Canadian resellers who are members of Avnet Partner Solutions will soon be able to offer storage solutions from EMC Corp. to their portfolio.
The Phoenix, Arizona-based distributor announced this week that it is extending its partnership with EMC north after selling for three years to its
American VARs.
“We’re looking at expanding that franchise into Canada and leveraging the success we’ve had in the U.S. and the [EMC] program we’ve put together,” explained Gavin Miller, vice-president and general manager of Avnet Partner Solutions (APS) Canada.
APS Canada resellers already carry storage solutions from IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Network Appliance and StorageTek.
But Miller said that “our VARs saw a gap in some of their storage strategies that EMC can help them fill.”
“We’re looking at this being strategic to both organizations,” Miller said, “growing EMC’s market share and helping us bring a stronger storage solution for our partners.”
VARs will be able to start selling EMC products as soon as they are certified. To fast track that process APS offers an EMC Accreditation boot camp in Phoenix every quarter.
However, Michael Kerr, EMC Canada’s channels director, cautioned that not all of Avnet’s Canadian partners will be certified. The company is working with the distributor to identify VARs in markets EMC isn’t already in. He guessed Avnet would bring “a dozen or more additional resellers.”
“We’re not going to bring on resellers in numbers where all they’re doing is fighting for the same amount of business. All that does is erode prices.”
Miller said if in the first 12 months resellers here do “north of $10 million” in EMC hardware and software sales “that would be considered a success.”
Avnet becomes EMC’s third distributor here, after Skydata and Tech Data Canada.