"Microsoft and Oracle leverage on Magnitude to develop solutions"

With increasing storage needs of various enterprises, storage solution providers are trying to offer customers optimum solutions. US-based Xiotech Corporation's flagship product, Magnitude, is one such solution. With a worldwide customer base, Xiotech is planning to make inroads into the Indian market this year. Xiotech
CTO, Karl D Schubert elaborates the company's plans and products in an interview with Sunitha Natti of CyberMedia News.

What is the Magnitude storage family all about?

The Magnitude storage family constitutes of Magnitude, Magnitude 3D, Magnitude 3D Edge, and Magnitude 3D NAS. It offers resilient, uninterrupted storage availability because of which technology leaders including Microsoft, Oracle, and others leverage on the power of Magnitude to develop and deploy market-leading solutions. While Magnitude is basically for large enterprises, Magnitude 3D is an appropriate solution for organizations seeking to simplify storage management while investing in an enterprise architecture. On the other hand, Magnitude 3D Edge is specifically designed to meet the needs of small and medium businesses, while Magnitude 3D NAS gateway delivers the simplest networked file storage solution. 

What are the overall benefits of the Magnitude suite?

Magnitude is the only storage solution that eliminates downtime and abstracts storage complexity, thereby reducing operating and installation costs. It simplifies server management, offering easier server upgrades and changes. Overall, it is re-configurable, easily updated and dynamic. 

How do you see India from a business development perspective?

India is one of the fast growing markets. It's a major market for us as many companies are now setting up their base in India and hence the storage requirement is on the rise. We entered India basically to make use of the talent last year. But with the growing market demand, we have now geared up to market our products too. We would be entering through our reseller base in
Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. 

So far the storage market in India is largely dependent on direct attached network and slowly the penetration of SAN and NAS solutions is also creeping in. We would be shipping our solutions through resellers during the second half of the financial year. 

Who would be your customers from India?

Our primary customers would be SMEs in the $10 million - $15 million size. Data levels are expanding and so there is an increasing need to address this area. Our solutions are capable and dynamic with flexible configuration levels and are hence easily manageable. We are also talking to government departments here. Slowly, we will then target the larger customer base. 

How do you see the Indian development center ramping up?

The Indian development center in Hyderabad is now working on the next generation products. So far we have been using this center for core product development. We have invested nearly $3 million and intend to invest $2 million more for further expansion. Besides product development, we also have small customer support activities being done from here.

SUNITHA NATTI

HYDERABAD