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30 Minute Interview
Strengthened by acquisitions
Aldrin D’Souza, Country Manager-Tivoli, SWG Sales,
IBM India Private Limited talked to Abhinav Singh about growth opportunities
in the Infrastructure Management space and how IBM’s acquisitions help
strengthen its Tivoli product line
Aldrin D’Souza |
Challenges faced in the IM space
Organizations today are finding it challenging to visualize
their IT assets. This is leading to improper decision making, as they are not
able to visualize which of their services is performing well. For instance,
an organization might launch a service that does not do well or the kind of
revenue this service generates may not be as per expectations. Similarly, in
cases where a service has to adhere to certain regulations it may be difficult
to visualize whether all the regulatory norms are being met. Besides this, in
case there is some problem in an organization’s IT infrastructure, there
is no proper system through which root cause analysis can be conducted as to
which system is down, which components in the system are functioning improperly
etc. Infrastructure Management (IM) software and tools are important for an
organization as they can help deal with issues in the IT IM space.
Acquisitions around Tivoli
We have made many acquisitions to strengthen its expertise in the IM space.
Recently we acquired Consul Risk Management Inc aimed at leveraging our expertise
in the compliance and security audit space. Then there was the acquisition of
MRO Software in the asset and service management and software consulting space.
There were many other important acquisitions such as Vallent, which had a network
performance monitoring, and service management software for wireless service
providers. Vallent’s software helps service providers manage the performance
of their network infrastructure by monitoring and reporting problem areas such
as dropped telephone calls and traffic bottlenecks. This software also helps
service providers improve service quality and identify network problems before
they impact a customer’s experience. Vallent’s acquisition added significant
wireless telecommunications expertise to the Tivoli range of products.
Micromuse network management software is used by banks, telecommunications carriers,
governments, retailers and other organizations to monitor and manage their sophisticated
technology infrastructures. Acquiring Micromuse gave us an opportunity to further
penetrate into these verticals as this software helps manage the increasingly
complex IT systems that support the proliferation of voice, data and video traffic
due to the growing adoption of voice over IP (VoIP)-based audio and video services
delivered over the Internet. It will also help address compliance mandates.
Then there was the acquisition of Collation Inc. This company’s software
offered application-centric views of cross-tier IT infrastructure. Collation’s
software automatically captured information about IT resources, such as servers,
applications and databases, and displayed the same on a detailed map. This enabled
IT staffs to better understand the impact of changes to an IT environment such
as how a security patch can trigger unexpected problems that can bring down
an online business. It also helped shrink the time it takes to discover and
correct a problem.
Tivoli in India
Tivoli users in India include the Union Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank,
Cognizant Technologies, Satyam, Canara Bank and Tata Sky. We will consolidate
our offerings in the IM space. Besides this, we will also focus on developing
our partner strategy by involving niche partners who specialize in implementing
solutions in different verticals. We will also be increasing the awareness of
our solutions through more partner programmes. We are aiming at tying up with
educational institutes to develop skill sets around the Tivoli range of products.
Besides this acquisitions around the Tivoli portfolio of products will continue
to further broaden the product portfolio.
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