India among fastest growing markets for Pure Storage in APJ region, says CTO Rob Lee
India is one of the fastest-growing markets within the APJ region, shared Rob Lee, the Chief Technology Officer at Pure Storage, with the country’s public sector and telecommunications verticals acting as key growth sectors. Alongside, this growth will be further driven by AI, the tremendous data generated, and the company’s solutions, he added.
Where does AI come into play for a company like Pure Storage, which primarily deals with hardware?Â
We think of AI’s impact in three main areas—how to use AI to improve everything we do as a company, how to use AI to enhance our products and the customer experience, and how to tailor our products to serve customers building AI systems themselves.Â
In the first area, we are using AI to become more efficient. Our Gen AI team is driving this work, deploying systems automating and improving processes across the board, from HR to internal knowledge bases and even finance systems. This has saved a lot of manual effort and has shortened delivery times for many services.Â
In the second area, we are embedding AI into our products to improve their usability and overall experience. This includes incorporating natural language models into our products. Customers can now interact with our products via a co-pilot window and ask questions in natural language. We are also adding capabilities to make our products easier to use.Â
In the third area, we are focused on serving customers building their own AI systems. Large AI models require large amounts of data that need to be served at high speeds and with excellent performance. We serve many customers building AI systems that need high-performance, reliable, and power-efficient systems.Â
What services does Pure Storage offer? Where do you typically see better margins?Â
Our core business involves serving customers with our arrays, software products, and more. We transact in two models—The traditional product sale, where you purchase the product, and also sign up for a subscription, which modernises and updates the product over time. The second model is fully delivered as a service. We call it Evergreen One, where you tell us your needs, and we deliver the service. It is entirely subscription-based.Â
We generally see higher margins in our subscription services, but overall, our margins are high across the board. We have been running product margins in the high 60 per cent to 70 per cent range, and subscription margins have been growing steadily. The key factors here are the scale of Evergreen as it continues to mature, which provides leverage, and the fact that we transact on an SLA basis.
Customers are not buying the hardware; it remains on our books, and we service the SLA. We also get to reuse the equipment coming back from customers through the Evergreen model, which helps fulfil our obligations. This reduces e-waste and results in significant cost savings. Â
When customers consume infrastructure in the cloud, they sign up for an SLA, pay for what they consume, and assume there is unlimited capacity. If they need more, they can get it. We deliver the same service but on the customer’s premises.Â
What are your larger markets globally? Where does India fit in?
Geographically, the Americas make up around 70 per cent of our business, with the rest coming internationally. We consider India a part of our Asia-Pacific region, and it is one of the fastest-growing markets in the region. In the past few years, India has shown tremendous growth. As a US-based company, we started strong in the Americas, but we are expanding internationally.Â
While looking at markets, I also consider verticals. Initially, we served more commercial and mid-market customers, but in the past five or six years, we have expanded significantly into larger enterprises. We serve a broad range of customer verticals, but the largest and most impactful include financial services, telecommunications, public sector (state, local, and federal governments), and healthcare.Â
India is a crucial market, and we have seen great growth here. I expect that to continue, driven by AI, the tremendous data generated, and our solutions. It is also a key talent market. We have a global strategy with three main sites, and India plays a critical role in tapping into the best talent. The work being done here has been fantastic, and we plan to continue scaling and growing our presence in India. The headcount has grown over 100 per cent over the past three years.Â
Bangalore is one of our three major global sites. We have three main engineering sites—Bay Area, Prague, and Bangalore— which we built to own significant portions of our product development and R&D efforts.Â
Bangalore has grown quite a bit over the three years. The work being done here spans across the board—from core hardware technology and direct flash modules and firmware software to file protocols, features, and Portworx, our container software solution. The entire Gen AI development team is based here, along with many other teams.Â
Given India’s focus on rapid digitisation, will the public sector become important for Pure Storage? Do you also see the commercial sector as a potential area for growth?
India has been one of the fastest-growing markets within the APJ region, and I see the public sector and telecommunications as key growth sectors. India generates massive amounts of data, and our solution set can address everything from the highest-performance applications, like AI, to the most price-sensitive workloads. This flexibility is a big catalyst for tapping into the Indian market.Â
While we serve the commercial sector, our focus moving forward will be heavily skewed toward larger enterprises. Financially, it makes sense—larger companies offer more concentrated opportunities, and that is where our technology delivers the most value. The outcomes, risk reduction, and savings in power and energy are more meaningful for larger organisations. Â
Published on January 30, 2025
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