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IN CONVERSATION WITH/ Gordon Astles, president - APAC operations, Cisco Systems

Gordon Astles, president "" APAC operations for Cisco Systems has unswerving confidence in the role that his company will play in the evolution of future technologies.

Whether wireless or IP, Astles remains sure about Cisco's continuing role in building the next generation of networking products not only in India but globally.

In Bangalore recently to take part in Showcase 2004, he spoke to Business Standard on subjects varying from Cisco's small and medium business (SMB) focus to the future of networking globally. Excerpts:

Cisco has been losing out on most deals in the SMB segment to smaller players, especially in India, and spoken about tapping into the segment more aggressively in the future. How will Cisco address these customers?

The first step that Cisco will take to address the SMB segment is to bring out appropriate products. The ultimate small user is the home and this is adequately taken care of by Linksys.

For the SMB market, the needs from networking equipment are similar to enterprises, only that constraints of cost and scale come into the picture.

Therefore, we will work on modifications of enterprise products for the segment. The integrated box solution recently released in the country is part of the initiative. The India team is also working on lower cost products modelled for the SMB market.

The second step involves extensive training of our channel partners and resellers and using the existing base of Cisco partners to sell more. One of the first initiatives is the setting up of an e-learning portal which provides training and certification to partners.

The third involves increased attention to brand building. We will build our brand value and brand recognition by means of mass media as well as through direct mailers. Our efforts in this direction will start off in the next six to 12 months.

What is Cisco's share in wireless LANs and what is the outlook?

In APAC, Cisco is the number one in market share of wireless LANs in enterprises. It is largely a fragmented market but when it comes to enterprises where there is need for advanced functionality, our share is higher. Many markets in Asia are hotspots.

In places like Hong Kong, South Korea, India and Singapore these hotspots come up in places where people congregate, like coffee parlours, book shops and airports.

There is still a large untapped market in enterprises, especially in India, where they are largely unsure about security on wireless networks. They are as nervous about wireless networks as they were about the internet years ago. As these concerns dissipate, we will see more of its adoption.

The home is fast becoming an important wireless market globally. On the convergence side of our agenda, the home is becoming a more important factor. More media devices are being connected.

When your TV or your VCR have an ethernet jack, you know convergence is happening. One by one, everything in the home will go digital and ethernet capable. And this is happening in Asia.

In fact, South Korea and Hong Kong are way ahead of the US as far as home networking goes. That segment is addressed by Linksys products.

How is IP telephony adoption in India and how do you see it evolving in the future?

All countries are in varying degrees of implementation. Deregulation is an important point for increased adoption. But without that too, many companies in India like Reliance, BSNL and Sify are investing in bringing in more broadband in the country.

And that is an area where the government has been extremely favourable with Maran's plans of exponentially increasing broadband penetration. After all, there has been such a rapid change even from two years back.

Also, on a case by case basis, IP telephony has been installed in the country. Government policy makers will change sooner than later. We have already sold close to 50,000 IP phones in the country in the ITeS and financial sectors. When regulatory issues get a bit clearer, this is only set to rise.

What kind of a role do you see Cisco playing in emerging technologies like RFID?

Whether Cisco is directly involved in a technology or not, ultimately as traffic hits, we will benefit. We will be happy recipients of the benefit when data hits RFID, which will lead to more hand points or access points.

Cisco will continue to the backbone even as the number of points increases. We have been following RFID for some time. One can't ignore the technology.

Historically, we are an intelligence-oriented company and that is the value that we can bring to any new technology.