D-Link is an SMB company

How has the transition been from Cisco to D-Link?

The transition has been very good and along expected lines. I had great

conviction in what I was doing. D-Link India is a very unique company, not just

in networking but also in IT. We have been brave enough and the market has

rewarded us for doing R&D, manufacturing, and selling services. There are

very few companies that are actually doing this.

What will be the focus of the new R&D facility in Bangalore?



We thought this was the right time to have our own R&D facility to
develop products meant to serve Indian customers. We had the platform to do

this. It has also to do with our focus on SMBs. The Indian SMB customers want

products that are customized for them rather than multinational products that

are enterprise oriented.

The R&D will focus on DSL and WiMax, apart from other

services. We are a leading player in the ADSL market. We are soon going to

launch our videophones.

D-Link is largely seen as a player which plays on volume and

price. What are your comments?

Jangoo Dalal, MD & CEO, D-Link India

We are in the price competitive market and it is our aim to give value to
our customers. There is no point in overloading product with features that the

customer is never going to use. While we need to have volume in India because

most of what we design and manufacture is consumed in India, D-Link will also

strengthen the brand.

In the context of the Indian economy, the "S" of the

SMB today is tomorrows medium business and later a large enterprise. In that

scenario, it is not about the image but the positioning of the product. So, once

we acquire customers, we should be able to provide them with solutions as their

needs grow.

We found that if we innovate for India and satisfy the Indian

SMB customer, it will give us good returns. D-Link is an SMB company.

What is the idea behind D-Link owning the support infrastructure

instead of doing it through partners?



D-Link Indias philosophy has always been to have an integrated end-to-end
operation in anything that we do. Yes, all the sixteen service centers belong to

us. Most companies services center are basically swap centers, but ours is

also a repair center. This allows us to make it cost effective, apart from being

closer to customers.

How has the competition landscape been for D-Link?



We are not obsessed about being # 1. At this point in time we are focused on
our strengths. One good thing about D-Links market share in the last many

years has been that we have stood our ground. There are a lot of companies that

have come and gone but we have consistently regained our #2 position in this

highly innovative and high-tech market. We are proud of what we have achieved.

Cisco has tied up with some telcos to bundle their products for

the SMB market. What is D-Links strategy on this?



Our proposition to the service provider is unique in the sense that we have
own locally developed products and if someone wants to do some small innovation

that is unique to that service provider, we are willing to do that.

Sudesh Prasad



sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in