WD Appoints Ingram Micro As National Distributor in India

Western Digital, a leader in hard drives and home entertainment products, today announced the appointment of Ingram Micro as a national distributor to sell WD’s full range of products in India. With this tie-up, WD will further expand its market reach through Ingram Micro’s extensive network of over 10,000 channel partners in India.

“Penetrating newer geographies and making our products available in smaller markets is one of our key focus areas in India in 2011. Ingram Micro, with its pan India network and capabilities will help us enhance our channel pull and drive growth in the Indian market. We are delighted to have Ingram Micro as our distributor, and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship” said Sushil Bandi, WD’s country manager – India.
Commenting on the association, Jaishankar Krishnan, Managing Director, Ingram Micro said: “Partnering with a global leader like WD presents an excellent business opportunity for our large reseller base. Our partners can diversify their portfolio through addition of innovative and market-leading WD products. I am confident that our extensive distribution infrastructure in India will help realize mutual business potential for WD and Ingram.”

“Demand for digital content is growing steadily in India. This presents a huge business potential for a brand like WD whose innovative offerings have dominated the storage market for over two decades. This partnership will assist us to meet high expectations of the fast-growing market for storage, and Ingram Micro, with their expertise, will help us tap this opportunity.” said Khwaja Saifuddin, WD’s senior sales director – Middle East & South Asia. 

BenQ Appoints Global Infonet As National Distributor

BenQ India Pvt. Ltd, a leading provider of networked digital lifestyle devices has appointed Global Infonet Distribution Pvt. Ltd, one of India’s leading IT Distribution Company as National Distributor for Digital Camera business.
With the appointment of Global, BenQ will expand its presence across India and also reach out to consumers in Metros, Tier II and Tier III towns with its latest range of Digital Cameras.

Global, with its focus on distribution of Consumer Electronics, PC systems, peripherals and IT Components and a nationwide network of 30+ branch locations has ensured that it encompasses all the requirements needed for providing quick response and efficient turnaround time which is required for a fast paced business like Digital Camera in India. BenQ aims to leverage the strengths of Global as it plans to introduce the entire line up of Digital Still Camera and Digital Camcorder in near future.

“Effective identification and superlative service to the channel is one of our focus areas for the current year and we are keen to work with an organization that brings deep domain expertise coupled with a pan India footprint. Global Infonet has an established capability in the markets and will provide immense value to our offerings. We are delighted to have Global as our distributor, and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship,” said Rajeev Singh, Country Head, BenQ India Pvt. Ltd.

Speaking on this occasion Mr.Vishal Sopory,Executive Director,Global said “This partnership with BenQ will enable us to diversify our portfolio of products for the channel community and cater to the growing demand of Digital Cameras. Our nationwide network and infrastructure will help BenQ to make deeper inroads into the regional markets of India.”

BenQ has launched 4 new sleek looking models of cameras in E & C series with pricing starting from Rs. 4599/-. These products are currently available in India ex stock.

3M appoints Rx Infotech as National Distributor

3M, announced the appointment of Rx Infotech (P) Limited, as National distribution for 3M’s Privacy filters and Pocket projector’s range in the Indian market. With this tie-up Rx Infotech P Limited expected to consolidate its presence in the Indian market.
Rx Infotech, reseller network spread all across India with an objective of providing an opportunity for its partner to sell a width of margin enhancing world class products to their customers. The company is specialized for laptop and server parts and accessories for all premium brands of laptops and servers. The vision of Rx Infotech has continuously imported innovative products to keep ahead of the other competitors in the market.

Today personal information disclosure laws becoming more restrictive, plus identity theft and corporate information loss costing companies hundreds of millions of dollars a year, protecting your confidential information is more critical than ever. So, 3M Privacy Filters help block the sight from anyone viewing the computer from the side. 3M's unique microlouver privacy technology allows persons directly in front of the computer to see on screen data clearly.

On the other hand, 3M portable pocket projector offers the same brightness, resolution at a lower price point. It also allows users to present PowerPoint files, videos, photos or documents, at the touch of a button.  It features a touch screen that makes operation a snap, while the in-build Wi-Fi connectivity and Bluetooth compatibility in the innovative products enable Internet browsing and file transfer from laptops or smartphones. In addition, the 3M pocket projector also features an integrated MP3 player, 4 gigabytes of internal memory, a micro SD card slot, and a standard USB port allowing users literally, grab and go.

