Telecom/IT/ITES

A laser printer for every office

Laser printers lead the IT investment list of IT/ITES and telecom players along with surging demand for notebooks and Windows x86 servers. By Chirasrota Jena

The Indian IT-ITES industry continues to register double-digit growth. Growth in domestic IT/ITES spend has been driven by investments in IT infrastructure, line of business applications, security products and services, IT outsourcing and managed services and by consumers of mobile and digital products. As IT companies are tech-savvy, they are looking at their IT infrastructure as a business enabler. These companies have successfully adhered to international regulations, winning customer confidence and ensuring that the inflow of outsourced work isn’t staunched. IT has helped bring about improvements in operational efficiency and transparency. Most IT/ITES and telecom companies are investing on desktops, servers, cabling, printers, connectivity and power conditioning.

The mushrooming of outsourcing in India has added fuel to the growth of the IT investments. As these companies have to be compliant as per international norms in order to get MNC customers, they are looking seriously at IT. To maintain confidence levels and broaden their customer base, large IT/ITES players have to move up the value chain by offering better solutions and services. The same is true of the telecom sector where starting from service providers to the telecom equipment manufacturing units and operators; they are all looking at new avenues to face intense competitions. The m arket for Value Added Services has also grown which directly calls for investment in IT infrastructure.

Growing popularity of laser printers

To create a better working environment with an easily manageable infrastructure, large enterprises are going for advanced laser printers. With the cost of printing per page escalating companies are looking at different avenues to control the same. Thus they are looking at the laser printers to satisfy all their needs. According to the survey 95 percent of the respondents from the IT/ITES and telecom sectors are planning to invest in laser printers.

Of the 21 respondents, all already have laser printers in their respective organisations. Colour printing is increasing. On the other side, integrated security on the printer is becoming commonplace. MFDs (Multi Function Devices) are gaining in popularity. In terms of the market trend, a high level of awareness about the benefits of in-house printing is being witnessed amongst large enterprises. This shift towards colour laser printers can be attributed to the increasing awareness among organisations that colour can bring great benefits to their businesses. Increased affordability as also the introduction of colour access control in colour MFDs, which allows cost control has resulted in increased adoption of these devices.

Informs Imran Khan, IT Head, Aurora Software, “The downward trend in the price of laser printers has created demand for this category. The operating cost of these printers and the advanced features like security with improved technology, which these printers are offering to the customers, have quadrupled demand.” On the other hand, vendors in the laser printer segment are facing intense competition, which has forced them to innovate furiously. To get a good hold in these verticals they have come up with specific strategies. Customers have variety of options in the entry-level range in the laser printer category, which has helped the vendors to widen their reach in this segment. On the other hand telecom operators deal with a huge subscriber base and paper bills have to be printed for all of them. This makes them dependant on laser printers for the cost-effectiveness and the improved quality of printing. Network laser printers are gaining popularity among large enterprises.

Convergence drives Gigabit Ethernet

With the growing demand for convergence technologies telcos are taking interest in deploying Gigabit Ethernet. IT/ITES companies looking for a high-capacity network infrastructure are also upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet seeing it as just another form of the Ethernet they have been using all along. The local area network (LAN) has undergone dramatic changes over the years. As the need for high-quality streaming media, e-commerce and entertainment applications over the network increases rapidly, massive demand for network bandwidth will require new efficient ways of transmitting traffic in the future. As per the survey, 81 percent of the respondents from the IT/ITES and telecom sectors have existing fast Ethernet while 71 percent have Gigabit Ethernet infrastructure. 90 percent of the respondents are planning to deploy Gigabit Ethernet LANs. Gigabit Ethernet LAN solutions can be applied wherever Fast Ethernet works. It is a simple and cost-effective investment that can easily and quickly relieves bottlenecks of network connections. Gigabit Ethernet LAN allows users waiting less time on the network and being more productive. Additionally, since Gigabit Ethernet is developed from the Fast Ethernet standards, which are the most common used networking protocols; network managers will find the new Gigabit Ethernet protocol very familiar.

Says V V Purushothaman, Asst. System Admin, IBM Daksh Info Services Pvt. Ltd, “A Gigabit Ethernet LAN over copper costs less to maintain than optical fibre cable. You can increase network performance with Gigabit over your existing cabling infrastructure. It is also more reliable than the alternatives that are available. Although we are using Fast Ethernet connectivity, we are planning to deploy Gigabit Ethernet in the coming year. As we have deployed various applications we need much faster speed than what we currently possess.” As the IT/ITES and telecom companies have either deployed numerous applications like ERP or are planning to deploy them so they need higher bandwidth. Gigabit Ethernet is an order of magnitude faster than Fast Ethernet and also reduces network maintenance challenges. It allows data to be transmitted and received at the same time so that the effective bandwidth is virtually doubled over and above its 10x speed boost. Some telecom service providers have already deployed Gigabit Ethernet connectivity as the prices have reduced drastically. BPOs in India are increasingly under pressure due to falling margins. Added to that, the cost of basic infrastructure has remained the same or in some cases has gone up. Call centre operators now have an alternative to large upfront investments for call centre solutions. This comprises both voice and data-based solutions that enable inbound and outbound calls. Call centre management solutions can route callers to the next available agent at any remote call centre. The latest generation of IP solutions offers flexibility and productivity at lower costs.

