Region. Motorola, Nerolac Paints, Chrysler Daimler, ONGC, Mentor Graphics, Spice Telecom, Fluent, Tata Teleservices are some of the major order won by us in the last quarter.
What kind of business are you looking to get from telecom service providers?
We have been very successful in the telecom segment so far. But we still have a large market to address in this segment and we are doing that very aggressively. Some of our major customers in this segment are Command Cell, Orange, Tellabs, Tata Teleservices, Spice Telecom.
Who are your channel partners in India? Are you looking at new partners?
Our "Go to Market" strategy in India is to work closely with our partners, Wipro Infotech and Apara Enterprises, in developing the Indian market for our products and services. Both our partners understand the Indian market very well and help us immensely in positioning the right kind of products for the Indian market. At the moment there are no fresh plans to look for additional channel partners.
Ravi Shekhar Pandey