In fact, 3M's wide product portfolio is backed by the guarantee of innovation and performance that has made 3M popular with millions all over the world. Today, 3M has over a 100 year track record of being one of the most innovative corporation’s worldwide. Over the past years, 3M India has built an exhaustive list of satisfied customers and a reputation for unmatched quality with over 6000 diverse products.

Acer appoints Cyberstar as National Distributor for server business

Acer India is focusing on increasing its market share in the server market where it has appointed Cyberstar as a national distributor of its servers, the company announced.

Cyberstar is one of the fastest growing distributors of IT Perpherals, Networking Products and Components. Acer with the help of Cyberstar is aiming to address the need of servers for SME’s and SMB’s.


Cyberstar has etched its strategy to reach out to the market more efficiently by dedicating 40 Acer partners across 8 cities and then slowly spread arms throughout the subcontinent, a press release stated.

Playing the role of a national distributor Cyberstar also aims to educate SME’s and SMB’s about how Acer’s Server Products offer the perfect solution to satisfy growing technological needs of an organization.

This will be supported by various other initiatives by Acer and Cyberstar like sending electronic mailers, multi city partner road shows, end customer road shows etc.

Cyberstar also aims to use its presence in 20 cities across India and its strong chain of 3500 active distributors to make Acer servers more popular.

Acer appoints Neoteric as National Distributor

Acer India has announced the appointment of neoteric  infomatique ltd, one of India’s leading IT distribution company as its National distributor for its Aspire range of consumer notebooks and netbooks based on AMD’s “Brazos” Fusion platform. With the appointment of neoteric, Acer will further expand its presence across India and also reach out to consumers in Tier II and Tier III towns with the latest notebooks and netbooks.

neoteric, with its diverse portfolio of products like PC Computing, Software, Enterprise solutions, Components & Peripherals including IT accessories has ensured that it encompasses all the requirements needed for providing solutions and not just indulge into box selling, thereby adding value to its customers. Acer aims to leverage these strengths of neoteric as it plans to introduce a wide range of notebooks and netbooks to its product portfolio under the new AMD “Brazos” Fusion platform over the next few months.

Announcing the partnership, Mr. Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer, Acer India said, “We treat channel partners and distributors as a lifeline to our business structure. Through this tie up, we at Acer have taken another step to reach out to all our potential consumers in smaller cities and towns and provide them the opportunity to own the latest technology.  We are pleased to join hands with neoteric infomatique ltd. for a national distribution arrangement to market our Consumer Notebook product line based on AMD platform. We look forward to a mutually beneficial, profitable and productive partnership.”

Commenting on the tie up, Mr. Paras Shah, CEO, neoteric infomatique ltd. said, “We are excited to partner with Acer India. With the new “Brazos” Fusion platform, we will be able to address a larger section of the target audience and support Acer to widen its footprint. By leveraging our pan India presence in over 500+ cities & with the support of more than 10000+ channel partners base, we believe that consumers across India will be able to benefit with high-quality products from Acer.”

Trend Micro Appoints Redington As Value Added Distributor

Trend Micro, a global leader in the Internet content security has announced the appointment of Redington India as its Value Added Distributor.
Under the agreement, Redington will help Trend Micro appoint, enable and drive business through its Value Added Partners across the Tier 1 cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata. The distribution agreement will also enable Redington engage their sales and presales resources across offices in these cities, who would work as an extended arm for Trend Micro’s range of enterprise and SMB products.

With a significant hold in India, Middle East and Africa, Redington has successfully positioned itself as a focused supply chain solutions player. This tie up is intended to help Trend Micro reach out customers across geographies.

“With extensive domain knowledge, nationwide distribution structure and a team of experienced professionals, Redington is expected to fetch in right value for our distribution and channel objectives. We are significantly benchmarking our growth and presence in India and this tie up will further enhance our reach in the country,” commented Mr. Amith Nath, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Trend Micro.

