Business without boundaries a key driver for the Location Independent Computing

BANGALORE, INDIA: In the modern enterprise, nothing ever goes away. It's like an archaeological dig, extracting data from the different layers of technology that have built up over time. Mainframes are still doing heavy lifting. The client-server layer, laid down in the ‘80s and ‘90s, followed. Then the Web layer started in the ‘90s. Now there's SaaS delivered from public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds - and increasingly - delivered to mobile devices.

Excerpts from interview with Steve Dixon, senior vice-president APAC and Japan Sales:

What is location-independent computing?

Location Independent computing is a concept that helps organizations turn distance and location into a competitive advantage. With this, organizations are enabled to host applications and data in the most optimal locations while ensuring flawless delivery and best user experiences.

What is the need for Location Independent Computing in the modern Indian enterprise?

With Indian enterprises increasingly making overseas acquisitions, their need for dependable, fast and secure networks is only increasing by the day. Network latency could cost organizations a lot. This is where Riverbed products address their needs most effectively. With networks connecting people and data over long distances increasing by the day with a simultaneous increase of dependence on IT infrastructure, organizations are increasingly facing the risk of network latency resulting in IT performance taking a beating. The entire network depending on efficient data-exchange could collapse in a matter of minutes, taking down with them business structures integrated closely with them causing a company-wide information crisis. Further, snowballing volumes of video and multimedia information is raising the heights for network performance exponentially every day.

With a complete platform for Location Independent Computing, Riverbed enables organizations to run businesses faster and more efficiently with reduced IT infrastructure costs. Riverbed focuses on meeting the ever-changing needs of global organizations, leading to the development of a wide-ranging solution that provides enhanced performance no matter where an employee or data is located.

What are the growth drivers for this industry?

Right from large enterprises to mid-market organizations to small businesses, moving to the cloud is no more a mere thought but an actuated reality. In the time of this paradigm shift, Indian organizations are utilizing the benefits of these technologies to expand their work across to globally dispersed destinations and a world without borders is no longer a distant dream. With increased adoption of these strategic IT trends, comes the need to deliver better performance across long-distances. Increasing IT adoption, globalization of businesses and the need to create business without boundaries are some of the key growth drivers for the Location Independent Computing.

What is the market scope in India?

A recent study Bloomberg in India found that 1995 overseas acquisitions were made by Indian companies, between CY 2000 and CY 2012, investing close to $116 billion in them. With large volumes of data - and new varieties of data such as videos and multimedia - travelling thousands of kilometers for routine business needs, Indian multinationals are looking for faster and smarter connectivity. A possible solution to deal with information explosion is addition of bandwidth. However, it is not the most encouraging option - either from the business angle or from the technology standpoint. While we were looking for superior and cost-efficient options of dealing with the information overkill, the solution of WAN optimization came as the panacea for all network-related worries.

According to Gartner, WAN optimization is one of the fastest growing markets in IT and Riverbed is a leader in the market. The estimated market of WAN optimization globally is over a billion dollars and is significantly increasing in number. Frost and Sullivan pegged the Indian WAN optimization market at USD 30 million in 2012, and 80 out of 100 top companies are our customers. There is ample scope to drive major innovations.

How do Riverbed products address the need for Location Independent Computing today?

With the Indian enterprises increasingly making overseas acquisitions, their need for dependable, fast and secure networks is only increasing by the day. Network latency could cost organizations a lot. This is where Riverbed products address their needs most effectively. With our products Steelhead, Stingray and Granite, organizations run businesses faster and more efficiently with reduced IT infrastructure costs. Riverbed focuses on meeting the ever-changing needs of global organizations, leading to the development of a wide-ranging solution that provides enhanced performance no matter where an employee or data is located.

What are Riverbed's prime focus products for India?

We started out with a WAN optimization offering and it remains our flagship product. But, the modern network is more dynamic than ever, which is why Riverbed is evolving to meet the challenges of the next era of networking. We've gradually brought in adjacent technologies to create a platform that enables infrastructures to be optimized, drives applications to perform better, and delivers apps in the right manner. We are today, a lot more than a WAN optimization company. We're the location-independent computing company.

We continue to lead the WAN optimization market in India. We understand the technology and business needs of CIOs and offer them cost effective and innovative solutions. This is what has kept us ahead of the curve. As of new developments, we recently acquired OPNET establishing our position in the converging application and network performance management markets. The Riverbed Cascade business unit and OPNET will be combined into the new Riverbed Performance Management business unit.

Which industry sectors is location independent computing most significant to?

The solution is relevant across enterprises of every sector. We have customers across banking and financial services, IT, Healthcare and Retail, utilities and mining, Government and military - indeed all of the major sectors. Specifically in India, we have worked with large organizations like Cognizant, SAB Miller, Essar Group, Pernod Ricard and Cox & Kings.

What are Riverbed's strengths in comparison to competitors?

Specific to combination of offerings enabling Location Independent Computing, we are the leaders in the space, and no other competitor is yet, offering such a package. We are focused on R&D and continue to build new features into our products. We are innovating at a faster rate than anybody else in this market. And we believe that we are taking care of the customer's needs better than anybody else. Simultaneously, we enable our partners who contribute more than 90 pc of our business in India, making them aware of our solutions, training them and making sure that they feel comfortable with our technology and can discuss effectively with the customers.

What is your vision for the Indian market?

Riverbed has a vision to remove the barriers of distance and location for businesses. Over the past four years we made the investments necessary to augment our portfolio and deliver on the promise of Location-Independent Computing. We today have an army of products to help us support or customers achieve this. Although we're now known as a WAN optimization company, we're actually a lot more than that. We're the location-independent computing company.

While Indian enterprises have always been a little cautious about making large investments, they are increasingly opening up to cutting-edge technologies in the network performance management space. Moving further, we expect Indian enterprises to explore these technologies more proactively to make themselves location independent.