Capacities available are from 40GB to 750GB. WD Caviar's SE and SE16 series employs large buffers to increase performance levels . Plus, the only hard drive in the world that has a see-through window, the 10,000 RPM WD Raptor X (150 GB) is the ultimate drive for the computing/gaming enthusiast.
For notebook computing, WD Scorpio hard drives feature high performance and low power consumption. The 5,400 RPM WD Scorpio delivers lightning-fast performance, yet operates with low power consumption for longer system battery life and increased long-term reliability. Capacities available are 40GB to 250GB.
WD's enterprise storage offerings are led by WD Raptor, the world's only 10,000-RPM SATA hard drives. WD Raptor offers the reliability and performance of traditional enterprise SCSI hard drives at much less cost. The WD RE enterprise series delivers very high capacities at 7,200 RPM and meets the demanding 24x7 reliability requirements of enterprise applications. Together, WD Raptor and WD RE offer high performance, reliability and capacity for network attached storage devices, storage area networks, workstations, RAID servers, medical imaging, gaming and video/broadcast applications. Under Raptor series capacities are available upto 150GB and under RE and RE2 series 160GB to 750GB.
Consumer electronics devices are home to high-capacity, quiet-operating, video-streaming WD AV drives. Users of personal and digital video recorders want tremendous capacity for and seamless video streaming of their favorite TV shows and movies. AV drives service the surveillance market storage need as they are quieter, cooler and more reliable, also these drives can easily handle high definitions video streaming.
Both home and business users find applications for WD external hard drives and storage systems, which employ USB 2.0 or FireWire interfaces, or a combination, as well as Ethernet for network storage. With these drives, massive secured data storage is added quickly and easily. The My Book family delivers high-performance storage to PC and Macintosh computers, making them ideal for video, music and photo capture and editing, as well as for data backup. The pocket-sized WD Passport Portable Drive and miniature WD Passport Pocket offer the ultimate in storage convenience and portability.
2.
How big is the storage market in India ? And how has Western Digital positioned itself in this market?
According to International Data Corporation (IDC) the overall storage peripherals market in India was worth Rs 682 crore in 2006-2007. Of this, external hard disks accounted for Rs 23 crore, flash drives accounted for Rs 225 crore and optical disk drives (ODDs) accounted for Rs434 crore. The study also places Western Digital as the second largest selling HDD brand in India.
The India PC Market has grown over 22% in 2Q 2007 to record 1.53 million shipments. This is also one of the primary factors behind the growth of the primary storage (both internal and external) market.
Western Digital provides cost-effective products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. WD's strength lies in the high reliability of our drives. We put a lot of time and effort into the R&D process which helps us to bring out products that are built on proven technology and reliability.
In addition to this, we are among the first hard drive manufacturers to experiment with and bring SATA technology into the main stream and enterprise segments.
3.
What is the core strength of the company? What are the additional benefits which we are planning to give it to the partners compared to competition?
Strengths:
• Product quality reliability is very high due to the use of proven and tested technology in products.
• As I mentioned earlier we are among the first hard drive manufacturers to experiment with and bring SATA technology into the main stream and enterprise segments
• Western Digital continuously monitors the market and develops futuristic products for various market segments. WD has a wide range of external hard drives which are aimed at every customer segment including the home user (WD Passport and WD Media Centre), mobile user (WD Passport Portable and WD Passport Pocket, Scorpio) as well as the enterprise segment (WD NetCentre). In addition to being highly reliable and durable, our products are well designed keeping in mind the customer's need for quality, utility as well as style
• WD deploys only new technologies that are meaningful to customers in high volume markets and at a time when the company can maximize the critical balance of cost, reliability, quality and availability, while meeting our customers' needs
Benefits to partners:
As channel partners play a major role in both selling as well as popularizing our products, WD constantly conducts programs for the growth and evolution of our channel partners.
WD launched the “WD Express SM ” warranty replacement program. As per the program, WD collects in-warranty WD hard drives from, and delivers replacement WD drives directly to, the homes and businesses of its India customers, including distributors, resellers and end customers.
As a part of Western Digital's 2007 channel strategy , we launched SelectWD - Exclusive Club which is a unique online points-based reward and incentive program for the reseller and system integrator channel across India that entails series of initiatives to reward the members of the channel community and strengthen relationships with them
4.
How Many Channel partners do you have? Is there any plan to increase the current number?
Western Digital's current channel structure includes a Volume Distribution segment which is divided into the regional and up-country markets to address Resellers and small SI/assemblers. Venktron Infotech, Champion Computers, Lalani Infotech, Jupiter International, Compuage Infocom and Inspan Infotech represent volume distributors.
