Its road map in integration is two-pronged—technical consultative role and the implementation role. Besides, Compaq has got its own knowledge management tools to assist in devising the right solution at the discretion of the customer's needs. In 1999-00, it did a business of Rs 60 crore.

The figure may not reflect the true stature of the company, but considering the fact that it is just over two years old in the NI arena in the new avatar, it is all set to be one the market leaders. It has the right knowledge and skill-sets to implement networks for the next generation. It has a clear focus and positioning. It plans to focus in three key vertical segments—communications industry solutions, manufacturing, and finance/banking solutions. At the horizontal level, its thrust would be on infrastructure and network integration, the ISP (architecture and applications interface), and enterprise applications. It has bagged a Rs 6.5 crore order from MTNL for the latter's ISP set-up expansion. Its strength in the manufacturing sector is ominous. TISCO, Maruti, IOCL, Reliance, HPL, and Exide are some of the major projects.

It not only understands the mentality of the Indian customer, but also has some of the most clear-cut practices of handling the business project. It follows the practice under which, the NI opportunities get addressed by sales specialists spread across eight locations in the country, who in turn work closely with the account manager for that account, and depending on the complexity of the case, multiple solution architects get engaged. The network solution architect and project managers belong to a service practice called "eInfrasructure" headed by a practice manager who becomes responsible for the deployment on getting the order. It understands that the customer wants dedicated uninterrupted service and support on one hand and needs the project at low cost on the other.

Basically, its strength comes from its strategic alliances with Cisco, Cabletron, Nortel, and 3Com in LAN, WAN, and the NMS environs; CA, BMS, Tivoli, PSI, etc., in enterprise management; AMP, Lucent, and others for passive components.

With Internet changing the face of the enterprises and the service providers, addressing these dimensions is the future growth area. And Compaq has engaged itself in technologies like next generation networks (application switching) addressing these parameters and is focussing on enterprise management deployment. It has an "eInfrastructure" group consisting of leading architects.

Compaq derives its strength from partnering with principals in their respective fields of expertise.