Tag: Distribution

Razer teams up with Lenovo

Posted on November 30, 2015 by - News

Lenovo_Y_Series_Razer_Edition_Gaming_Desktop_Prototype_2.0.0It what appears to be a key partnership, Chinese maker of the Thinkpad, Lenovo, is tying the knot with gaming outfit Razer.

The pair told the DreamHack Winter 2015 conference in Sweden, that first product from the partnership will be the Razer Edition of the Lenovo Y Series gaming desktop. Images show a Y series tower case sporting Razer’s green glow, along with its ‘Chroma’ lighting at the base.

It is not clear which channel is going to be used to get the gaming gear out to the great unwashed as both have fairly strong European distributions.

Traditional PC makers are starting to see value in gaming compueters which seem to have ignored the drift toward doom that other PC hardware has seen.

Lenovo, which is the top seller of PCs,  first unveiled its Y Series at the IFA trade show in September this year.

It’s unclear exactly what technologies Razer will bring to the partnership. According to a press statement Lenovo said that Razer would “enhance the immersive experience for gamers.”

The gaming PC outfit has proprietary software products designed around in-game chat, gaming audio and a cloud service for game settings, all of which may prove to be of high interest to Lenovo.

There are two Y series desktops currently offered by Lenovo, the Y700 and Y900, as well as six gaming laptops and some accessories.

The first of the Razer Edition series will be launched at CES 2016 in January, with “multiple new designs and products” coming from the partners in the near future.

 

VIP offers smaller resellers kit to sell

Posted on October 21, 2015 by - News

2c72b03VIP Computers is offering indie PC retailers sale or return gaming packs in a bid to help out the smaller resellers.

The packs include a variety of goods from VIP’s key PC gaming vendors and marketing assets, will be sent out next week.

Each pack has a trade price value of £2,500 and are being sent out on a sale or return basis. To get one you have to be a member of the VIP Club which is the VIP’s programme for independent PC retailers.

In the kit are five £99 Razer Blackwidow Chroma gaming keyboards and Deathadder and Naga mice.

The deal gives the independants some free stock to have a crack at flogging in the run up to Christmas.  It helps solve the retailers high stock cost problems, which prevents them from buying high-ticket items or ones they don’t think will sell.

The Indies don’t need to pay the invoice until January 2016, at which point they can pay the invoice or return the goods – whatever they haven’t sold can sent back to VIP.

More than 100 resellers have already signed up to receive a pack.

 

Dell-EMC deal will rock the channel boat

Posted on October 12, 2015 by - News, Opinions

Dell logo* DELL has confirmed it will take over EMC for $67 billion.  VM Ware will continue as a publicly traded company.

It now looks almost certain that Dell will announce it is taking over EMC today – a move that will cause ripples right throughout their respective channels.

The deal, said to be worth over $50 billion, is expected to be concluded either today or tomorrow, although EMC, being a listed company, will have to be offered to other prospective suitors.

A prospective suitor this time last year was HP, but HP Inc and HP Enterprise aren’t that interested any more.

For Dell, there are clear advantages to the acquisition. It has been building up its channel portfolio for several years now and at last week’s Canalys Channels Forum, senior executives said that at least 70 percent of its business was now going through two tier distribution. The acquisition will also put Dell into the top league, along with IBM and HP one and two.

Dell has also had a pretty smooth path when it’s taken over other countries, managing to successfully integrate them in a comparatively short period.

Obviously, there will be some consolidation involved and doubtless some people will be made redundant as part of the proposed takeover. But sorting out the channel implications will require some deft and delicate moves on Dell’s behalf. Reports suggest that EMC’s VM Ware division may itself be subject to either a sale or some equity investment.

Distributors take aim at services market

Posted on October 8, 2015 by - News

truckThe CEO of Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) pitched services as a key element of distributors profitability.

Speaking at the Canalys Channels Forum, Curran said the GTDC has 19 members totally $135 billion in global sales and covering 95 percent of the planet.
He said: “We asked the GTDC executives how big the channel opportunity for the internet of things was, and they think it’s a good thing.Distributors will enable partners to understand the internet of things.”

