When KEMP Technologies EMEA general manager Ray Downes was a kid, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. It wasn’t something run-of-the-mill like an astronaut or a fireman or a soldier. Oh no, Downes had his heart set on a very different career altogether. Let’s hear him tell it in his own words: "As a young kid I always wanted to work as a gamekeeper on a large country estate."
Not own a country estate, mind, but work on it as a gamekeeper. What could possibly have given rise to such an ambition? His father was a member of regional gun clubs and game conservation associations and the two of them were always out visiting estates in Ireland and meeting the gamekeepers to discuss and learn about conservation and restocking of pheasants, grouse and partridges. "I was fascinated by the job," Downes recalls. "Thinking back, you could say my ambition at that age was to be Seth Armstrong off Emmerdale." No one can accuse the young Downes of not aiming high!
Different path
He didn’t get there, of course, no gamekeeping job for him or the consolation prize of owning a large country estate. Instead, Downes ended up studying Industrial Engineering at what has since become Limerick Institute of Technology. After completing his studies in 1990, a time when jobs were hard to come by, he went onto a FAS programme. It was there that he had his first brush with the IT industry when he got a five month work experience placement in Cara: The Computer People’s Limerick branch office.
He was very glad to get it. Little did Downes know that his stint at Cara was the beginning of a long career in IT (he’s never done anything else or, in his own words: "I have never managed to escape."). What was the technology like back then? Younger readers may be shocked to hear that the word ‘power’ was used to describe Compaq 286 PC machines and that Downes was involved in configuring them with Windows 2.0 (yes, 2.0, back in the pre-GUI days) and Novell Netware V3. "We have come a long way," he states.
The work experience at Cara "helped greatly" in landing Downes "a very junior (paid) job" with US multinational network equipment maker, Cabletron Systems. The company, which was eventually rebranded as Enterasys, is still an employer in Ireland today". Downes has nothing but praise for his time there: "I spent 10 great years at the company."
Impressed
So what were his impressions of the IT industry? Downes freely confesses to having no clue at all about IT, so every day was a complete learning experience. He loved "the pace the industry moved at and how quickly the technology moved on, key players merged, faded away, others came up along the rails from nowhere and became market leaders". Working for a manufacturer gave him a good view of how things evolved as he saw once core parts of the business gradually edged out then being outsourced to OEMs and consultancies.
Another thing he became aware of was the challenge channel partners faced in trying "to second guess vendor strategy", a challenge they still face. "I empathise with the channel on this point," he says. "It is one thing I am always conscious of when we engage in partner discussions and how we communicate with them on future plans."
In a 20-year career, there are bound to have been some significant changes. He highlights the "lessons learned around the whole Y2K nonsense back in 1999 and the over-reaction to it". No planes fell from the skies, lifts didn’t suddenly plunge down tower blocks one second after midnight and the traffic lights didn’t all freeze on green (or red). He also singles out the dotcom boom/bust, which came not long after the Y2K nonsense, as another learning experience.
Go east
After 10 years and having advanced to the position of channel manager, Downes took the plunge and left the security of a paid job at Enterasys to set up his own channel management agency, Arrosys. Over the course of the next eight years, he specialised in helping IT vendors develop their business in the UK, Poland and Czech Republic. This gave him the opportunity to learn about the industry from the other side and now that he has returned to the vendor fold, he says the chance to see the industry from both sides and the lessons he has learned are of tremendous value to him at a 100% channel committed company like KEMP.
The company is just about to complete its "best ever year globally with worldwide year on year revenue growth in excess of 130% and almost 240% growth in EMEA". The workforce has more than doubled. Looking to 2012, Downes says it will focus on a three-year product development roadmap, "which is the first time we have taken a long term view that far into the future". Ireland is important to KEMP as it is home to the company’s international markets headquarters, opened in December 2010. Downes believes there is a "great opportunity to throw more challenges at the Irish organisation to help us bring in, support and manage new customers and partnerships".
Established in 2000, KEMP decided in 2003 to focus on producing affordable server load balancing technology for SMBs for their web application and web services. According to Downes, the founders of KEMP "concluded, rightly at that time, that SMBs could not afford the price tag charged by the predominantly enterprise-focused brand names in our market segment".
Downes says a measure of the success of that strategic decision is reflected in the latest EMA Radar Report into the 12 providers of application delivery controllers (ADC) and load balancers. He reveals that, along with F5 Networks, KEMP has been recognised in the report as one of the two value leaders across the ADC market. "We can already see the knock-on effect of that recognition from our customers and prospects," he claims.
Value
At an Irish level, he believes KEMP is in a good position to target its core SMB market because so much of the Irish channel is concentrated on that customer segment. "We know we are very well positioned to target this market in the coming years through a loyal, well trained and mutually rewarding channel partnership approach. It’s all about a good product and good value proposition for all stakeholders," Downes states.
Outside of work, his main preoccupation is sports. All sports, although as he hails from Limerick his main passion for 10 months of the year is rugby at all levels: schools, club, provincial, national and international. He’s also a member of the UL Bohemian RFC in the University of Limerick. It’s very convenient that the KEMP office "is also located in the technology park beside our club grounds", he adds, although Downes is keen to stress it’s "a coincidence, I assure you!"
Sitting in his office, there may be some consolation to Downes in the fact that although he’s a long way from his childhood dreams of gamekeeping and Seth Armstrong, he’s managed to end up very close to the rugby pitch.
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