In an exclusive interview with SME Times, Monali Handa, Director Marketing, Asia Pacific, N Computing Pvt Ltd said that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should try to curtail their expenditure on IT infrastructure, which usually takes a lot of their money. She added that N Computing's  V Space device would help the small players to bring down these costs to a great extent.

                                                                Excerpts of the interview...
What is N Computing all about? Could you tell our readers something about the company?
Monali Handa: I just like to put forth the scenario to explain what N Computing as a technology or solution is. Now, like you and I, we use computers, what we would be using a word, excel, powerpoint, Internet and couple of other applications. I think, broadly, most people today whatever sort of businesses you are, you do not go beyond that. I can say that 90 percent of people stick around these applications. If you look back about 10 or 15 years, you probably not be using the similar kind of applications that is being used now. But think about what kind of configurations where existing at that time and what are the configurations that are existing today. I think we have gone way ahead.

In reality, the need has increased not as much as the capacity or the resources that a Personal Power (PC) has to offer today, which means, for example, what I use probably I am not using 5 percent of the capacity of my PC has and the other 95 percent is being wasted. What N Computing helps you doing is it maximize the unused power. It helps to optimize the unused power of the PC or resources of the PC and use it across multiple users. Even if you look at the solutions over here (in N Computing), these are normal regular PC which any office person would be using. Its about 4GB configuration.

If you look into some other couple of screens that N Computing is providing, they are not connected to any CPU per se. You can see they are connected to only devices. So, our technology is basically this device and a software solutions called V Space. In fact, that is the magic portion in the whole solutions. What it does is, when you put the software into the first PC, it makes separate virtual section for users and it actually transfers it to different users through a user extension protocol. So, if you look at the screens of N Computing they have multiple applications running. This is an e-learning software, a movie, and may be couple of other applications can be running. You can use your excel, powerpoint or bunch of other applications. But what it does is, whatever is the resources it device the resources and make separate sections for each of the users. And, each person will have their each separate section as though they have their own PC they are working on.

What kind of clients to cater to and how they find your services?
Monali Handa: Typically if you look at the N Computing solutions as such it caters to anybody or everybody who uses computers in a multi-computing environment whether it is in an office, in a computer lab of a school, in a large enterprise or a small enterprise, retail outlet, small hospital, travel agency or any sort of an environment where you need multi-computing, which is a solution that is relevant. But, the only thing it does not support is if you have some heavy stuff like gaming or may be heavy video editing which requires a lot of power. But beyond that it works beautifully in most other environment.

How much V Space device is helpful for SMEs?
Monali Handa:  Excellent! I think one of the biggest challenge today that we have realized is affordability because running any sort of an enterprise or business is not cheap. I mean to have some sort of profitability you need to ensure that you are not overspending. You need to curtail your expenditure as much as possible. And, if there is a solution which can help you curtail then that is helpful. I think in a lot of organizations people have studied (even in an educational environment or an small and medium enterprise), I think the IT infrastructure takes a lot of their money. And, if there is a way through which you can reduce that then why not? And, it becomes very relevant specially in an SME scenario because you are not just investing in infrastructure.

If those budget you can safe in the IT infrastructure cost then it will have much larger footprint in terms of computing access. And, if not then you can put those budget elsewhere and probably get a much better quality of business than that they are doing. So, that is a reason N computing is relevant with the SME.

What kind of coverage you have in India at present?
Monali Handa:  If you really look at, N computing has been around in the country for about 4 years. We are a US based company though we operate as many as about 140 countries. We have 50, 000 customers and almost 2 crore people who uses us daily. They depend on N computing for their daily needs. So, we do have a lot of people in the SME sector and if you look at India itself we have almost about 7 lakh units which are currently installed and people are using it. These are across pan India. These include educational institute, SME, large enterprise, etc. And, the large part of it is SME as well.

How are you making the SME sector aware of your products?
Monali Handa: One of the key thing is being present in events and ensuring that we are present more in media relevant to folks like this. One of the key thing we have invested is in a large channel network across the country. We have almost about 850 channel partners across more than hundred cities and each of these channel partners have their own sales and marketing team which are reaching out to the SMEs in their areas.

What kind of business growth are you witnessing as of now?
Monali Handa:  I think this is one of the exciting time for us really speaking. Like I said we had a seven lakh units already deployed in the country. We had growth which has been at 100 percent. In fact, last year it was an amazing year for us. We grew more than 150 percent in our business.

What kind of challenges do you see India is facing in adopting ICT solutions?
Monali Handa: One of the key thing always have been affordability. It is something that we provide because it is about affordable computing. And, that is something which is a key point of our success. Also, the whole thing of electricity is becoming a huge concern and there is crisis. It impacts the business in a very big way. I think government is looking at putting together policies which are very friendly for the SME. I am hoping that in the next couple of years we should bridge that whole gap and accelerate the success of the SME segment in the country.

What kind of price structure do you provide to your clients that helps to keep you ahead of competitors?
Monali Handa:  I think this is a very relevant question. For us, when you are talking about costs there are couple of things. When an SME initially buys hardware or they are building up their infrastructure, one thing at that point in time they need is to have a very solid capital and infrastructure. Now ,at that point itself we can cut down your hardware infrastructure acquisition costs by 50 percent, which is I think a big leap because you are saving that 50 percent. Not only that, when you are talking about normal PC or buying any PC it is true that you also have to run PC and when you run PC every signal PC takes about 200 watt of electricity. Our devices take just anything between 1 to 5 watt, which is I think a big leap for sure.

Also, managing this computers is also vital. So, you need to have manpower all the time to manage huge number of computers. If you have hundred computers verses two computers, managing them becomes much easier. Literally, everyday you have to do. You have to update it. If you have a much lesser number of PC it reduces manpower and it also adds to the security aspects. As many PCs are running, there are viruses that are attacking each one of them. With lesser number you have to manage only few number of PC.