'We have only one competitor, and that is Cisco'

What are the challenges posed by the Indian market to vendors,
such as Enterasys?

Clearly the biggest challenge facing India today, is
infrastructure. And that is what is driving huge investments that is
going into infrastructure. I see a lot of networks coming up, and what
is needed is a backbone to support those networks. They might not be
those traditional companies, but new companies trying to provide
communications services like power companies and utilities.

If that is so, then why is Enterasys not targeting at carrier
companies and various categories of service providers? Is Enterasys
pessimistic about this market ?

We are not being pessimistic about the service provider
market here. But if you look at what happened in the US, you will notice
that initially there were a few telecom companies and then there were
lots of them, and now there are a few again. That refining process is
now happening in India. We are now focussing on providing networking
products to enterprises, but we will come back to the ISPs once they
have streamlined and become stronger.

What percentage of Enterasys’ sales in India and Asia-Pacific
is coming from service providers ?

If you include the IDCs, then in Asia-Pacific over 20
percent of our sales is in this segment, and India too it is the same
and growing. And I expect the growth to be a lot faster.

Your competitors, such as Cisco and 3 Com, have a lot of mind
share as far as the Indian market is concerned. Don’t you see that
also as a challenge?

We have only one competitor. And let me tell you that in
the calendar year 2001, that competitor will be looking more in than
out.

Are you talking about Cisco?

Yes, I am talking about Cisco. It’s a great company but
right now they have some challenges. We are a great technology company
and can beat them in technology. We are already doing that. Cisco is a
great marketing organization, but right now they have some issues that
they have to resolve and we hope to take advantage of that.

How is your-tie up with Siemens going to help you in taking
advantage of the enterprise market? How entrenched, according to you, is
Siemens in Indian enterprises?

I would say very entrenched. Siemens is a big SI company in
India. And they see every voice application as an opportunity, and they
are very well entrenched there. There are lots of data needs, which have
a voice part of it, and there are lots of voice needs that have a data
part of it. And through that route, Enterasys will address the
enterprise’s data application needs. So it’s a complimentary
relationship with Siemens.

How many partners do you plan to have in the next one year?

Our strategy is going to be slightly different from Cisco.
We do not want many partners but want good and strong partners in each
one of the markets. One very important thing you will hear our partners
saying about us is that they make very good margins in our products.
That’s very important for us. Our competitor’s partners have a hard
time making gross margins.

How important is training going to be, especially for your
partners? In the past, some of them have really been dissatisfied with
your training?

We think that we have let our partners down on the training
issue. But today, we have a big and growing list of partners. We will be
shooting in our foot if we do not train them. We have tie-up with a
training company, and are setting up a training center in Singapore. The
training will not just be on products, applications and competitors if
even our technology roadmap. The most important will be end user
training.

All this would also mean that you are looking at more
investments in India. What are the plans there?

Let me tell you that our CEO is an Indian, and in that
capacity, he very well understands the advantages of doing business in
India. We are going to make substantial investments here in many ways
including people, time management, etc. We are also making equity
investments in the Indian companies.