"We are looking at enhancing our clients’ security infrastructure with world class offerings from Trend Micro. With Smart Protection Network, a next-generation cloud-client content security infrastructure, Trend Micro can beat conventional methods by combining Internet-based technologies with smaller, lighter weight clients to stop threats before they reach users. We are sure, our reach and expertise will help Trend Micro to go to the next level in India and we are expecting to have a long and fruitful relationship with Trend micro,” opined Mr. Sasikanth, Strategic Business Unit Head, Enterprise SBU (Value Added Distribution), Redington India Ltd.

A 100 percent channel focused company; Trend Micro already has a strong network of value added partners in India. With its partner program with Redington, the company will further strengthen its network in the country. Trend Micro aims to work closely with the new partners by providing them regular presales & marketing resources for efficient fulfillment of customer needs and requirements.

Om Nanotech Appoints LSI As National Distributor

Om Nanotech, the manufacturer, supplier and exporter of memory modules, computer RAM, pen drives, flash cards has appointed LS Industries Limited as national distributor. With this tie-up Om Nanotech, subsidiary of Om Associates Pte Ltd, Singapore would be further consolidating its presence in the Indian market.

With LSIL, Om Nanotech has now expanded its channel network to over 35 primary locations in India. LSI will distribute Om’s Zipmem/Dolgix range of products in major cities like Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Cochin, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Madurai, Nagpur, Nalagarh, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Secunderabad, Parwanoo, Goa, Chennai, Kolkatta, Ranchi, Jammu.

Atul Khosla, Director, Om Nanotech said, “This distribution tie-up creates synergy between the two brands, each possessing unique niche in our own fields with the primary focus on providing greater customer convenience. This alliance is yet another customer-centric initiative, with an expanded nationwide availability and approach.”

 

Cooler Master Takes its Partners to Bangkok and Pattaya

 

Cooler Master Co. Ltd and Acro Engineering Company (AEC), their national distributor flew its partners for a 3 Night/4 Days exclusive trip to Thailand. This was in appreciation of partners stupendous support in making Cooler Master a huge success in India. Select few partners who have stood by Acro Engineering Company in promoting Cooler Master Product over the years were invited to join this trip.

The Acro-CM Thailand Trip was organized in March 2011 and had over 30 partners joining from across India. All the partners present were felicitated for their incessant support. It also gave them an opportunity to have a one-on-one interaction with CMs management team in a candid atmosphere and discuss CMs future roadmap.

The 3 Nights/4 Days trip also came as a welcome break for partners from their regular busy schedule and gave them a chance to spend some quality time in Pattayas relaxed and peaceful atmosphere. This exhilarating trip included a visit to Coral Island that offers plethora of water sports such as undersea walking, Para sailing, etc. and the trip culminated in the burgeoning shopping malls of Bangkok.

Foxconn Is Pushing Into Retail

Chinese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, which builds products for Apple and many other electronics companies, came under some criticism last year after a spate of worker suicides. But according to a new article in Wired, working conditions in its plants are no worse than most factories in the developed world.
Reporter Joel Johnson toured Foxconn's huge factory in Shenzhen (with a public relations rep in tow) and concluded that workers face boring and repetitive work, but aren't forced to work long hours or suffer brutal conditions.

KINGMAX Appoints Redington As National Distributor In India

KINGMAX, a global leading DRAM and memory product provider, has pointed Redington India as national distributor in India market for its complete range of products, including flash cards, USB flash drives, DRAM and external HDD. 

Nehru Place Listed Among World's Notorious Markets For Piracy

The United States has named New Delhi's popular Nehru Place as among the world's notorio US markets for pirated and counterfeited products including software. 

‘Notorious Markets List’ prepared by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) named more than 30 Internet and physical markets that are trading in pirated products. 

“Nehru Place is reportedly one of the many markets in major cities throughout India that are known for dealing in large volumes of pirated software, optical media and counterfeit goods,” the USTR report released on Monday said. The list also includes China's popular website Baidu, Silk Market in Beijing, Pakistan's Urdu Bazaars and Thailand's Red Zones shopping areas. 

