"Converting into open source is easier in enterprises says Manojkummar Garg, COO, Taashee Linux Services
A 100 percent Linux and open source software company, Taashee Linux Services has clinched large deals in Indian enterprise space in past eighteen months. The commitment and skills have helped the company to earn the coveted advance partner status of Red Hat for its platform and middleware products. Today, while most partners align with different vendors to suffice customer demands; Taashee is content with the one vendor plan.
“We help enterprises to fully utilize the power of Linux and open source technologies to deliver higher stability, higher security and higher performance with lower cost and lesser administrative overheads compared to proprietary solutions,” says Manojkummar Garg, COO, Taashee Linux Services.
How does Taashee clinch deals in competitive Indian marketplace with partner folks pitching open or proprietary architecture? “An enterprise today looks for lowest price, latest technology and experienced skill sets .If you understand customer pain points and their IT roadmap, you are cherry amongst the group of competitors,” says Abhishek Datt, CTO, Taashee Linux Services. Our team clearly opens up challenges to the customer at the start as we conduct extensive research about each project, he adds.
The software sales (Red Hat & JBoss) including Red Hat subscription model, updates on certified products, telephone/web support contribute 60 percent of company revenues while services business (40 percent) comprises of implementation services, managed services and corporate training. Even for long-time UNIX users stuck with complexities of proprietary solutions, the company offers migration services to switch to enterprise-grade Red Hat.
Loyal to Red Hat
Founders of Taashee –Manojkummar Garg and Abhishek Datt incepted EXL (open source solutions on desktop) in 2002. Garg recalls, “At one time, we were competitors to Red Hat. A lot of funding is needed for product sales and somehow the company could not survive.” Anticipating open source to take off in years to come, they ventured with services and selling of Red Hat subscription. There were very few partners in the services space, justifies Garg about their second venture. The duo has nine year experience in open source industry.
A contract from Red Hat for implementation for desktop clustering for Andhra Pradesh Tourism Department in 2008 was the first order for Taashee. The company executed country’s first Red Hat virtualization project on XEN for Bilcare and first Red Hat HPC project for IIT Chennai. “Red Hat had support centers in major metros with development centre at Pune. Hence we opted for Red Hat (a market leader) than Novell and others, he says. By sticking to one principal, Red Hat also supports us as loyal partner, says Garg.
Last year Taashee Linux Services was recognized as the most committed partner for Red Hat in APAC. Is working with one principal easy or difficult? “Interaction with one principal is easy as we are more committed with a legacy of strong technical skill sets since past nine years. Most customers have come back for services and they have even referred us to other customers. Even principal knows we get good references due to our skill sets in the marketplace,” says Garg.
Taashee technical team understands customers’ infrastructure in terms of servers, total database, and consolidation roadmap and then gives proposal for virtualization, etc. Red Hat Virtualization (RHEV) is now competing with VMware for its performance and user interface, says Garg about the value proposition of extensive bouquet of Red Hat offerings. Capex is also much less than VMware, he points out.
Onus on Technical Expertise
Taashee keeps abreast with new technology trends like cloud. “We invest heavily in IT infrastructure like enterprise class blade servers, blade servers from hardware side. Taashee Research Lab is an internal lab where technical people are expected to deliver research work including digging new open source tools and gaining expertise,” says Datt. The second team is implementation and testing which simulate customer environment, inject problems and try to find solutions. Stay at edge of Red Hat and
Most enterprise customers start with conservative requirements like JBoss and then they slowly unleash other aspects of business to Taashee. “The technical staff then offers them the entire suite of open source solutions from Red Hat. Most are repeat customers as they can expect less price points, good service, and high skill sets,” he says.
In
“Converting into open source is easier in enterprises, though the industry including us thought SMBs will drive it. Also many SMBs do not follow compliance model strongly, hence renewals is more prevalent for enterprises,” reasons Datt.
Most companies who installed open source earlier are facing roadblock or less performance for production applications on Linux or JBoss. “We have received many such queries from past few months. The industry is looking for open source specialists and we aim to make Taashee a power house for open solutions in
Future Looks Good
In next fiscal year, Taashee will add branches at
Aiming to double the revenues for 2011-2012, Taashee will increase open source solutions across Government. At present, the revenues from this vertical are around 5 percent. “We want to address Government in planned and full fledged manner than rely on sub contracts. As we complete three years of inception this March, we will register with NICSI and hence bid aggressively for Government projects,” says Garg.
A niche solution provider focused on open source, Taashee Linux Services registered fast growth due to customer satisfaction as per Garg. IT projects are beyond transactions as we ensure very fixable solutions to address the customer pain points at all times. “Not in every deal can you make money but you make loyal customer base which trusts you as a reliable solution provider,” says Garg.
Now it is best time for open source technology as per Datt. “The next big thing is cloud computing addressed by Red Hat Cloud foundations. Red Hat is great source to open doors of customers for us,” he concludes.
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