Enterasys: Networking first

After learning tough lessons in a volatile market, Enterasys has put in place a fully restructured business plan and a dynamic business team to drive it. The competitive environment has forced it to sit up and take notice and devise strategies to stay ahead. According to IDC India, the company is number two in the enterprise networking area and is the leading player in the switching and modular Layer 3 switch market for three successive years.

Enterasys offers products for a wide variety of solutions in call centres, Internet data centres, metropolitan area networks, virtual private networks, network security, local and wide area networks, wireless, VoIP and enterprise management.

The company claims to be in a very comfortable position when it comes to security, availability and mobility. Says Uday Birje, country manager, Enterasys India, “Innovation, strategic partnerships and a focused approach will drive our business in India.

Uday Birje

Enterasys has always focused on the enterprise segment and this will continue in the future.” Eventually, all this has resulted in transforming the company to become even more innovative and deliver more value to customers. To achieve this objective, the company has kept pace with the changing market dynamics and has signed up with strategic partners to identify customer opportunities and deliver solutions for them.

It’s an age of innovation and product life cycles are getting shorter by the day. Newer products emerge out of product stables quicker than ever before. Enterasys, as a company, feels that it is well equipped to handle this situation.

Commenting on the switching market, Birje says that it has evolved in the past three years—the market transforming from hub-driven networks to switches as the level of connectivity has increased. Now it is moving to a stage where switches are being deployed en masse. “There could be any number of players offering networking products. What counts is the price/performance, reliability and after sales support,” says Birje.

The company has recently released its Intrusion Detection System (IDS) called Dragon 6. This product has been positioned in the leader category by Gartner Magic Quadrant. “To capture a significant portion of the market we have tied up with some partners who focus on security,” says Birje.

With regard to wireless, the company says that it has launched one of the industry’s better known products—the RoamAbout R2 and has a few live installations. The company says that it will continue to offer breakthrough wireless LAN solutions to its customers.

With regard to future strategy, the company looks committed to the Indian market. “Our plans are to remain focused on the enterprise market and keep innovating solutions by striking the right partnerships. Gigabit Ethernet, security and wireless will see more adoption in the coming period of 6 to 12 months. We believe that we have the leadership and experience in terms of technology and in successfully deploying such solutions for our customers,” says Birje.

Although the company’s switching market strategy is not very clear, it is planning to experiment with newer market opportunities like wireless and security. The company foresees a lot of business and opportunities in this newly emerging market while maintaining its consistency and leadership in the traditional Layer 3/enterprise switching market in India. Though it is the second most preferred vendor in certain product segments, it has a strong market presence as far as the high-end networking market in India is concerned.

Uday Birje thinks that by leveraging partnerships with the likes of SAP, Siemens and Microsoft, it will be able to satisfy customers with its fully integrated solutions for the enterprise segment. Recognising these strengths, Skoch decided to confer an award on the company in the networking category. Skoch says Enterasys has the potential to double its market share in a time span of three years or earlier. Currently, it has a 6 percent market share valued at over Rs 100 crore, out of a total market size of Rs 1,850 crore.

— Rahul Neel Mani