Distributors will be able to provide a geographic reach, scale things with a variable cost infrastructure, and be able to look at things with multiple vendors.

But distribution as a service is taking off, he said. Distribution isn’t just about packing boxes and sending them off, he claimed and produced a long list of services disties offer. Distribution has been good at doing “the smelly things” like credit checks, credit cards and compliance checks.

The group collects information on distribution covering a billion dollars of data a week. He said sales in all major Western European countries are improving.

GDTC trains vendors how to learn about distribution and how to avoid common mistakes.

Curran led five executives onto the stage from disties inluding Azlan, Tarsus, Logicom, Arrow, and Avnet.

A chap from Logicom said it was important for both the channel and the vendors align themselves to bring IoT stuff to market. The Arrow chap said vendors create the room but won’t relinquish their services. Azlan’s Simon England said vendors want to keep control but we (distributors) should be considered as service providers.

Graeme Watt from Avnet said disties were sales, marketing and service companies too.

Services is extreme;y important, said Watt, but it is difficult to persuade vendors and resellers how it can help them.

He said Avnet had been in channel conflicts over services, but that wasn’t the company’s intent. Resellers don’t have to take Avnet’s services. “Where we’ve encountered conflict we’ve either stepped aside or developed “teaming arrangements.””

Lenovo faces a channel grilling

Posted on October 7, 2015 by - News

lenovo2This afternoon, two senior Lenovo European executives faced questions from the channel audience here at the Canalys Channels Forum in Barcelona. Gianfranco Lanci and Eric Cador, both big suits in the European market were put through their paces.

Lenovo’s Lanci said the acquisition of Intel servers has gone quite well.”I think it’s maybe another quarter but it’s nearly done.” Lenovo has started making money.

He said the PC market is not going to decline but it’s not going to hit double digit growth. He said the economical situation meant sales were suffering in the emerging market.

Lanci said Windows 10, in terms of performance isn’t comparable to Windows 8 or Vista. It will help the market to recover “a bit”. A number of commercial customers are considering moves to Windows 10 in 2016.

Lenovo is working on converging storage and computing but Lanci declined to comment on whether it would buy into the storage business.

He said consolidation in the PC area is inevitable and the smaller players will disappear. He’s prepared to play a waiting game and thinks that in two years time there will only be four or five PC companies.

Lenovo thinks it’s special because it’s got PCs, phablets, phones, tablets and enterprise products.

Lenovo doesn’t understand why Microsoft has launched a new Surface. Microsoft is both a partner and a competitor. Microsoft asked Lenovo a year ago if it would resell its products and said no.

Lenovo thinks Android will continue to take share. Lenovo ships more Android than Wintel products by a factor of two.

Asked why many Lenovo products were cheaper in retail than through distribution, Lenovo said most of the products sold in retail were different from machines pushed through the channel. Lenovo has to deal with multiple channels.

Lenovo said that when it bought the IBM server business it thought there was room to grow. There’s room for it to take business from HP. It has a great opportunity in Europe and the USA.

Channel complaints about overstock at distribution leading to big cash problems don’t seem to be a problem, according to Lenovo’s Lanci. When there’s overstock it’s usually Lenovo which pays the bill and isn’t paying the bill on overstocking. Lenovo has invested money to solve the problem.

Lenovo will concentrate on going the commercial or enterprise channels. It believes the integration of IBM System x channel partners went pretty well. Lenovo needs value added channel partners and needs to grow volume too. W0

Dell puts more beef into the channel

Posted on April 21, 2015 by - Moving People, News

Dell logoThere was a time when putting the word Dell next to the word channel would produce sheer disbelief in a reader.

But those times are no more.

Today Dell said it has bolstered its channel team as well as announcing incentives and rebates for its channel partners.

The company said it has introduced a programme called “AllStars”, intended for its networking channel to do more business with the companies. Its partners get customer support and initiatives like training. The programme also gives premier and preferred partners in Europe access to C-level sales and marketing councils.

