Seeing a rising tide of opportunities overseas, Veritas said it is investing heavily in China to promote its utility
computing software.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based data center software player said its plans for
the Asia/Pacific region include establishing a wholly foreign-owned
enterprise and creating an engineering development center. Veritas is also
creating a localized version of its NetBackup software with the help of a
host of partners in the region.
“China represents a key opportunity for growth as Veritas continues to
invest in sales, service and engineering resources to ensure customer
success in this fast growing market,” said Gary Bloom, chairman, president and CEO, in a statement.
Utility computing, an approach in which companies call up computing
properties as a metered service, is becoming a major force on the IT scene.
Like Veritas, leading vendors such as IBM, HP,
Sun Microsystems,
Microsoft,
and Computer Associates
have all adopted some sort of utility computing strategy at a time when businesses are financially constrained and looking to lash together their multi-vendor systems.
While the concept is gaining momentum in the United States, China
represents a larger opportunity. According to IDC’s latest report, China
Packaged Software 2004-2008 Forecast and Analysis, issued earlier this
month, Veritas ranks number two among the top five storage software
providers in China.
“In 2003 China’s storage software market maintained a steady year-on-year
growth of 18.8 percent, and looking forward we anticipate this market to
continue to grow at a CAGR of 24.9 percent between 2003-2008 driven
primarily by steady economic growth in the region, improvements in IT
infrastructure, and increasing demand from enterprises,” said Zongshun
Zhang, a market analyst with IDC China.
Open For Business
After Veritas opened its regional headquarters and trading company in
Singapore in 2003, the company established a wholly foreign-owned
enterprise — Veritas Software (Beijing) Co. (VSBC) — in April of 2004 to
act as the overseas liaison. With the center now fully open, customers can purchase Veritas products in local currency and receive their software
through local subcontracted manufacturers. VSBC is headquartered in the
Haidian district of Beijing, with its main branch located in the Dong Cheng
district of Beijing. Three additional branch offices are located in key
metropolitan business centers that include Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu.
To increase its developer base, Veritas is opening the China Development
Center (CDC) in the Haidian district in late September 2004. The center will
augment Veritas’ other engineering development centers located in the United
States and India.
“Throughout the process of establishing VSBC, we worked diligently with
the Chinese government through experienced partners to make certain that
each step went smoothly,” Steven Leonard, senior vice president and
regional general manager, said in a statement. “Today we have more than 1,500
employees across 25 offices in 11 countries in the Asia Pacific and Japan
Region with China being one of the most important markets.”
The company said its team in China will focus on hardware certification,
localization and development of the company’s Veritas Storage Foundation and Veritas Cluster Server software products as well as a variety of integration
activities with local Chinese hardware and solution providers. The company
plans to initially staff the center with 25-30 seasoned engineers in 2005.
Veritas said it is also working to localize its automated support tool, DirectAssist for Backup Exec, so that customers can identify
and solve a variety of issues directly without having to pick up the phone.
Currently the company’s NetBackup platform meets all Chinese government
technical compliance requirements under section GB 19030 and is now
available in three languages: English, Japanese and Chinese.
A Little Help From My Friends
Seeing the value of its local partners, the company conducted an outreach
program prior to setting up shop in 2003. The result is a handful of vendors
the company can turn to for support.
The short list of partners includes Langchao, an enterprise server vendor
in China, which bundles Backup Exec software products with its
server and storage products. Neusoft, a supplier of application systems,
middleware products and embedded software, is building and delivering
innovative software solutions based on Veritas products. Digital China, an
IT services company incorporates Veritas software into its service offerings
to help customers build and manage their complex IT infrastructures.
Both Digital China and Neusoft distribute Veritas products through a network of resellers across the country.
“It is important for our customers to know that we can help them solve
their data protection problems today with industry leading software and that
our vision for utility computing can deliver them a future computing model
where IT aligns tightly with the requirements of the business,” Bloom said.