Briefs

Dax in the fast lane

K Surender

With issues such as the lack of core routers in its arsenal out of its way on account of its tie-ups, Dax is set to woo the corporate segment and compete with the likes of Cisco.

The router market witnessed good growth in 2004-2005, propelled by large-scale IT adoption by the government and the BFSI segment. Routers witnessed a 36 percent year-on-year growth to touch Rs 861 crore, contributing to 21 percent of the networking industry.

With its ‘towards the core’ strategy, the company made a foray into the corporate segment. Dax increased its market share to 4 percent with its router sales of Rs 30.5 crore in 2004-2005, up from Rs 13 crore in the previous fiscal.

The company has moved from its modem business and been focussing on routers, switches and cabling in a big way. Says K Surender, Country Manager, Dax, “We plan to consolidate in routing, in addition to cabling and switching. In routing, we are looking at verticals such as banking, government, telecom and SMBs.”

Dax is driving home the point that mission-critical router parameters (MCRP) are all that matter. That would include features such as interoperability, security, data transfer and fail-safe mechanisms.

The company is not too worried about competition. “We have a diverse product offering. We can address any networking requirement of our customers independently,” says Surender. He feels that convincing customers about routers is important, as they are a critical part of any networking set-up. Once a customer buys routers, convincing them about other networking products becomes easier.

Though Dax as a brand was launched in 1999, it has been quite successful in the Indian market. One of the reasons could be a strong foothold in the SMB segment. “Our market share as of now is four percent, but in the next three years we aim to get a double-digit market share. We would be focussing on switching, routing and cabling,” adds Surender.

“We have had a fairly good run with sales to the government and the telecom sector. Since corporates in India need references and we have some successes, we feel that now we are geared to position ourselves better,” believes Surender.

To gain ground, Dax has been on an awareness drive through road shows, which also attracts partners. With 40 channel distributors, around 440 network integrators and 2,000 retailers, the company plans to double its partner strength.

To offer clients value-added features, Dax is in the process of adding security features to many of its products. It plans to have an alliance with a security company, which would allow it to provide dedicated security appliances. “We have the right amount of security features on our router. We feel that too many security features should not be bundled with routers as it brings down the performance level. We should have a dedicated security appliance,” says Surender.

— Shivani Shinde