Technologies In 2002 And Beyond

It was an interesting experience to put together the views of industry

leaders and partners on the technologies that one can bet on during 2002 and

beyond for our New Year Special feature. There was no consensus on a single

technology. Instead, the inputs suggest three different technologies taking

center-stage in the new year and beyond.

Clearly, wireless technology is going to play a leading role in the coming

days. Be it wireless mice, keyboards or LANs. Users would not like to have a

twisted bundle of cables around their computers and they are going to flock to

you for wireless products.

The mice working on radio frequency will have an advantage over the infra-red

ones because the latter suffer from the directional problem. So is the case with

wireless keyboards.

Wireless LANs are sure to catch up because of the number of advantages they

possess over the conventional, wired LANs. Wireless LANs cost less, are easy to

install and can be conveniently moved around. The only disadvantage is the

security threat which needs to be worked on to make wireless LANs hack-proof.

Internet technologies and related products are expected to sell well in the

coming days. You can bet on VoIP products which are being supported by webcams

and digital cameras. Already vendors have begun bundling these products with

high-end machines and users have made best of these offers.

No doubt, these products currently carry a premium because of the high duty

structure. With the opening of IP telephony, duties on these particular products

are expected to come down in the coming budget. Prices would further go down as

volumes catch up.

Finally, you can depend on storage technologies to make money in the new year

and beyond. SAN is growing faster than NAS. According to IDC, SAN will bring in

49 percent of the external disk storage systems revenue by 2005 in comparison to

32 percent earned by NAS.

Software will play a key role in managing storage. Thus, along with hardware,

storage management products are certain to bring in the moolah.

Big-time vendors are looking for partners in the SAN and NAS areas since they

know fully well that only the channel can provide them the necessary reach.

Compared to meager or no margins in boxes, SAN and NAS offer an opportunity to

partners to make money.

Of course, this money won’t come easily because partners have to possess

the necessary skill-sets to provide services in these areas. This is where the

vendors have to pull up their socks since the Channel Satisfaction Survey-2001

had clearly indicated that partners are not happy with the training they receive

from vendors.

Hence, vendors will have to take care to train partners in SAN, NAS and other

storage technologies and help them to grow up the value chain. In turn, partners

will have to train their people and meet the requirements that vendors demand of

them.

Sylvester Lobo