It also said that it has introduced the Vostro 15 3000 business networks aimed at SMEs and giving channel partners incentivies.

Dell has also appointed our old mate Sarah Shields as UK sales executive director and general manager for the UK. Sarah will look after a number of different routes to market.

Sarah said: “Our partners continue to pivotal… I look forward to continuing to build Dell’s offering to ensure that it meets the need of our partners across the UK.”

And Ralf Jordan has been appointed as executive director of EMEA broadline distribution.

 

Lenovo still distributing Superfish

Posted on March 9, 2015 by - News

1413884897_463198Lenovo is still peddling notebooks pre-installed with dangerous, HTTPS-breaking adware, despite saying it had abandoned the practice.

Initially, Lenovo said the Superfish ad-injector posed no threat, a position it quickly reversed and then said the company stopped bundling the software in December.

Executives promised to release a removal tool that would delete all code and data associated with the adware.

However it looks like Lenovo might not have have told the full truth.

Ars Technica found that a new $550 Lenovo G510 notebook which was ordered in early February more than four weeks after Lenovo said it stopped bundling Superfish, still had the software.

It was not as if it was old stock stuck in the channel either, the onboard Windows had a December build date.

The next promise was about the official Superfish removal tool, which the PC maker states will “ensure complete removal of Superfish and certificates for all major browsers.”

While the tool removed the dangerous certificate—and as a result closed the serious man-in-the-middle vulnerability it posed—Lenovo’s software didn’t remove all Superfish-related data.

A Lenovo spokesman wrote in an e-mail to Ars: “If an individual customer has a specific question about their experience with the removal tool, they should contact the Lenovo Service line directly.”

Amazon faces strike action

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

Amazon-Cloud-OutageGerman workers at Amazon warehouses have staged a three day strike – starting today.

They want better pay and conditions and are being backed by trade union Verdi. Reuters said the union expected 2,000 workers to walk out with five of Amazon’s nine distribution centres in Germany affected.

But Amazon claims only a tiny number of workers had taken strike action and 19,000 people in Germany continue to pack their boxes, ahead of the Christmas holidays.

The trade union has staged previous strikes because it wants Amazon to up pay along with collective bargaining agreements in Germany, Reuters said.

But Amazon claims that the people working in warehouses earn more than average pay compared to other people packing boxes and shifting stuff around the massive warehouses.

Germany is Amazon’s second biggest market after the USA.

Avnet gets EMC gong

Posted on April 14, 2014 by - News

avgongMegadistributor Avnet Technology Solutions UK has been awarded a gong and named by EMC as its UK distributor of the year 2013.

Avnet gets the gong because it has promoted EMC’s “Attitude” programme – a scheme intended for small and medium sized businesses.

Channel director Terry Beale, from EMC, said that Avnet contributes a great deal to company sales.  Avnet partly gets the gong because it has made an easy to use portal for resellers that lets people configure and price EMC systems and improve its market share.

Avnet channel man Lee Bushnell said that his team drives demands and gives technical and commercial support on a range of EMC products.

Pictured here are, from left to right, Richard Graham, Clare Wright, Lee Bushnell, David Ross, and Warren Powell – all of them working for Avnet. The mask behind is presumably somebody from EMC.

Arrow gets VMWare gongs

Posted on March 6, 2014 by - News

Arrow logoDistributor Arrow Electronics said it had received two gongs at the VMWare partner exchange.

It picked up the Partner Network award and also was recognised as emEA Distributor Partner of the year.

Jesper Trolle, VP of sales for Arrow enterprise computing in EMEA said his company has a key focus on products such as VMWare’s desktop-as-a-service and NSX network virtualisation.  That contributes to the channel’s bottom line.

And Dave O’Callaghan, senior VP at VMWare in charge of partners said Arrow had distinguished itself at the global level.  “We congratulate Arrow on winning a global VMWare Partner network award.”

Arrow supplies over 100,000 OEMs, contract manufacturers and commercial customers. It operates across 460 place in 58 countries.