The 'Notorious Markets List' identifies selected markets, including those in the Internet, that show market places which are “helping to sustain global piracy and counterfeiting”, according to the USTR. Counterfeiting and piracy activities are causing losses worth billions of dollars to the global economy. 

Going by various studies, India has a high level of piracy in various segments including software. A recent study projected that the value of counterfeit and pirated products sold worldwide is expected to grow to as high as USD 1.78 trillion by 2015. 

About Baidu, the report noted the website provides users with links to online locations that contain allegedly infringing materials. The list also includes numerous examples of websites involved in BitTorrent tracking and indexing, which facilitate the high speed transfer of infringing materials between users. 

There are also Internet markets involved in specific activities such as piracy of sports telecasts, smartphone software and physical products, USTR said.

MSI teams up with Redington India

Micro Star International (MSI) has entered into a strategic tie-up with Redington India for the distribution of their entire range of motherboards in India. This move marks another footstep from the company, to ensure that their entire range of motherboards is easily accessible for the potential consumers.

"MSI is proud to partner up with Redington India, which will help us expand our footprint in India. With gaming becoming increasingly popular, there is an emerging need for high- capacity and feature-rich motherboards in the country," said Eric Kuo, MSI India head, General Manager, India. 

S. Selva Nayagam, Head, Strategic Business Unit at Redington India, said, "Our partnership with MSI reiterates Redington's commitment towards bringing world-class brands to customers. MSI is a well-renowned global brand and is known for its innovative technology."

With this tie-up, MSI will be able to expand its reach across most of the cities and towns in India. The thrust of this expansion will come from Tier 1 and 2 cities. 

Kaspersky Lab appoints 4 new national distributors for its enterprise business

Kaspersky Lab has appointed 4 new national distributors for its Enterprise business: Mumbai-based Comguard Network Pvt. Ltd.; Coimbatore-based Ecaps Computers Pvt. Ltd.; Bangalore-based Ivalue infosolutions Pvt. Ltd.; and, Kolkata-based Sea Info Net Pvt. Ltd. The four new Enterprise Distributors will operate nationally.
Kaspersky Lab foresees market growth as, predictably, corporate customers will benefit from the enhanced and diverse skillset of their partner network. Further, the step will lead to augmented pre-sales & post-sales support through the company's distributors and partners.

The appointment of the four new national Enterprise Distributors will maximize Kaspersky Lab's reach in Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) and Enterprise segment in India. The antivirus leader already has its wings spread to the tier 3 and tier 4 partners. This strategic measure will now help the company to focus on large government and education deals and expand to tier 1 and tier 2 partners.

Kaspersky Lab has terminated its contract with Hyderabad-based Zoom Technologies, who were the earlier National Distributor for its Enterprise products. 

ViewSonic appoints Rashi Peripherals as its National Distributor

ViewSonic recently announced appointment of Rashi Peripherals as its National Distributor for its range of Monitors.

As the pioneer in LCD monitors for more than 5 years, ViewSonic has maintained its leadership position by offering a full range of products to meet the needs of today's techsavvy consumer. 

According to Mr. Kuldeep Ramaiya, National Sales Head, ViewSonic India, they will leverage on Rashi’s national sales network as well as channel strength for their LCD monitor business. As Rashi is one of the leaders in distribution market, they are expecting a great boost on the sales of monitors in the coming days. 

ViewSonic strategy will be to leverage its leadership position and continuously develop the channels in India through Rashi. It will focus on channel development programs which will include reseller trainings, marketing events, etc thus, leveraging Rashi’s strength in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities and towns.

According to Rajesh Goenka, VP – Sales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals on the tie up, Partnering with Viewsonic is a value adds to their distribution kitty. They can now aim at providing complete range of PC components and will now be able to provide world class components and accessories to the Indian consumers through their supply channel. They will work closely with the Viewsonic team to facilitate branding and marketing of the products.

Viewsonic is well known for its premium quality and value pricing, which will be a key part of the branding and marketing strategy for the Indian market. Together with Rashi as its partner, Viewsonic brand will build on these strengths and focus on increasing its reach in the Indian market.

