PortWise to make India hub for its APAC operations

Mumbai: In an attempt to make India the hub of its Asia-Pacific (APAC) operations, European secure socket layer virtual private network (SSL-VPN) solutions and services major PortWise is planning to set up a sales office in Bangalore, which would also double up as the company's regional office for the region.

"The hub in Bangalore , space for which is yet to be finalised, will help us provide speedy services in the APAC region," says Kaushik Thakkar, vice-president (strategic development) of PortWise.

The company is also contemplating setting up three support centres in the country, which would be in Delhi for the northern region, in Mumbai and Bangalore for the western and southern regions respectively.

The support centres would be mainly to service its customers in the country, while the Bangalore office would cater to the needs of clients in India and the APAC region, says Thakkar.

PortWise is also planning to increase its headcount to around 35employees in the next six months, up from eight at present, of which eight would be on the sales team and the remaining will man the support centres.

Earlier, it had signed an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with HCL Infosystems Ltd, under which the Indian IT company would incorporate PortWise's oftware suite in its hardware range.

The PortWise product suite provides companies with secure remote access to corporate applications using the internet, under stringent security norms. This type of access improves enterprise efficiency and productivity without limitations and expense associated with other access technologies, he said.

"India remains a vast market for it hardware and services. Our strategic partnership moves up one step closer to making our technology available to corporate enterprises on a global basis", says Thakkar, who is also the co-founder of the company.