Brocade anoints new A/NZ boss

Network and storage specialist Brocade has promoted its APAC channel chief to managing director of its Australian operations.

Having taken the reins on April 1, Grieg Guy said he would continue supporting strategies delivering improved margins for Australian partners, which he said enjoyed more mature corporate attitudes around paying for services than in other parts of the region. 

A key pillar of Brocade's renewed commitment to partner enablement is what Brocade APAC boss Charlie Foo called "funded investment" in the channel. Examples include increased funding for marketing as well as what appears to be a fairly unique market proposition offering to pay for high-level consultants to essentially act as advocates assisting partners to sell Brocade solutions and services.

Brocade's pedigree as a pioneer in SAN (storage area networking) is winning it kudos amongst businesses, Foo told CRN. 

The basis of Brocade's suite of SAN products is fibre channel (FC), a networking technology developed to support storage solutions and delivering speeds of up to 16Gbit/sec. 

Foo said the fact FC was such a critical component of SAN meant predictions of its demise were unlikely to come true any time soon. 

Driving the SAN market itself, Guy, noted, is the rapid move towards virtualised environments which presented new challenges in terms of storage and data management which Brocade was looking to capitalise on in partnership with its resellers. 

But SAN is still just 15 percent pf Brocade's annual turnover, with IP networking making up the rest. But Foo it expects the ratio to shift towards storage in the coming years in line with the more complex data management requirements of data centres.

Regardless though, as Guy notes, the two areas are increasingly converging. A key point on Brocade's product roadmap is the incorporation of its fibre channel smarts currently suporting the SAN range into its suite of networking products.

Minnow making waves

While still a relative minnow in the networking space, Grieg stressed Brocade's success in signing tier 2 Australian carriers such as Pipe and Vocus as evidence it was making important headway in the local market.

Looking to further increase differentiation for its suite of IP networking products, Brocade is touting its credentials as a pioneer in network 'fabrics', the big word currently in a market Foo says has seen "little real innovation the past few years". 

Foo said the same factors driving the SAN market are demanding different thinking in the networking space, notably the move towards cloud and virtualisation.

Customers needed "flatter" neyworks he said, which are easier to manage. 

"They have more data now in smaller racks."

Foo acknowledged Brocade had struggled to gain significant traction amongst top tier systems integrators in Australia as most were firmly wedded to Cisco. Yet he claimed there was a degree of "fatigue" amongst Australian partners eager to see a change in market dynamics. 

Brocade's permier partners in Australia include O2 Networks and ASI Solutions, while it has distribution agreements with Avnet and Distribution Central.