Avnet intros extra cloud prog

Posted on October 29, 2013 by - Moving People, News

cloud 1Major distie Avnet introduced its Cloud Enhance programme in the UK.

Its goal is to help its partners and service providers to make money because of the growth of unstructured data.

Avnet is offering a portfolio of inexpensive and secure archiving answers aimed at cutting costs, making IT simpler, and secure too.

Avnet wants to introduce service providers to its business partners to help everybody profit from the cloud.

Sukh Rayat of AvnetAvnet claims archiving as a managed service is a mostly untapped market. Some elements of this include File Tiering as a Service (FTaS), File Serving as a Service (FsaS), Email Archiving as a Service (EaaS), Microsoft Sharepoint Tiering as a Service (MSTaS), and File Sync and Share Service (FsaSS).

It’s also moving into vertical sectors too, according to our old mate Sukh Rayat, senior VP of Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA (pictured).

“Organisations are re-evaluating their IT strategies. They need to deal with everything from increased performance and capacity requirements, rising power and cooling costs to regulatory pressures,” said Rayat.

Basically, resellers without the means to deliver managed services will couple with service providers bringing benefits not only to the channel players and the service providers, but to Avnet too.

UK grows for third quarter in a row

Posted on October 25, 2013 by - News

ukflagThe Office of National Statistics (ONS) said that the UK GDP increased by 0.8 percent in the third calendar quarter, compared the second quarter of this year.

That’s the third consecutive quarter the UK has seen an increase, but the picture is patchy in the four industrial groupings the ONS has under its purview.

Output in Q3 increased by 1.4 percent in agriculture, 0.5 percent in production, 2.5 percent in construction and 0.7 percent in services.  The services sector is now above its peak in the first quarter of 2008, before the economic earthquake brought recession. The other sectors still have a long way to go before they recover.

The services section includes distribution.

The rise in the construction sector is believed to have been fuelled by UK government stimulating the housing market.

Ingram Micro improves its gross margin

Posted on October 25, 2013 by - News

ingram-micro-mobilityMega distributor Ingram sold $10.2 billion worth of kit worldwide in its third financial quarter, and made net profit of $599 millions.

That means its gross margin jumped from 5.02 percent in the same quarter last year to 5.90 percent for this year’s third quarter.

The increase was accounted for by higher gross margin revenues from its mobility business, fuelled by services.

Alain Monie, CEO of Ingram, said his sales teams worldwide managed to grow. The mobility extra margin gave a strong boost after its acquisition. It bought Aptec in 2012.

Ingram made a distribution deal with an unnamed mobility OEM, while it did OK business with its cloud offerings after its acquisition of Softcom.

Ingram expects its gross margn in the fourth quarter of 2013 to also rise.

Quantum signs up Arrow as distie

Posted on October 21, 2013 by - News

Arrow logoData management firm Quantum Corp said it has recruited Arrow Electronics as a distributor in EMEA.

Its logic is that it wants to provide better support for its VARs and to recruit VARs in new markets.

Jesper Trolle, VP for Arrow enterprise said: “We look forward to helping Quantium’s reseller partners grow business through our pan-European presence, our data centre enterprise experience, and in customer training.”

That will include big data management, he said.

Quantium said: “Arrow’s pan-EMEA reach will provide strong support for continued expansion into new market and help us drive further growth in our existing markets.”

Arrow (tick: ARW) releases its Q3 results at the end of this month.

Distribution is a balloon

Posted on October 14, 2013 by - News, Products

MongolfierA maker of jewellery is showing a 90 percent picking improvements at its pan-European distribution centre using warehouse management software, it claims.

That’s according to BalloonOne, which integrated its warehouse management system with gem firm Pandora’s Microsoft Dynamics AX planning software.

BalloonOne says that 80 percent of orders Pandora received use pick and pass for a high volume of product lines in each pick.

Pandora is also using BalloonOne’s Accellos to automate its invoicing process.

Kristian Willumsen, VP of supply chain development at Pandora, says: “By comparing year on year performance, we are seeing picking improvements as high as 80 per cent.”