Patriot has been in the memory space for more than 23 years. How do you see the market for memory products in the world as well as India?
The DRAM market is picking up. It has been the same for a while in terms of price, where there has been constant ups and downs. Today, the entire industry is turning towards DDR3 from DDR2, which is a common phenomenon due to the performance factor. The memory market has remained insulated from the ongoing global recession. Flash memory, on the other hand, has its own marketshare and lots of innovations are happening in this space. With prices dropping constantly, the end-users may drive the growth of the segment in a large manner due to the affordability factor. Patriot Memory is one of the leaders in flash memory, including the development of the newest flash technology-solid state disk (SSD) drives. The price of SSDs remains to be a major constraint in its adoption. However, it is only a matter of time when it will also come down like other memory products.

Paul Jones CEO, Patriot Memory

US-based memory vendor Patriot Memory is scouting for distributors and partners in India. Jones feels that this is one market that has been insulated from the recession which makes it an exciting destination for Patriot

Vendors in this space felt that Windows Vista would be a growth driver. However, the results were quite the contrary. Do you have similar expectations with Windows 7?
Windows Vista was the biggest let down for us. When Vista was launched, it had several issues and the adoption rate was very low. We thought that the problems would be solved with service pack 1 and the adoption would improve. But again it was a major let down as the adoption rate didn't go up.

With Windows 7, we hope that unlike Vista, the OS will drive the growth of memory products, especially that of DDR3, which is being much talked about in terms of performance.

The real worry for distributors and channels in selling memory products is the price volatility. How are you dealing with this issue?
Definitely, fluctuating prices are a major issue for memory vendors and our channels. This problem is mainly due to an imbalance in the supply chain process. The issue needs to be addressed in a more comprehensive manner by identifying the exact need and then supplying accordingly. We are able to shield our partners in the situation of price volatility, as we follow a proper supply chain mechanism.

What are your plans for the Indian channels?
We will get aggressive in the Indian market after appointing a distributor, who will have a strong focus in the memory segment.

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