We have shot down the prices of our products

What are your target customer verticals currently?



We are targeting education, retail, government, and corporate sectors

mainly. We are also developing a client base in the data center sector. This

aside, we have OEM tie-ups where we reach out to a wider client vertical

indirectly. As we speak, some IBM personnel are getting training on Aruba, and

we have similar alliances with Dell and Datacraft too.

How will you position your brand strongly amidst stiff

competition?



We have shot down the prices of our products and made it more user-friendly,

but this does not mean we have compromised on our quality. Even though we are

cost-effective, we still have our profit margins. We are optimistic that this

year the growth will be much higher. As for competition, we believe in doing

what we do the best, and letting the customers decide for themselves about their

preferences.

How will Aruba select the right set of channel

partners?



Since Arubas go-to-market model in India is primarily through the channel,

we will select partners who have strong domain knowledge in our focus vertical

like education, retail, healthcare, government, financial services, and

manufacturing.

Our partner selection criteria will be based on the

partners geographic presence and competency in networking/infrastructure

segment. We believe that partners who have an established networking, storage,

or security practice will find it easier to position Arubas WLAN and remote

branch networking solution in their installed base.

We recently launched a channel program where a reseller

can go and register at our website. We will recruit both global system

integrators with pan-India presence, and regional system integrators who may

only have regional presence across metro and non-metro locations.

What support will you extend to these partners?



We have a comprehensive channel partner program in India. Aruba invests in

training partners sales/pre-sales team on positioning our products, and give

technical hands-on training. We also provide our channel partner a dedicated

access to Arubas partner portal for downloading product collateral and other

product related information.

We assign dedicated channel partners for our premium

partners who help develop a joint go-to-market strategy. Periodically, we hold

joint marketing events with our partners to discuss Aruba product launches and

positioning in the market.

Revathi Raman/DQ Channels



revathir@cybermedia.co.in