'Intelligent tape technology will be the ideal storage solution'

Singapore-based Edmund Tan’s primary focus is to provide quality add-on

services for the entire range of storage solutions from Sony. He believes that

with data explosion, the company can garner a strong marketshare through its

advanced intelligent tape (AIT) technology. Edmund is also actively involved in

forming strategic business alliances and consulting with customers on their

storage needs and business continuance strategies. He was in Bangalore recently

to ensure that Sony´s solutions were well represented in the Indian storage

arena. Excerpts from the interview:

What kind of opportunities do you foresee for Sony´s storage solutions in

India?



Traditionally, Sony has been very strong in the advanced intelligent tape (AIT)

technology. Ever since its debut in 1996, AIT has been proving its superior

performance and reliability to customers worldwide. System manufacturers and

storage solution providers alike have been incorporating this fast-access,

high-density, tape recording technology into their own solutions. Since

inception, AIT has been a tape technology leader, offering superior capacity,

durability, reliability and scalability.

We will offer a perfect mix of quality, support and service for the Indian market

Edmund Tan, Department Manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions, Sony Electronics

We would like to replicate the same performance in the Indian market. This

market hosts enormous business opportunities for Sony and today, we can address

every segment in the storage space. We have an offering in the high-end range of

storage which is a good business proposition not just for Sony but for our

Indian channel partners as well.

How important is the Indian market in terms of revenue growth and

marketshare for Sony?



The Indian market is very important to us. We believe that India is one of

the fastest growing IT countries in the world. The proliferation of software

technology parks and the increasing presence of MNCs provides numerous business

opportunities for companies like Sony.

India amounts to almost 13 percent of our Asia Pacific revenue, which is good

and we plan to enhance it further. We are also targeting a 15 percent CAGR from

the Indian market.

What kind of distribution model do you have for India?



Sony has appointed Chennai-based Apex Computers as the authorized

distributor for its products in India. It will distribute the entire range of

Sony´s storage products in the country. We will also work closely with Apex to

identify and secure large volume strategic business for high-end workstations

and mission-critical network servers.

We are delighted to be able to address the Indian market through Apex as this

enables us to combine quality products with outstanding local service and

support. It has specialized in storage products over the last couple of years

and Sony is a world leader in storage solutions. This synergy, I am sure, will

turn out to very healthy.

What is your overall strategy for the Indian market?



Our primary focus is to provide quality add-on services to the entire range

of products that we offer in the Indian market, which is currently flooded with

several products. But majority of these brands lack the most crucial factor that

determines growth. And that is value-added services and support.

We will offer a perfect mix of quality, support and service for the Indian

market. We are also proactively taking steps to create awareness about Sony´s

storage solutions in India.

What is the current scenario for storage solutions?



While some IT environments still incorporate legacy tape systems, many

others have migrated to higher capacity and higher performance tape technologies

such as AIT, DLT, or Mammoth. Although each of these technologies provide

features that are a step ahead of the older legacy tape formats, AIT stands out

for its innovative design, superior capacity, access and retrieval speed, and

durability. The AIT drive is also mechanically and electrically robust,

exceeding the reliability specifications and performance metrics of both DLT and

Mammoth.

Enterprise storage is a rapidly growing market. What kind of systems will

companies need in the years to come?



Today the world produces between one to two Exabytes of storage per year,

which is around 250 megabytes for every person on earth. However, printed

documents comprise only .003 percent of this total.

With shipped hard drive capacity doubling every year, magnetic storage is

today the world´s largest medium for storing information. Also with its rapid

growth, magnetic storage is becoming the universal medium for information

storage.

The rich media content of today´s devices, including digital cameras,

camcorders and digital broadcasting, are contributing to a data explosion,

fueling a potential data increase of 42 Exabytes/year in addition to the

estimated 3.75 EB already created.

To meet this capacity growth accompanied with a cost/GB decline; a new tape

drive technology is needed before 2006. It is towards this end that Sony has

leveraged AIT recording density and component technologies and applied it to a

longer and wider media format, which is a 0.5 inch single cartridge. S-AIT is

being introduced to close the impending gap between cost/GB of hard disk drives

and that of conventional tape drives. We at Sony believe that AIT and S-AIT will

be the ideal storage solutions for companies in the years to come.

What is Sony´s vision for next-generation tape solutions?



Sony has embarked on a bold mission for next generation tape solutions and

looks forward to sharing the same with alliances in its core technology and in

solutions through AIT technology forum partners. Also a well-defined roadmap,

based on the latest magnetic tape recording technology that has now achieved an

areal recording density of 11.5 Gbpsi, would be charted out.

Server hard disk capacities now regularly exceed 100 GB even on low-end

models. The first generation S-AIT-1, which was released in early part of 2002

offers an areal recording density of 0.72 Gbpsi. This is same as AIT-3,

resulting in an unrivaled recording capacity of 500 GB, which is about 1.3 TB

per cartridge, along with a high-speed data transfer rate of 30 MB/s.

Furthermore, using high-density recording core technologies, such as helical

scanning method and advanced metal evaporated (AME) tapes, Sony has already

established an areal recording density of 11.5 Gbpsi at its research institutes

to cope with the needs of this large storage capacity era. These technological

advancements will allow the S-AIT roadmap to continue all the way to its fourth

generation by 2008.

SUNILA PAUL in Bangalore