/dqweek/media/agency_attachments/JNb31gQnqJvAm0jqPxaV.png)
Follow Us
Contributed by Sushil
Bandi, Country Manager-Indian Subcontinent,
Digital India
Market dynamics and
consumption trends for PC components have evolved noticeably in the
past year. As the world's leading manufacturers of HDDs and
harbingers of technological evolution in storage, we have anticipated
a radically altered ecosystem and made attempts to bridge the already
narrowing gap between personal and professional storage performance
devices. As it is, with all new technologies, the efforts have
cascaded across the board and vendors have attempted to break out of
the legacy mold to introduce better products that have introduced
consumers and enterprises to the next level in performance.
In terms of technology,
the single most important development has been the evolution of hard
drives in tandem with other essential components such as chipsets and
motherboards. The next few months are crucial with respect to
adoption of faster PC components in the Indian market, being led by
early adopters of performance interfaces and higher capacity internal
drives for desktops.
SATA III compatibility is
the focus of the moment for hard drive manufacturers, who are
investing heavily to market the next-generation 6GB desktop drives.
Widespread adoption of the new drives is the most crucial phenomenon
that will open doors for a range of pure performance applications for
end-users. At Western Digital, we upgraded our entire range of Caviar
Blue and Caviar Black desktop drives in orchestration with plans of
leading component manufacturers to introduce SATA III parts beginning
early 2011.
The demand for storage
capacity is rising exponentially and it will reach unanticipated
levels in a few years' time. Western Digital recently launched the
world's highest capacity internal drive — the Caviar Green 3 TB.
However, the adoption of larger capacity desktop drives will be
influenced largely by other subtle factors: faster interfaces for
one, and also by newer technologies such as virtualization, the
end-user impact of which is yet to be made and felt!
On this note, another
significant development will be an improved penetration of 'green'
hard drives in homes. Of course, performance levels of components
that are cool, silent and energy-efficient are yet to reach standard
levels but we are almost there. Further, though the realization that
'green' drives will significantly reduce power consumption has
gradually trickled down, the end-user will readily adopt them when he
is educated about the immediate power-saving benefit; considering
that the stakes will increase considerably once the entire ecosystem
of components and hardware goes 'green,' this is a possibility in
the near future.
The Indian market for hard
drives has recorded good growth this year too, and we expect it to
maintain the trajectory in 2011. The never-ending surge in digital
technologies and the rate at which they are expected to be consumed
will drive growth in the segment. We plan to ride on, or more
appropriately, drive the wave of adoption of these technologies by
end-users.
The channel is
well-positioned to reap benefits from the evolving scenario. The
benefit will yield itself through improved skills-sets and technical
know-how. For instance, a certain amount of awareness on up-gradation
and compatibility is a prerequisite to sell a 3 TB or a SATA III
drive to first-time users. There can be a host of compatibility
issues that will arise in this situation and being the consumers'
direct point-of-contact, partners will have to be adept at educating
them in installation, for instance. In times of consolidation,
partners have a superb opportunity to differentiate themselves from
the competition through such value-addition.