Why have you opted to open your first IT hub for APAC in India?
Opening of the IT hubs is a strategic decision we have taken to capture the IT markets of the key countries. We will soon have four more IT hubs in Hong Kong, Dubai, Tokyo and Shanghai. And India is one of the biggest markets for Rittal today.

We started investing into IT as a business area 10 years ago when the need for racks was just taking off.

While earlier racks were just used for housing servers, today they do more than that. Today, cooling and ensuring continuous power is critical for servers and racks plan an important role here. We have developed cooling technologies like precision cooling for hot spots in data centers, and have moved on from being just a rack manufacturer to a complete data center solutions provider.

With this metamorphosis, it was imperative that we create awareness amongst our customers and channel partners about the kind of solutions we have for data centers and why they should work with us. We also wanted to show them that they need not worry about liquid cooling, by showing an operational data center which runs our own office. Besides we had set-up a similar center in CeBit and its success gave the final push to set-up this hub.

Are there any sales obligations for partners who bring in their customers to the center?
There is no obligation on any channel partner. This is just another way that we are trying to give our partners a fillip to their business by letting their customers get all their concerns about data centers addressed in real time. Our IT hub runs our local office, so CIOs can see its real life working.

What about the fact that your Rimatrix 5 data center solutions are more cost-intensive then solutions available in the market?
Our initial investment will work out to be around 15 percent higher than those available in the market. But with our solutions, enterprises can save 40 percent of their power outflow,
which translates into a huge saving over the long run.

Dr Harald Werner Sr VP-International Sales, Rittal

Since you are getting into data center solutions, whom will you be partnering with?
We are metamorphosing from a racks and enclosures manufacturer to a total data center solution provider. Therefore, we too expect that the partners we work with will also make a similar transition where they will focus more on the services that can be offered in data centers rather than just concentrating on selling products.

The reason we want to work closer to these partners is because they have access to the mid-sized enterprises which also need five to six racks. We want these partners to thereby upgrade their skill sets to be able to offer pre-sales consultancy and post-sales support as well and will help them enhance their technical skill sets.

How is Rittal trying to organize some movement to have industry standards?
We are part of a committee in Europe which is working on creating some industry standards that all the members need to follow. Our R&D team is working with this committee to design future-oriented best practices. But when they will be enforceable in India is not known. But we expect that Indian IT companies will absorb these practices quicker, because the Indian industry here is on the threshold of the global IT technology.

In recent times, due to rising steel prices rack, vendors have hiked their product prices by 25 percent. Do you expect prices to go up further?
I don't think prices will go up any more, they have stabilized. If anything there is a likelihood of a price drop if demand is sustained despite the slowdown. But it is very difficult to predict.

VINITA BHATIA
(vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in)

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