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INDUSTRYPROFILE Local dotcom survivor flourishes Radica is still here because the team came up with a new focus fast enough during the dotcom bust, said Francis Kwok, Radica’s CEO By Teresa Leung CWHK: Radica was set up in 2000 when the dotcom bubble burst. How did you survive? Francis Kwok: When we first started, we had a recommendation-engine product good for companies that wanted personalization for their customers. As we saw more and more dotcom players fail, we chose a few markets to focus on. Despite the dotcom failure, the Internet population continued to grow. Companies selling electronic products or services such as digital cameras or telcos need to reach more customers on the Internet. That led to the development of our email marketing products. CWHK: How many employees are there in Radica? FK: More than 40. They are in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shanghai. CWHK: How many of them are in R&D? FK: 80 percent in R&D and analytics. Staffers involved in analytics focus on understanding customer requirements and how they can be tied into our products. Our annual R&D budget is over HK$2 million. Our R&D is done in Hong Kong. CWHK: Who are your customers? FK: We have more than 100 customers. Actually more than 150 companies are using our e-mail marketing products because some advertising agen- cies deploy our products to do e-mail marketing for their clients. Some of our customers include LV, Fortress MaBelle, Chanel, Mercedez Benz, Bank of East Asia, Communications Bank, TDC, Global Sources, Paul Smith, SaSa, Joyce Boutique, PCCW, Haier, LeMeridien, JW Marriott, Holiday Inn, and China-based down jackets company Bosideng. CWHK: What’s the ratio of local and overseas customers? FK: 50-50. CWHK: Where’s your overseas presence? FK: We started to expand overseas from 2006. Now we have presence in Japan, China, Singapore, and Australia. CWHK: What issues do you face when it comes to overseas expansion? FK: Businesses overseas don’t have a high-level awareness of non-US software brands and products. People are surprised when they find out we are from Hong Kong. Besides, finding the right partners isn’t easy. Creating a product that can meet requirements of customers from different markets is also a tough task. You see, market peculiar features are justifiable when there is a critical mass. CWHK: What are your business and tech strategies? Radica’s Kwok: We want to acquire rather than be acquired FK: We continue to add useful, highquality products. Having two or three competitors, we differentiate by our regional experience that enables us to help our customer achieve business growth. As mentioned, we have large-sized firms as customers. The experience of serving them helps us a lot in enhancing our consultancy services. CWHK: Have you cut down on headcount to save cost recently? FK: We actually raised our headcount by 20 percent in the past two quarters and we hope to raise our headcount again by five to 10 percent in the next fiscal year. The economic situation remains tough. Last year we did ask our employees to help out by taking no-pay leaves. But the demand for e-mail marketing is still there. Our customers want value-added services such as consultancy. Besides, the impact on the China market isn’t as huge. We are seeing growing demand for e-mail marketing on the mainland. CWHK: Do you targeted to be acquired? FK: We want to acquire others. Our target is a mainland firm with business nature similar to ours. 3 44 Computerworld Hong Kong Nov 2009 www.cw.com.hk
Virtual Office: The Benefits of an Outsourced Virtual Desktop Service With the increasing trend of globalization and mobility, enterprises are rethinking how desktops are deployed and managed. NTT Com Asia’s Virtual Office could be their solution. The cost of maintaining traditional desktops is huge - securing and supporting desktop computing, including equipment purchase, deployment, repair, maintenance, upgrading and replacement - all consume significant IT resources. Virtualization could be a helpful solution as it could significantly improve manageability and efficient use of human and system resources for enterprises. However, deploying a virtual desktop infrastructure internally is found to be nearly impossible for most companies due to its difficulty, costly and time-consuming nature. Outsourcing desktop virtualization NTT Com Asia turns virtual desktop infrastructure into a cost-effective, reliable outsourced service. The Virtual Office offers companies the ability to host individual desktops inside virtual machines that run on the servers at NTT Com’s premium data centre. Users have the flexibility to access their desktops remotely from any computer or thin client anywhere using the MagicConnect USB key. With the operating system and applications managed centrally www.cw.com.hk inside NTT Com Asia’s data centre, enterprises can quickly realize the full benefits of desktop virtualization without having to build and deploy the infrastructure internally. Reduced desktop TCO As enterprises no longer own or maintain physical assets, capital expenditure is greatly reduced and computing costs are shifted from fixed to variables. Operating costs are also reduced by 25- NTT Com Asia’s Virtual Office hosts individual desktops inside 30% annually as a result virtual machines that run on the servers at the company’s of reduced IT labour and premium data centre. maintenance costs as well as Desktop virtualization power consumption. Improved manageability and flexibility Virtual Office allows enterprises to quickly deploy and scale virtual PC environments to specific user requirements. IT administrators have the ability to manage users, data access rights and application usage dynamically. Users can log in from any remote thin client or laptop easily with a USB key and experience a consistent and personalized PC environment every time. Enhanced security and reliability By virtualizing the desktop, company data can be centralized on a well managed, reliable and secure server inside the data centre. No sensitive data is stored in remote thin client laptops and therefore information leakage can be prevented in case that laptop is lost or stolen. In short, Virtual Office makes company information accessible to mobile staff anywhere without compromising the security of that data. Disaster recovery Since complete desktop environments are centralized inside a virtual machine and managed in the data centre, in the event of disaster, recovery and redeployment of the PC environment can be done instantly. If a physical disaster strikes office premises, business can still be continued from anywhere else with all the PC operations and data kept intact inside the virtual machines. The newly launched MagicConnect remote access solution allows users to access Virtual Office anywhere and anytime in a secured environment. Virtual Office - The first total solution offering NTT Com Asia’s Virtual Office is the first bundled solution in the market for desktop virtualization. Other prominent features and benefits within the Virtual Office Solution include dedicated virtual server hosting, MagicConnect remote access solution, TeamWorks web collaboration service, SecureVault online backup, Endpoint Policy Management, Microsoft Office 2007 and Trend Micro Antivirus. Virtual Office simplifies the traditional large-scale desktop deployment and management, resulting in unprecedented TCO savings and IT security while delivering a much more consistent and reliable desktop environment to enterprises. For more information about NTT Com Asia’s Virtual Office solution, please visit www.ntt.com.hk or send email to promotion@ntt.com.hk Nov 2009 Computerworld Hong Kong 45 Sponsored Feature
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