Users frustrated with Seagate's next-gen hybrid drive

Users are complaining that Seagate's Momentus XT hybrid drive, which combines solid-state drive (SSD) technology with a traditional hard drive, has a significant defect that causes it to pause frequently, freeze up and beep a lot.
One user said his drive recorded more than 65,000 spin-downs/spin-ups in its first month of use.
Much of the problem involves a Momentus XT feature called Advanced Power Management (APM), which automatically spins down the hard disk to manage power use and increase mechanical life span. The feature also allows the SSD to take over read requests and serve up the most frequently used data. Users on Seagate's online forum say the problem is that the spin-down feature is too aggressive.
The Momentus XT's relatively low price and its promise of high performance have led to a boom in sales. During a recent conference call about its financial performance, Seagate announced that it shipped about 350,000 units since the Momentus XT was released last spring.
Darren Dittrich, CEO of Sell.com Marketplace, said he was impressed with the concept of the Seagate drive -- a product that cut the high cost of SSD by adding a hard drive for higher capacity. But after purchasing four 500GB Momentus XT drives to use in his personal computers, including a MacBook Pro, Dittrich said the product's shine quickly dulled.
He said he noticed an inordinate amount of spin-downs with the drive. After a couple of weeks, he purchased a SMART (self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology) utility to investigate the drive's performance and found that it clocked in 3,200 spin down/up cycles.
"That can't be good for anything," he said.
Dittrich said he replaced his MacBook's Momentus XT with another one that he'd purchased and had in production in another computer a month earlier. The SMART software showed that it had spun down and up 65,535 times.
The Momentus XT is a 7200-rpm Serial ATA hard disk drive combined with 4GB of SSD capacity and 32MB of DDR3 cache memory. Among its advanced software features is the ability for the drive to track use trends and take advantage of its high-performance flash memory to serve up the most frequently accessed data, while storing the bulk of data on its hard drive component.
Seagate said it released a firmware upgrade for the Momentus XT, Version SD24, to address its aggressive APM tool. Dittrich said he installed the firmware upgrade and found that it addressed the frequency of spin-downs, but the drive is still slower than the native hard drive that came with the MacBook and he's still suffering from "odd lagging, and mysterious slowdowns."
"They are temporary and bearable, but very annoying for me, even more difficult for some folks on the forums (video editors, musicians, etc)," he said. "I only have experience on the Mac side of the house, but there are plenty of PC users out there as well who are experiencing spin-down/up, drive stalls, and the like."
A Seagate spokesman said the company has been addressing "anomalies reported by customers" in its online forum and directly to company customer service representatives.
"Most of these anomalies have already been resolved by the current SD24 firmware upgrade located on the Seagate support forum or through our technical support team," the spokesman said. "The few remaining concerns include beeping sounds, no spin down in power-saving modes and intermittent hangs, most notably on MacBook Pro systems. Seagate remains focused on resolving these issues as well."
In Computerworld's benchmark tests, the drive surpassed the industry's highest performing hard disk drives and even beat out some pure SSDs for write performance.
Seagate's first attempt at producing a hybrid drive failed to gain significant sales. The Momentus 5400 PSD, or Power Savings Drive, had a spindle speed of 5,400 rpm and 256MB of NAND flash capacity. Seagate had aimed for power savings rather than performance with that drive, but it found that most consumers and system manufacturers were more interested in improvements in boot-up times and application load times than they were in decreases in their electricity bills or improvements in laptop battery life.

HCL plan to triple channel reach

HCL Infosystems has made plans to grow its channel reach by over 300 percent over the next 12 months. Apart from a renewed focus on its PC business, the vendor has set up separate teams to manage the consumer and SMB channels.

The IT major is betting on its lifestyle electronics and mobile phone distribution business to augment its IT products and services business. The vendor represents brands such as Nokia, Kodak, Kingston, Sandisk and Plantronics. “HCL enjoys one of the biggest channel networks which has been the strength of our distribution business. We reach more than 11,000 towns and over 93,000 retail outlets. We have 27 warehouses spread across 24 states, and over 700 stockists,” informed George Paul, Executive Vice President, HCL Infosystems.

