BA Systems forays into low-price router market

BA System, the Bangalore-based router manufacturing company headquartered in San Jose, California has now entered the router market and is aiming at a market share of 10 percent in the networking solutions space in India by 2009-10. The company has launched `Enterprise’ category of routers with a contract manufacturer in India and its USP is its price that ranges 30-50 percent cheaper than its competitors. B. Jagadish, director marketing of BA Systems in an interview to Manu Sharma talked about their entry into the Asian market and also the growing market for Enterprise routers. 

CIOL: Being a US company what made you roll out your products in India?

Jagadish: BA Systems is headquartered in San Jose and has its presence in Bangalore, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. We are targeting the Asia-Pacific market since it is growing by many folds in the Enterprise segment of routers. India in particular has a big market and the router market is growing at 15-18 percent while in the developed countries is it only 5 percent. So we have launched our products here and plan to expand overseas through our OEM network. In fact, we have already sent our first shipment to China and Bangladesh. 

CIOL: Describe the Enterprise router market and its estimated growth in India?

Jagadish: The Enterprise routers industry is presently estimated at $4-billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30 percent to touch $10-billion by 2010. According to an IDC report, while Edge, PC based, Wireless, ADSL, Broadband, XDSL and Core routers make up most of this industry, Enterprise presently is in lesser numbers but is catching up among others.  

CIOL: What are the routers you launched and what are its applications?

Jagadish: The BA Systems’ EN3500, and EN2400 integrated routers uniquely address key customer requirements such as reduction in CAPEX and OPEX and the power to implement IP networking services with minimal disruption and maximal remote control from a central location. This is achieved by combining the high performance and carrier-grade reliability of the BA Systems Operating System (BOS) with a central management application - BA Systems Element and Services Management Supervisor (BESS). The modular and multi-threaded design of BOS in combination with the EN series high performance hardware provides for best in class performance, both raw and with multiple services loaded. 

CIOL: How are your products priced?

Jagadish: Our USP is our cost that is incomparable to any competitors even Cisco. Our solution come at a cost that is at least 30 percent lower than close competitors Cisco, and can even be as less as 50 percent less if it is an end–to-end solution. Our hardware contributes a lot besides our software that has own patent rights. We are the only router company with a local manufacturer. Both Cisco, Juniper nor anyone else have such a facility and most of them source their products from China or Taiwan. 

CIOL: Who are your competitors in this segment?

Jagadish: In fact, Cisco Systems has a market share of over 90 percent, while Juniper Networks, Nortel, Tasman, Huawei and 3Com are the other major players in this segment. We have just made an entry into the market and hope to capture a 10 percent market share by 2010. 

CIOL: How do you plan to tackle your competitors?

Jagadish: The BA Systems' EN product series represents the next generation of integrated routing platforms. EN series is the first ever routing platform that leverages the combination of optimized hardware with tested, interoperable, and modular high-performance operating system - BOS, thereby affording significant CAPEX savings.  The BA Systems products are deployed in mission-critical networks at high profile customers including a leading National Telco, banks, stock brokers, MSPs and BPOs. BA Systems strategically partners with channels including Systems Integrators and Service Providers to go-to-market. The company provides partners with level-3 technical support, training and feature customization for partners/customers. 

CIOL: Who are your present customers and whom are you targeting?

Jagadish: Our product is affordable, off the shelf components. We have started production in May 2006 and already installed the product at the Taj Group, ITC, STPIs and Co-operative Banks. We also have corporate clients like Fortune Financials, Bosco Steel, BNA BPO and Divya Systems. The company is also tapping on the railways, airlines, telecom and defence sectors in 2008 as they are all based on tenders. 

CIOL: What kind of marketing and sales support does the company provide?

Jagadish: Our support base for the customers will be out of India and already started a toll fee line that will be attended by us starting next January. Presently we provide technical support to our customers that make it unique unlike others and have no plans to outsource the after sales support. We provide technical support to our customers to handle them faster and understand their needs better. Presently it is 12x5 and once the volumes built up it will be 24x7. The company has also marketing offices in Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. Besides we will have full-fledged offices in Mumbai and Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad by October 2007. 

CIOL: How is the feedback from existing customers?

Jagadish: The feedback has been phenomenally good. It is because of our modular operating system, inherit features, rollback graceful restart, route tracking, SLA monitoring tool are the major empowerment our customers experienced. What we offer is end-to-end solutions including the real time WAN management. In fact, we have moved away from offering a product to a total solution.