As of right now we have no plans to expand this network as our distributor relationships have been very successful so far. As the market expands and the need arises, we will definitely consider a further expansion.
5.
What is your distribution model in India?
WD is implementing a three-segment channel model, based on its customer profile and appointed strategic distributors, to address the market. The three segments are: Strategic OEM, Value and Reseller/SI Channel.
WD relationships with leading India OEMs are addressed directly by WD. Western Digital's channel distribution model includes a Volume Distribution segment , which takes care of distribution function all across India.
6.
What is your focus in terms of business segments?
Western Digital focuses on a wide array of segments; the key development that we have seen in the hard drive market is the increase in the number of application areas. As a result, some key drivers are as follows:
• Growth in the consumer electronics segment driving demand for small form factor hard drives
• Growth of the Digital Lifestyle concept creating a demand for external storage to store personal digital content such as photographs, films, games etc.
• Although seen as futuristic, unconventional segments such as defense, manufacturing, medical & flight simulations, architecture, and clinical research are also fast growing segments in India where storage needs are likely to soar in the coming year
• Enterprise information overload leading to the proliferation of Enterprise Information Management (EIM) and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). Hard drives, especially those that offer the highest reliability and capacity per cost attributes, will form the storage backbone for these systems
• Gaming; especially console and PC based gaming will drive hard drive sales and capacity and speed will be critical success factors
• Digital Cinema, Broadcasting & Video Surveillance are also storage hungry applications
• The requirement for storage in post production and animation houses is also increasing as storage here is measured not in Gigabytes but Terabytes. As a result WD's hard drives are deployed across several post production houses in India including Pixion, Prasad EFX, Prime Focus and Rajshree Productions
• BPO's are also considered as a key segment as the requirement for storage for their various applications is also increasing
7.
What kind of internal resources do you have? (In terms of logistic and customer supports).
Warranty support is extremely important as customers need to be reassured of the brand that they have purchased. As a result warranty is important even as an aid to brand building.
In order to provide these services, WD launched the “WD Express” warranty replacement program. As per the program, WD collects in-warranty WD hard drives from, and delivers replacement WD drives directly to, the homes and businesses of its India customers, including distributors, resellers and end customers. The service is available only on in-warranty WD hard drives sold through our authorized India distribution channel.
The replacement operation combines an online product-return system (Return Material Authorization - RMA number generation) and national toll-free customer helpline with a door-to-door courier arrangement for drive replacement.
In the event of an in-warranty drive failure, customers can register the drive's serial number and generate RMA numbers on the company's website at www.westerndigital.com/support. After the pick-up address is confirmed with the customer through WD's toll-free helpline (1800-11-93-93), customers can expect a courier service to pick up in-warranty failed drives from their doorsteps within one working day (customers can also get RMA# and confirmed pickup address through toll free number or through email at wdexpress.india@wdc.com also). A replacement drive is then couriered to the customer within a span of three working days of the failed drive reaching the central warehouse.
8. What is your go-to-market strategy in India ? And do you have any program for your channel community?
WD's go-to-market strategy consists of a comprehensive distributor network and we conduct channel programs to impart quality training to educate the channel partners about the company's India strategy as well as new products and also provide them with direct contact with the company as well as an all-inclusive education campaign and service support set-up.
In January 2007 Western Digital further enhanced this channel structure. Today our channel includes a Volume Distributors - Venktron digital systems, Champion Computers Lalani InfoTech, Jupiter International, Compuage Infocom and Inspan Infotech.
In order to provide our customers with the best value for their money, WD recently enhanced “SelectWD” program for Channel Community in India in September 2007.
The program will now become two tiered and include a “SelectWD Club” and “SelectWD - Exclusive Club”. While the SelectWD Club has been in existence since 2005, it requires channel partners to register on the WD website and continue to buy from the company. The SelectWD - Exclusive Club is a unique online points-based reward and incentive program for the reseller and system integrator channel across India . This enhancement is part of Western Digital's 2007 channel strategy that entails series of initiatives to reward the members of its channel community and strengthen relationships with them.
9.
What is your goal for 2007?
Having created a strong distributor network in 2006-2007 as well as launching a strong warranty replacement strategy, in second half of the year we will be focused on enhancing reward channel member through structured program, innovative schemes and incentive programs.
Additionally, we will be focusing more on SMB, corporate and end customer market this year as well as specialized industries such as animation, post production and BPO. |
