Rainbow Technologies, which provides information security solutions for the Internet, e-commerce, mCommerce, software licensing and software distribution, has recently announced the setting up of a Professional Services Group in India. Shawn Abbot, president, e-Security Group, Rainbow Technologies, spoke to Gaurav Patra about the company’s plans and his perception of the Indian security market

What is your perception about the Indian market?
The Indian market is a pretty large market in terms of requirements of customers and is a very critical market for us. The IT market here is still growing and as far as security products are concerned it has just begun to emerge. Rainbow has a unique opportunity here because of the work that it has done in India over the years. We have built a team of experts here and have a deep understanding of the Indian market and market requirements. Our access to the Indian market is also very good. We have already started introducing our latest products here and we are also in the process of increasing our sales and marketing presence in India. We are really looking forward to the Indian market for double-digit growth.

What sort of opportunities can you foresee in the Indian market?
Within security, which is really a very broad segment, there are established leaders in some categories. In firewalsl, there is CheckPoint; in the anti-virus segment, TrendMicro is the leader internationally. Rainbow is not a player in these categories. Our core business is to serve our customers who are into software publishing with a solution for anti-piracy. And in this segment Rainbow is clearly a worldwide leader. It is the cornerstone of our business in India, as well as in other parts of the globe. Web-based software is another opportunity area.

What are the key trends in the security segment?
Today, most of our software publishing customers are moving to Web-based applications. So, we believe movement to the Web is a key trend in the industry. In general, all categories like software, business processes, IS systems are moving to the Web. Today employees are not restricted to their offices, there are some who are always on the go, some who work from home, there are consultants, there are channel partners and so on. All applications are moving to the Web and because of this most of the applications are used outside the firewall. As a result, we believe VPN and firewall technologies are becoming obsolete, because LAN is no longer the boundary on which business is performed. Rather, today business is performed on one heterogeneous open global network. A firewall just protects the two zones and most usage of IT is happening outside those two zones. So we need to reinvent security in the context of the Web. Improvised security for Web applications is another critical trend and we would be foolish to ignore that. Also, in the security segment itself, Return on Investment is a very critical factor for all CIOs/IS managers.

Keeping these trends in mind what are the products you are planning to introduce in the Indian market?
Security spending is at the top of the list and that’s good news for us. Keeping that in mind we are pioneering the Instant Private Web revolution for enterprises in India as well as across the globe. This is going to bridge the vital security gap seen by businesses wanting to leverage the power of the Web to bring together various entities in the chain—customers, departments, functions, suppliers and vendors. This move would further reinforce our leadership in the e-security space in India.

What are your future plans for India?
India is an integral part of our product development activities. We are setting up a Professional Services Group in India to provide consulting services to enterprises desirous of incorporating e-security in various solutions for different vertical segments like banking, healthcare and government. Security by itself is a very specialised area and businesses are more focused on the application side rather than building the appropriate security framework for the application. We will be focused at providing value in terms of suggesting and building the security component for the applications. We will continue to work very closely with our customers to understand their security issues and to develop products that will best suit their needs.