Western Digital believes in innovation and offers a diverse portfolio of solutions

Jaganathan Chelliah
Director – Channel Marketing, Western Digital India

“We are in an era of data explosion. According to a recent study by DOMO, in 2017, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data was created each day. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart devices is further accelerating the pace at which data is generated. With every individual having the power to generate new data, the demand for data storage solutions has been on a constant rise. Western Digital believes in the power and promise of data and we drive the innovation needed to help the world capture, preserve, access and transform this ever-increasing diversity of data. From Big Data to Fast Data to Personal Data, we offer innovative storage solutions to our customers that best fit their data storage requirements.

In the personal storage segment, we have seen growing demand for microSD cards, USB flash drives and external hard drives, primarily because of the proliferation of high-end PCs and mobile phones.  The success we have experienced with the WD My Passport portable drive series in both e-tail and retail markets validates that the external storage devices segment is displaying great traction. Another category that has received strong acceptance in the marketplace is mobile pen drives. These drives have been developed to address the specific needs of consumers on the go. One of our offerings in this category is the SanDisk Dual Drive. The drive is specifically designed for android phones and has dual ports that allow the users to directly plug them into an android phone and a computer. SanDisk iXpand is the counterpart of the Dual Drive tailor-made for an iPhone.

In the enterprise sector, our primary focus has been on data centre solutions. While the volume, velocity and variety continue to grow exponentially, the value of data is increasing as well. Enterprises across segments understand the potential data brings to unlock new opportunities, and are looking at solutions that lead to smarter decisions, breakthrough discoveries and deeper connections. Western Digital offers large capacity hard drives for archival storage solutions for data centres. Our JBOD platform, a high-capacity, enterprise-class solution, has displayed exceptional performance in this segment.

The WD Purple hard drive is another product that has received wide acceptance in the surveillance market. We recently introduced the 12TB version of the drive which is the industry’s highest capacity, deep-learning capable surveillance-class drive. Our industry-leading solutions provide the capacity and performance to access and transform recorded video data into valuable insights. These drives are deployed by SOHO (small offices, home offices) users and corporates alike.

In other words, as the whole nation is being digitally empowered, Western Digital creates purpose-built solutions for every type and use of data.

Data is at the core of any business. It is evolving as it is growing. Technology evolves every day and the rapid pace at which the market has been moving forward is a result of several factors.

There is a visible growth in flash technology, it plays a critical role in the development of mobile devices and with the performance of cameras becoming better by the day, the need for better storage solutions is triggered. With better cameras and processors, mobile phone manufacturers are looking for storage solutions that offer high performance in small form factors.

On the enterprise side, we see a transition to OpenStack and all flash array based storage solutions.   In the embedded segment, there is a growing excitement on edge analytics, which is aided by rapid and relentless evolution in the world of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The ability to store and analyse data on the edge, near the source, enables organisations to leverage the value extracted from this data deluge to make important, real-time business decisions.

In the case of prosumers - high-performance gadgets, especially PCs and mobile phones are coming in affordable price ranges for the common user who requires a certain set of specifications in his/her gadgets. For example, a media professional who needs a fast-performing device for video processing, or a photographer who needs huge amounts of storage for his pictures. We see increased need for storage from this segment as well.”