F5 Networks opens India shop

F5 Networks, the $170 million US-based provider of application traffic management solutions, has announced the setting up of its India office in Mumbai.

Application traffic management allows businesses to offload functions to the network that otherwise has to be done by applications and allows secure access to applications from anywhere with any device in an enterprise.

F5 solutions consist of hardware and proprietary software.

With this presence, the company will bring its entire portfolio of products and solutions to India. Said Dan Matte, Global Senior VP (Marketing), F5 Networks "this is an exciting time to be in India. The economy is growing rapidly and outsourcing and offshoring have made India an important IT hub.

There is immense demand for secure and accelerated application delivery and we have the solutions to meet that demand."

F5 prior to this was selling through a primary distributor, value added resellers and its global partners.

"Our direct presence will allow us to rapidly scale our marketing activities and beef up our market share.

"Our partnerships with Oracle, Microsoft, BEA, SAP, Veritas and Siebel will help us grow in India and better serve large Indian MNCs wishing to deploy large enterprise applications," added Matte.

The company also announced that it will offer consulting services, certified global training services and operational interface for F5 devices installation services.

Noted Shailendra Sahasrabudhe, GM, F5 India: "Our target is to replicate our global best practices.

"The demand for more network intelligence and functionality in an integrated, easy to administer platform exists across the board. This is a huge market and we have an aggresive channel strategy in place."