Networking Technology

The company will be launching its technical and maintenance support services centre in Mumbai next week. The centre has been set up with an investment of Rs 10 crore in an area of 8,000 square feet. It will initially house 40 engineers who will take care of all support services of Novell’s customers in the Apac region.

“This is our only centre in the entire Apac region, which will cater to our customers spread across the region,” Onward Novell Software India deputy chairman and managing director Harish Mehta said. “The centre would provide assistance to our customers by replying telephonic queries and answering their e-mails initially,” he told eFE, adding “it will gradually handle more high-end technical support.”

According to Mr Mehta, “We have a roadmap to shift the entire technical and maintenance support operations of Novell to India. This will be done by adding to the strength of the engineering team in Mumbai where Onward Novell India’s corporate office is located.”

Onward Novell India is a joint venture between Novell and Onward Technologies and handles the sales and marketing operations of the parent company. In addition, Novell has a development centre in Bangalore which employs 340 engineers and is managed entirely by the US company.

According to Mr Mehta, Novell sees 2004 as the year when large-scale Linux adoption will happen both in the enterprise server and desktop space. Novell’s acquisitions of SuSE and Ximian in 2003 signals its entry into the enterprise Linux distribution and services market and accordingly, the company is planning its strategy to make Linux the centre of an enterprise’s IT network.

To increase the adoption of Linux in India, Onward Novell is focusing on verticals such as government, banking and financial institutions, educational institutions, telecom, and BPO sector, he said. The company is looking at creating infrastructure for Linux deployment by training around 15,000 Novell certified engineers in the country. This will be done by launching two training courses in May, namely Novell Certified Linux Engineers (CLE) and SuSE certified Linux Professionals.

Onward Novell is also working with Indian hardware vendors like HCL, Wipro, TCS and Zenith, and independent software vendors to increase adoption of Linux in the country. The company recently announced the availability of GroupWise 6.5, its collaboration platform running entirely on Linux.