Novell to restructure channel business

MUMBAI: After acquiring Onward's stake in Onward Novell joint venture, Novell India has started its restructuring process to grow exponentially in the Indian market.

As part of restructuring its channel business, the company would soon appoint a couple of national distributors for the Indian market.

Novell currently has 53 partners in India. It intends to increase its partner base to 90 by this year-end. With restructuring of channel business, the company wants to introduce its global channel practices in India. This includes the introduction of new channel programmes.

David Lenz, director, sales and marketing, Asia Pacific, said, “We are looking at strengthening our base in India and ramping up of the partner base is imperative for us in this regard. As we introduce our global channel programmes in Indian market, it would benefit channel partners.”

Novell is expecting huge growth in its open source initiative. The company is quite upbeat about Linux's penetration in desktop and enterprise segment. “We want to be on the top in desktop Linux in India and are expecting at least 12 identity management implementations in India by year end. All this would be done through channel partner involvement,” Lenz added.

Onward Tech, its global partner, would provide consulting services in the area of identity management and open source.