Array Networks sees itself as a strong contender in the Indian Networking market

For the ever growing networking market, Array Networks wants to make sure that it grows its business with the help of partners. While conversing with VARINDIA, Dr. Michael Zhao, President & CEO, Array Networks speaks about why he feels his company is doing the best in spite of the market being very challenging and competitive - 
 

Array Networks wants to grow with its partners in 2018. The channel partner community is very important to Array as it relies on them to deliver its solutions to its customers.

“Our Indian growth story is also similar where we want to grow with our partners. So we want to grow our business with a target of 35% YoY,” says Dr. Michael Zhao, President & CEO, Array Networks.

Array Networks is also looking to strengthen its partnership community in two forms. “We offer this new product called Hyperconvergence in networking as a platform product. So we need partners on the solution side and partners on the sales and support side. In the solution side we want to work with ISVs – people who develop applications and want to run their applications on our platforms. We also want channel partners for support and service so as the customers enjoy the benefits, partners make more money,” he says. 

For the ever growing networking market, Dr Zhao wants to make sure that the message is clear to the user community and they understand the benefits the company provides. It relies on its partners to deliver the solutions – installation, customer support and customization and this value addition is very important for Array as it wants to retain its customers.

Talking about the present opportunities in India,the macro trend Dr Zhao says is the Digital India, the Smart city initiative and all other activities that are encouraging citizens to move online. “If you look at the enterprise level, we offer the benefit of both sides – ondemand provisioning and pay as you grow subscription of the public cloud. At the same time, we can guarantee performance of applications running on our platforms. According to the analysts, in the next several years hybrid cloud is going to grow at a phenomenal speed. Hence this will be another area of our focus. Overall, as the concept of hyperconvergence continues to become popular, it is necessary to understand that while it covers computing and storage. But it requires something more, which is networking and security. We are going to offer hyper convergence in Networking and Security,” he says. 

He further continues, “The overall trend is still how to improve operational efficiency and ease of use because the demand of IT is changing at a fast speed. If we cannot respond to that then the users will suffer. How can we help them become more flexible and agile?The public cloud trend is great but certain applications, processes and powers have to stay local. So that is another trend. Being flexible and offering computing capabilities at a local level will help to drive the overall Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things deployment.”

The buzzword in the globalas well as the Indian IT market, globally is about machine learning and AI. As a networking company, Array is trying its best to address to these technologies. 

Dr Zhou says, “First of all, we have to adapt to the technology. For example – there is a new term called software defined technology. What that means is that I can use my AI algorithms to figure out a baseline pattern. For instance, you come to work at 9 o’clock and punch in, then open your computer and read mails. All these are baseline activities and every time you deviate from that then something is not right. Then the IT administrator needs to check whether it is you or not. We require a lot of machine learning and artificial intelligence for something as simple as that. The thing about what we do about packet processing and security, there are a lot of things we can utilize to help our customers to better use this technology, about how we can provide security or performance to deliver this artificial intelligence.”

In the end…
In the next five years, Array Networks wants to strengthen its brand name and make sure there are more partners working with it. Array has a strong team of 32 people here in India, but Dr Zhao feels that that is not enough. And so, the company is adding more headcount in India. Its goal is to grow 3 fold in terms of people. 

“We also want to increase investment in marketing,” says Dr Zhou. “As Indian economy grows, the overall IT market size will grow too. The time between US deployment technology and Indian deployment technology is getting shorter and shorter. So we need to get ready for this. We are planning to grow 35% YoY for the next 3-4 years.”

In spite of there being strong players like Cisco, Huawei in the market, Array Networks plans to counter them through Innovation.“Array is strong in making technology breakthroughs and innovations.  We also have a strong R&D India located in Bangalore, which again is an added advantage,” he concludes.