Veritas Reaches Out to China

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Seeing a rising tide of opportunities overseas, Veritas says it is investing heavily in China to promote its utility computing software.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based data center software player says 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,” states Veritas CEO Gary Bloom.

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,” writes 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,” states Steven Leonard, senior vice president and regional general manager. “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; and 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 says.

Article courtesy of InternetNews.com

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