'Our solutions can be up and running in hours where others take over two years'

Ganesh Dholakia is senior product manager, Concord Communications Inc, a
US-based company specializing in a range of solutions for real-time management
to maximize availability and performance across networks, systems, and
applications. The company has the popular eHealth range of products for service
providers and enterprises. Dholakia was in India recently and talked to
VOICE&DATA about the company, and its plans in the country.

Tell us about Concord’s solution for service providers?

A: Our eHealth solution is for all types of service providers ranging from
ISPs, managed service providers, and ASPs to local service providers.
Irrespective of the type of business the companies are in we have solutions for
them. We understand the market well and challenges therein and we can help the
players add value to their business. Service providers are facing several
challenges including that of the need for service differentiation. We help them
do that through our integrated eHealth solution. We have 2,600 customers
worldwide and more than 500 are in the service provider segment. We help
customers manage the performance, availability and capacity for their network
for various technologies.

What is the USP of your solution?

A: A lot of vendors are good at either performance, fault management,
network, or systems. Concord, on the other hand, is a leader in integrated
quality performance management software across network, system, and
applications, which is a huge differentiator. There are a large number of
vendors offering solutions that people have used traditionally, which have taken
as long as 2—3 years to implement because they are framework kind of
solutions. First companies purchase and then implement them. Our product, on the
other hand, is out-of-the-box, easy-to-use and can be deployed in a few hours
time.

What has been your experience with prospective customers in India?

A: We talked to many prospective customers in India and found that most of
them are struggling and have not been able to deploy. The deployment is taking a
long time, sometimes as long as two years. Most of them in India are using
Tivoli, CA or HP solutions. We were able to convince them of the value of our
products and we feel it is a great market for us. Next Generation Business Power
Systems and Houston Technologies are our partners in the country for the
distribution of our products.

Sudesh Prasad