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Intel has officially appointed Rectron as its second value-added
distributor in SA for its server range. In terms of its appointment,
Rectron will be responsible for driving the market for entry-level
servers in the small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) arena.
"We see
significant market potential in the SME space," says Callum Chisholm,
Reseller Channel manager at Intel SA. "We are confident that Rectron
will play a vital role in developing this market by building on its
expertise in the desktop arena."
Chrisholm says
Rectron has been investing heavily over the last few months in
skilling up its own and its channel's resources as well as expanding
its footprint nationally.
"We're already
seeing additional interest from integrators operating in the SME
market as a result," he says.
Chisholm is
referring to recent series of Intel Product Integrator (IPI) events
that attracted more partners than equivalent events in Europe. A total
of 1 840 partners attended the Intel Channel Conferences held in
Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Bloemfontein.
In addition, Intel
and Rectron have run intensive training courses in the main centres to
fast track the transition of Rectron's reseller channel from its
traditional PC-focus to the new SME server market.
"We see massive
growth potential in this area for our resellers and are pleased to be
working with Intel in this area," says Mark Lu, CEO of Rectron.
"Companies have
limited budgets these days compared with two years ago and are now
showing increased interest in Intel's offerings, particularly its
low-end products and white box servers."
Lu sees further
growth at the entry-level from small companies, which typically employ
old desktop PCs as their print or file servers.
"Even the smallest
company has come to rely on their computers and need the performance,
reliability and scalability of a purpose-designed server, rather than
depend on outdated PCs turned on their sides," says Lu.
"If their make-do
system goes down, their business goes with it, so a reliable server
becomes a competitive advantage for the smaller concern. Resellers
have a strong business case to present."
He says the
greater complexity of today's applications is also driving growth at
the entry-level and small companies can no more afford computer
downtime as can a larger concern. In fact, their businesses probably
depend more on their single server as they often don't have backup or
alternate facilities to fall back on.
"Rectron is giving
us a gateway into this entry-level SME market and, in view of the
first class commitment it's made to training and supporting its
channel, we're confident that we will make big inroads. In fact, since
February, when we introduced a toll-free telephone number for new
dealer registration, we've signed up 250 new IPIs," concludes
Chisholm.
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