We are seeking partners with servicing capabilities

Since he took over the reins of Novell India, Sandeep Menon is clear that
he is looking for partners who have requisite interest in Novell's solutions and
the structure to support a services delivery model. excerpts from the interview

How did you change this perception of Novell from a Netware company to one
which provides open source enterprise solutions?

In late 2005, Novell came into India with direct presence and later acquired
Suse Linux. This was a visionary acquisition because the management had figured
out that we are in the infrastructure software space and Netware was extremely
popular. But as a product, Netware had also matured. It was bringing in cash but
it was not a growth engine anymore. About the same time, the Linux market was
exploding.

Thereafter, Novell spent couple of years coming to grips with the open source
business, which is very different from the proprietary software business. There
was a period where there was a lot of change and flux. However, within a year it
stabilized and then with the help of the new management, we began rebuilding the
business using Suse Linux brand as the foundation.

Is this when Novell decided to opt for a channel transformation?

Earlier, if you had a huge MNC with a flagship product, you went out and
sold it yourself. But now one has to build a sales ecosystem.

This is very complex game as you have to juggle six to seven distinct players
at the same time. Our ecosystem comprises of large SIs who fulfill government
projects. The second is solution providers or tier-I partners. Unlike the
traditional shrink wrapped products for which we would look at resellers, we
sought those partners with service capabilities.

Keeping that in mind, how are you tapping the indirect channel?

Our Indian operations have been given green signal to invest in all our
go-to-market channels. We have been given hard dollars to establish a complete
channel ecosystem development program. It is interesting because in the past we
were building reference cases where all our guys were spending time with
end-customers. Now, we are hiring dedicated resources and and restructuring our
team. We are also appointing global business managers who can work with global
SIs for international business as well. Then we look at the tier-I partner
network-for every four or five partners, we will assign a partner manager, who
makes his money by getting his supervisees business. He can't sell to any other
partner.

How will you identify the right services solution provider, because
majority of them are still hardware sellers?

The average reseller profile in India has been of pure reselling even when
it comes to software. We had an intensive exercise where we identified 20
players in India. We went to some of the traditionally reselling names. And
because their entire business was a large volume set up, it was difficult to
adopt a services approach. The top management was willing but below that layer,
the field staff is oriented differently.

We hired a consultant who designed a framework on how to select partners and
he came up with a map on partners we should invest in. Of the 20 names we
finally picked up, most were emerging players who were clear that they want to
be in the service delivery space and infrastructure software is a component of
that.

Isn't this strategy risky?

The good part of this is that their mindset is in the right direction. The
downside is that they often need a lot of hand holding as they are smaller
engines. So we have set aside budgeting only for this. Our marketing budget has
gone up by 300 percent and 80 percent of this has to be spent on channel
co-marketing programs.

I don't think this is a risky strategy because the risks are spread. On one
hand we have the large SIs like IBM and HP who are big cash engines that
continue to run. At the reseller level we have taken a conscious decision to say
that this partner has a great account control. If he does not have the interest
and the structure to support a services delivery model then we may not want to
work with them.

Vinita Bhatia

vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in