GITEX 2012 INTERVIEWS ITU TELECOM World 2012 - Teletimes

TT - How are you helping yourcustomers protect their data?FM - We store and they canretrieve and archive the data.It’s sophisticated how we actuallystore the data for them.So we actually deduplicate thedata. So if you have 55 copies ofone email or attachments oursystems will recognize that andwill only store one. So we’resaving you space, time andeffort. And our system will tagthat one copy of data to say thateveryone had an involvement init. We keep our customer’s datastorage structures very simple.TT - What is it that differentiatesSimpana from other playersin the market?FM - We have a single communicationplatform which is a unifiedinformation management.We have 5 products that workon the same single platform. Sothe cost to manage the productis very low. And the communicationof the technology betweeneach other is very simple. Sofor the business, the footprintof the software on the serverand the time it takes to workis much quicker. So if you’rebacking up and saving yourdata every day, you will do it farquicker with us than with othervendors. Because we recognizethe same data and we only backup to a point in time. We’re notthe only backup vendor and ourcompetitors are powerful andstrong but they are much morecomplex than we are.TT - What markets are youfocusing on region wise?FM - In the region, the marketsthat are very good for us aregovernment and public sector.We do a lot with police andwith govt. agencies, education.I represent europe, africa,middle east and india. We are aglobal organization though withpresence in many other regionsas well. We have over 3000employees worldwide.The Middle East region isparticularly buoyant for usbecause the investmentsthat are being made by localgovernments in the publicsector and in utilities, oil andgas, steel manufacturing andeducation and finance are verygood for all businesses in theregion.TT - Which markets are moreprofitable for you, the emergingmarkets or the comparativelydeveloped markets?FM - The emerging markets havea bigger opportunity becauseby nature they are newer forus. The cost of sale can be moreexpensive in a new market. Wehave been in the Middle Eastfor 10 years, we have many ofour major customers here andthe customer base is increasingrapidly.TT - What about south Asia?FM - South Asia-most of thatwe are established in. Japanwe have only been there forabout 2 years and by nature oflanguage and culture, it takes“Our competitors are powerful and strongbut they are much more complex than weare saving you space, time and effort.”a bigger investment. So it’s acost for us to build the businessbut the rewards are there. Wehave one of the world brandproducts.TT - How was your experienceat Gitex?FM - This is one of the flagshipevents that we do annually. Itdraws in expertise from all overthe world in IT products. Wemake a significant investmenthere and it is a show thatdelivers us lots of feedbackbothfor us and our partners.We only sell Simpana thoughour partners so it’s an importantopportunity for our partners tobring their customers to us andfor our partners such as Dell,Hitachi Data Systems, HP- to beable to work with us in closeproximity to the community.So it works very well for us andour partners.TT - And are you hoping thatgood things will come off this?FM - Yes absolutely. And Ibelieve that if you are lookingto buy software or applicationsthen this is the place to comebecause everyone is here. The3 or 5 days that you take out ofthe office- are of value to you.We work with partners and it’sall very good to be under thesame roof all in one day.TT - Could you briefly sum upthe value SImpana is providingto the industry?FM - We keep it simple and wedeliver value and today peoplein the industry are looking tospend less and get more value.And this is complex and difficult.The amount of data you havenever gets smaller- it’s alwaysgoing to grow. Therefore, wereduce complexity, increasingvalue.November 2012www.teletimesinternational.com37