Citrix has signed Ingram Micro UK as a distributor for its Access Essentials product and has dropped the certifications required by resellers to help drive the product in the SME market.

Feedback from the vendor’s channel prompted it to can the sales certification previously needed by resellers to sell Access Essentials, an SME offering in joint collaboration with Microsoft’s Windows Terminal Server. It has also scrapped the joining fee to encourage wider adoption of Access Essentials.

The vendor claims its Access Essentials internal wizards and built-in automation makes it simple enough for resellers to roll it out to their customer base themselves.

However, Citrix is advising resellers to take its eLearning courses, also unveiled last week, to familiarise themselves with the product.

Vicky Reddington, sales director for Access Essentials at Citrix, said: “Citrix has been an Ingram partner in the US for many years and wanted to extend that to the UK market to target the opportunities in the SME space.

“Resellers can offer an upgrade from Access Essentials to the Windows Application Delivery solution XenApp as another revenue stream.”

David Caughtry, director of e-business for Citrix distributor Computerlinks, said: “There is no overlap with Ingram, as Computerlinks does not have access to that product range. It makes sense that certain products are easier for the reseller to roll out, as Citrix has been working hard on its SME channel strategy recently where the simple products are needed the most.”

The announcement coincides with Citrix’s release of Access Essentials 2.0, Citrix’s web-based solution for SMEs. It now offers load balancing capabilities in a multi-server environment so it can support up to 75 remote users.