India is key focus area for Rainbow Technologies

A relatively younger player in the security arena in the country (with an Indian presence since 1999), Rainbow Technologies, the India subsidiary of Rainbow Inc, a market leader in hardware performance solutions for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and secure Web and e-commerce, has set a target of 100 percent growth for FY 2002-03.

While Rainbow security tokens have a 55 per cent market share globally, in India, the company protects more than 80 percent of the software product market that employs software protection. The key products for the Indian market have been ‘Sentinel SuperPro range’ (constituting multi-algorithm security locks with remote activation features on multiple platforms), Software Dog range (with a host of anti-cracking features like maze technology, random noise technology, internal timer) and Electronic License Distribution/Management over the Internet (providing 24x7 activation of licenses).

Says Deepak Prasad, director, Rainbow Technologies: “The key concern for many software product companies is piracy and how to prevent it. Piracy translates into higher prices for consumers, lesser returns to software product developers and a potential barrier to success for software product start-ups in India.” The above products of Rainbow are with a view to addressing these concerns.

With an increase in e-commerce, the need to keep transactions secure even at high traffic levels is imperative. “While encryption will gain prominence there would be an increase in the industry-standard encryption protocols such as SSL. However these can cause performance bottlenecks on the Web server, making the end-user experience slow and in some cases completely unresponsive.” And this is where the company is positioning its NetSwift and CryptoSwift range of products.

Behind all these initiatives is Rainbow’s robust strategy of making India one of the key growth areas in the company’s Asia-Pacific operations. With a strong team of 70-plus security professionals (mainly engineers), not only does the India office serve as the company’s main R&D centre, but it also takes care of technical support for Rainbow’s Asia-Pacific offices and the rest of the world. While the company has been present in the Indian market since 1999, the activities and sales are expected to catch up only in FY 2002-03. A 100 percent growth is targeted for next year, and this level of growth is expected to continue for the next couple of years.

The next financial year will also see the stepping up of activity in the company’s “Mission Anti-Piracy” drive in which it provides “free security solutions assessment” to Indian software product companies. This is done along with an e-security workshop, which focuses on educating and disseminating knowledge on the best-in-class techniques for deploying software protection and for leveraging the full capabilities of Rainbow’s software security solutions.

Trend Micro to expand into SME and SOHO markets

With an ambitious target of achieving 250 percent growth in FY 2002-03, Trend Micro (one of the fastest growing anti-virus software vendors in the world) is all set to introduce a range of next generation anti-virus solutions in the Indian market and also expand its target segment.

The company already holds a 63 percent share in the Internet gateway solution market, and it is hoping to further increase its market share with the introduction of the new versions of the software. Having already introduced the first range of next generation products called the InterScan Messaging Security Suite, the company is planning to introduce its Action template (consisting of embedded virus knowledge to combat viruses) and restoration solutions, in the coming financial year.

According to Goh Chee Hoh, regional sales director, Overseas Business Unit (OBU), Trend Micro, the key challenge ahead is educating people about the complexity of viruses and their effects. “Network Security today cannot be treated as an option,” says Hoh. “It needs to be understood as a critical and integral component of the enterprise infrastructure. A lot of education and awareness needs to be built up and there has to be an understanding by the corporates that security is no longer just a desktop issue. Organisations can no longer view security is a pure virus issue, but rather as a comprehensive content security affair.”

Traditionally targeted at the enterprise segment, which accounts for 80 percent of the company’s revenues in India, Trend Micro would be aggressively looking at increasing its SME and SOHO segment focus (with solutions targeted at different verticals like banks, financial institutions, call Centres, manufacturing and the government sector).

To tap the exponential market potential arising out of increasing security needs by the SME segment, the company is planning to introduce a two-tier channel strategy wherein, not only would they be organising different awareness programs, but also education initiatives.

“We strongly believe that effective virus protection is really about service. And keeping this in mind, the company is undertaking such exercises to engage our partners and ensure that they are technically qualified and competent to represent Trend Micro to the end-customer,” says Hoh.

CA looks to increase its e-security market share

Computer Associates India (CAI) has chalked out an aggressive strategy to help capture a major chunk of the Indian e-security market. Targeting the market through its eTrust solution, an end-to-end security solution that has defence, access and security management as the key tools, CA expects its Defence and Access set of tools to be the key drivers for this growth. The Defence tools include anti-virus, firewall and intrusion detection solutions while Access tools include Virtual Private Network (VPN) and PKI solutions.

With the information security market growing at a rate of 25-30 percent (at a current size of Rs 150-175 crore), Vaidyanathan Iyer, national manager, e-security business, CAI, is very optimistic about the company’s growth potential. According to Iyer, the market in FY 2002-03 will see a substantial change in outlook wherein security will no longer be just an IT issue, but an overall business issue.

CAI is also formulating aggressive strategies to tap the SME segment and provide ‘software on tap’ to its customers in the coming months. It is understood that the company is very optimistic about the ASP model becoming a norm in a couple of years in the Indian security space.

For the next year, CAI is expecting major growth from verticals like banking and finance, e-governance, insurance and telecom, which are likely to see increased momentum in Q3 2002-03.