A preference for Windows x86 Server

With the major investments of large enterprises going into desktops and servers, most IT/ITES and telecom players prefer to go for Window based operating systems. As per the survey, 71 percent of the IT/ITES and telecom respondents have already deployed Windows x86 servers. With the growing popularity of Windows based applications large enterprises are deploying this server for its compatibility and reliability. As security is a major concern for the ITES industry, most of the players are depending on these servers to run their ERP, back up and archiving solutions. 81 percent are planning to deploy additional Windows x86 servers. Servers have a direct impact on the power conditioning market. BPOs are investing in more seats and consolidating their servers and storage at the backend. The IT/ITES sector is keen on investing in servers more than any other industry segment. Telecom companies are dependent on their technology vendors to provide them with equipment which can scale up rapidly and in a robust manner to handle the ever-growing base of consumers. Their need is for an IT infrastructure which can support the deployment of value-added services rapidly to as many subscribers as possible creating newer revenue opportunities.

Many large enterprises are looking at data warehousing and Business Intelligence as near term investments so that they can take faster business-related decisions, retain and acquire customers. In this segment, we see demand for high-end servers based on features such as reliability, accessibility and serviceability, virtualisation technique for higher availability and performance, supporting multiple operating environments. Opines Purushothaman, “After a long period of focused on cost cutting and buying servers just to run current applications, enterprises are once again investing strategically in systems to handle future workloads. We are also planning to enhance the capacity of our servers. Our IT investments are mainly on new applications and hardware. We have spent about 55 percent on software and the rest on hardware.” Today, the advancements in x86 server technology is tremendous, they have adopted several features from high-end machines (mainframes and RISC servers). The initial investment as well as maintenance cost is on the lower side and above all they provide the right computing power requirements for this segment. Also, with the latest technologies such as clustering or cascading, more reliable and powerful computing platforms can be created with x86 servers.

The mobile workforce needs notebooks

As per the survey, there is a 100 percent penetration of desktops and 90 percent of notebooks. With the increase in mobile workforce across verticals, companies are providing notebooks to their executives for the better functioning of the business. In the IT/ITES sectors all most all employees are either using desktops or notebooks. There is a growing trend towards the growth of notebooks in these verticals as compared to desktops. There is an awareness found among the executives about branded notebooks. With prices of laptops coming down along with the enhanced feature from well known vendors IT savvy companies are looking for mass deployment. The marketing executives of telecom companies are using notebooks while making presentations to their clients. Price and affordability are not crucial factors any more with entry-level notebooks available at the prices of mid-range PCs. Near about 25-30 people are using notebooks at IBM Daksh office at Bangalore. The company is also planning to invest a major portion of its IT investment in buying notebooks and desktops.

With a huge range of offerings available from different companies, the market for notebooks is set to explode. The IT sectors executives are using notebooks to make presentations, develop software, showcase technologies and check e-mail on the go. For these companies price is not a major barrier. The features of the notebooks are a prime concern for them. Driven by the need for comfort, convenience and mobility, the demand for notebooks is growing every year. Few companies have a dedicated wireless computing policy for the usage of these devices. As far as handhelds are concerned, up till now these have been restricted to top level executives. As per the survey 81 percent of the respondents are planning to procure notebooks and 76 percent desktops. Says Khan, “Technology remains an integral part of doing business. We need to upgrade our technology in line with the constant changes that occur. Now IT is aligned with business, it is considered as a business enabler. Though very few of our executives are using notebooks but due to requirements of our business we are planning to allocate a greater portion of the budget towards the procurement of notebooks.”

Also in demand

The IT aspect is considered a part of strategic business initiatives. Indian companies are trying to win customer confidence abroad and this confidence is in terms of the cost savings and quality results that they deliver. In their effort to get revenues from foreign markets, IT companies are demanding more applications that operate in real-time, which lead to an increase in bandwidth usage. Companies that were using 64 Kbps links are opting for 1 Mbps and beyond. To reduce spending, companies are looking at optimising their existing infrastructure. As per the survey, leased lines are the preferred option for large enterprises. 86 percent of respondents from the IT/ITES and telecom sectors have a leased line connectivity infrastructure while 76 percent are planning to make further investments. Streaming media video and audio conferencing and inter-office communications is also resulting in increased bandwidth consumption.

Realising the opportunities in the IT/ITES sector, vendors are gearing up to come out with suitable solutions for them. The present data centres requirements in terms of flexibility, scalability, density, and manageability are met in part, by the connectors, which enable designers to create a cabling infrastructure that meets the challenging density requirements but is flexible enough to handle moves, adds and changes. While fibre cabling can be more expensive than copper, it is designed with more capacity than the copper cable. As per the survey, 90 percent of the IT/ITES and telecom players have copper cabling infrastructure and 86 percent have deployed fibre cabling. But the scenario is changing. In the coming year, 81 percent of the respondents from these segments are planning to deploy fibre while 57 percent will deploy copper cabling.

The growth of date centres is also driving the growth of power conditioning. Every data centre deployment and expansion project will need power conditioning solutions and therefore the market for these solutions is also increasing. It is therefore critical to get the right technology in place. It is important that one adopts the right architecture for the data centre, one which enables businesses to be agile and supports it as it grows and yet scalable enough to adopt the future technological and environmental changes. As per the survey, 76 percent of the respondents are planning to deploy power conditioning equipment. Khan informs, “Business drivers today are ROI (return on investment) and doing more with less. The two key emerging IT trends are centralised IT environments and compaction. A big concern faced by customers with respect to Information Technology today is asset utilisation and operating costs.”