With its array of innovative, reliable and cost-effective storage solutions, Tandberg Data (Asia) Pte Ltd continues to grow from strength to strength.

 
Safeguarding what is considered one of, if not the most, valuable assets in the corporate environment today - information; that's what Tandberg Data does best. The Norwegian giant has been synonymous with reliable data protection and innovative storage solutions since as early as 1970. In fact, Tandberg Data has the distinction of producing the first tape drives and terminals in 1971. In 1982 the enterprising company started manufacturing streamers based on linear recording, the precursor of the present Scalable Linear Recording (SLR) technology.

Today, it is a global leader in supplying and manufacturing professional tape information storage products based on the SLR, Linear Tape Open (LTO) and Digital Linear Tape (DLT) technology platforms. It also offers a host of secondary storage products based on tape drives, autoloaders, libraries, data media, storage software and hardware components for mainstream configurations.

Solid presence

As the headquarters for the Asia Pacific region, Tandberg Data (Asia) Pte Ltd (TD Asia) in Singapore has played a big part in the company's impressive growth. Since its establishment in 1992, the Singapore office has grown more than 20 per cent year-on-year, and has launched the brand as one of the top selling ones in the region.

Besides sales and marketing, TD Asia also manages the finance, operations and logistics, and technical support functions for the Asia Pacific market. Singapore, with its highly skilled workforce, pro business environment and excellent infrastructure, factors strongly in the company's business strategy. "The Singapore office will continue to pursue our localisation plans in the major markets and strengthen existing ones. It will also enhance brand awareness of Tandberg Data through various marketing programmes," affirms Raymond Kang, managing director, TD Asia.

And the company accordingly continues to increase its substantial presence here. It set up the Tandberg Data Academy, its first globally, to promote the knowledge and use of storage technology as well as facilitate training and technical updates, especially to TD Asia's partners.

Tandberg Data's global service and repair business was also recently relocated to Singapore, which is home to a state-of-the-art, full-fledged service and repair centre. "TD Asia has been providing service and repair functions to a few models of our Tandberg Data range of products since 1999," says Kang. "The level of skills and competencies shown by the team in Singapore as well as the favourable cost structure have given our top management in Oslo the confidence that we are more than capable of supporting the group's entire range of tape storage products worldwide."

TD Asia prides itself on being "an innovator" in the industry and is often the first to introduce cost-effective and high-quality storage solutions to the region.

Smart technology

It is not just Tandberg Data's service and repair business that is thriving here. TD Asia prides itself on being "an innovator" in the industry and is often the first to introduce cost-effective and high-quality storage solutions to the region. "The data storage industry plays a very relevant part in today's business environment, especially as the amount of business related data continues to show unprecedented growth, largely because of the use of messaging, database and other customer relationship management applications," explains Kang. "Our aim is to provide the most comprehensive mix of efficient storage products and solutions that fulfils the needs and requirements of customers in small and medium enterprises."

To this end, TD Asia is constantly launching new products - all characterised by the brand's trademark ease of use, reliability, scalability and cost-effectiveness. One of its latest products is the RDX Quiksor, which was released in October. Designed as an alternative to low-end tape technology, the revolutionary disk-based storage device with removable cartridges is aimed at small and mid-sized businesses and professional power users.

"This new device delivers all the benefits of tape and disk without the risks inherent in either technology," explains Kang. "Like tape, the RDX QuikStor cartridges are removable and portable for off-site storage, disaster recovery and archival applications." What's more, these can be safely archived for more than a decade and it is an inexpensive backup and recovery solution.

With the recent acquisition of US data storage company, Exabyte Corporation, Tandberg Data looks set to further strengthen its solid position in the highly competitive industry. Not only does this merger allow Tandberg Data put out an even broader range of advanced storage and automation systems to small and medium enterprises looking to protect even more commercially-crucial business information, it makes the company the second largest player in data storage (OEMs not included). "As a whole, 2006 has been a very exciting year for us," says Kang.