HCL presently has around 3,000 channel partners with a reach of around 600 towns for its PC business. This includes 500 partners selling to small offices and the SMB market. “We will now leverage on the infrastructure and channel reach we have built for our lifestyle electronics business and grow our IT channels. Our plans are to reach to over 1,500 towns in the next 12 months, and address close to 9,000 resellers,” revealed Paul.

NVIDIA records double profit for Q3 to Q4,

The world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU has reportedly disclosed the revenues generated by the company in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011. NVIDIA, the corporation owned by Santa Clara has managed to record the revenue of $886.4 million for the Q3.
The numbers have reportedly increased by 5% compared as compared to the Q3's result. However these figures have witnessed a down of about 10% over Q4 FY 2010, and a net income of $171.7 million.
Also the company’s revenue in the whole Fiscal Year 2011 were recorded to touch $3.54 billionth mark. The numbers have increased by $3.32bn in the previous year. The major profit bagging segment of the company is its emerging unit Tesla which is highly targeting.
It has been reported that for the ongoing quarter, Nvidia is predicting a rise in revenue of 6 to 8 percent and a gross margin is supposed to be 48.5 to 49.5 percent (48.1% in Q4).  Also the Profits in FY 2011 were $ 253.1 million, as evaluated to a net loss of $68m in FY 2010. 

30% Growth in Indian PC Market

The Indian PC market is soaring high with 30% growth in last year. The growth figures are highest ever after 2007, cited survey reports of a leading firm.
Among the vendors, HP has emerged as the top one company for both the categories and has regained its leadership two quarters. The company has gained 17.3% market share; taking away the Numero Uno position from Dell that has to settle with 14.2% share. Following these was Acer with 11.5% market share.
The market survey reports cited that Notebooks were the notebooks emerged as the hottest selling category with a rise of 49%. The figures indicate that around 10 lakh notebooks have been sold for Q4, 2010. The overall sales have soared to 26% with sales of 25 lakh personal computers. Furthermore, in desktop segment HP lead the race with 10.86%, followed by HCL with 10.787% market share. Acer was the third in the race.

Strontium Appoints Redington as National Distributor

Strontium Technology and Redington announced their tie up for Indian market. Redington would become the National Distributor for Strontium’s DRAM and Flash products.
Strontium is a leading memory brand in India. With this tie-up, Strontium Technology would provide DRAM & Flash Memory to their channel partners throughout the length and breadth of India leveraging on Redington’s extensive reach and efficient operation. 
Redington will help Strontium Technology appoint, enable and drive business through its Value Added Partners across the tier 1, tier-2 and tier 3 cities in India. This distribution strategy will enable Redington to engage their sales and presales resources across various offices in these cities who would work as an extended arm for Strontium Technology.
This partnership will drive Strontium’s expansion in the fast growing memory market. The tie up is expected to extend Strontium India growth to the next level in the current financial year.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Ajay Kogta, Country Manager, India Sub-continent, Strontium Technology, said, "We are delighted to appoint Redington India as our national distributor. Since Redington has its presence in all market territories, this tie-up shall facilitate our distribution and channel objectives. We expect supply chain management facilities from our national distributor and we are sure Redington India are the best in class to meet our requirements.”
 Mr. S.Selva Nayagam, Head Strategic Business Unit Redington (India), said, “We are glad to add Strontium’s entire range of DRAM and flash products to our portfolio. Strontium’s products are known for its high quality and acceptance in the Global Market. With our strong presence and solution-centric approach, we are determined to accelerate Strontium’s reach in the Indian channel market”. 
Strontium Technology:
Strontium is Singapore’s No.1 PC memory maker with revenue exceeding US$210 million in 2010. Strontium is amongst the Top 50 Companies as ranked by International Enterprise Singapore, an agency of Government of Singapore. Its operations and businesses are spread in Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia, India, US and Latin American markets.

Dell Inc. make net double income

Personal Computer Manufacturer Dell Inc. announced on Tuesday that its net income has more than doubled in the most recent quarter as businesses spend more on computers, servers and other technology.
The results of the latest report sent Dell's shares soaring in extended trading.
Dell's gross margin, an important measure of how efficient the business is, clocked in at 21 percent, better than the 18.6 percent analysts were expecting. Shares rose by 5.8%.