Tandberg Data launches Australian channel strategy

In an exclusive interview with CRN he talks about turning the company around following its file for bankruptcy in April this year and how Australia is key to its channel strategy.

Speaking about his promotion, Kumar said it came 'out of the blue' and it will be a challenge.

His role is to  look after channel and OEM sales and marketing across APAC, including Japan, Korea, and the Middle East.

In the meantime, Kumar is looking to appoint a channel manager for Australia, based in Sydney.

"The Australian market is key for us because we see good growth opportunities," he said.

"It's an exciting market because the economy hasn't suffered as much as other countries. There is also a recent case of a high profile government email going missing with no back-up system in place which helps to boost our profile because that is an area we will focus on.

"If the Australian government doesn't have a proper solution in place how do small businesses manage their data?

"We are also hiring a channel sales manager, based in Sydney because we want feet on the street to to identify opportunities and support the channel. "

Kumar said Tandberg Data is predominantly a 'tape supplier' but it now recognises the need to 'do something different and add to its portfolio'.

He said its strategy is to provide data protection solutions while continuing to focus on the SMB space and two tier channel.

"We will embark on entering the disk market selling disk based solutions. The first of which, the DPS 1000 we will launch in two weeks time including in Australia.

"Software will play a more important part in Tandberg's future. It will be the glue that ties our solutions and hardware solutions together because the data protection space is going to be more around software and what benefits they bring to the end user.

"In the future, we add more software based solutions to our portfolio to offer a more complete data protection solution set."

Tandberg Data was forced to file for bankruptcy recently after failing to repay a lapsed loan to one of its creditors, Wall Street-based investment firm Cyrus Capital.

Kumar said the company had 'no option' but to bankrupt its holding company in Norway at the time.

"A lot of the debt was held at the holding company but our business is done through four subsidiaries. Filing for bankruptcy had no impact on our business and we removed our debt to a new holding company called Tad Holdings AS," he said.

"That has now been set up and all IP trademarks have been transferred. Our four subsidiaries continue to do business as usual. We have a clean slate and we are now a private company, no longer enlisted on the Oslow stock exchange." 

Kumar joined Tandberg Data in November 2007 as vice president of marketing and development overseeing global marketing and strategic direction of the company.

Prior to that, he was business and marketing director at Microsoft. He also worked for BakBone Software and DataCore Software, ViewSonic and Borland Software.