Time to get down to business
Channel Expo 2007 proved to be the place to be for firms to get things done. Sara Driscoll reports from the NEC in Birmingham
Despite the plethora of high-speed, high-spec and ultra-modern products displayed at Channel Expo 2007 last week, there were still some companies that dragged the industry back to the 1980s and hired the usual band of nubile young ladies dressed in hot pants to attract visitors to their stand.
However, despite this – and the fact that, disappointingly, their tactics seemed to work as their stands were always busy – the show was business driven and deals were done, according to Richard Eglon, marketing manager at Comms-care.
“My first impression is how different the [exhibition] brand is this year and how much stronger it is as Channel Expo,” he said.
Previously, the show – which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year – was four separate shows: Computer Trade Show, Comms Channel Expo, Technology Retailer Show and Office Technology Expo. However, this year the new owners and publisher of CRN, Incisive VNU, revamped the show and renamed it Channel Expo.
“Identifying key areas is vital for shows such as this,” Eglon said. “It is a chance for the channel to meet face to face and for distributors, vendors and resellers to interact.”
Eglon said Comms-care, which plans to launch into managed services, said it had been a good chance for the firm to meet potential customers and get its brand out into the market.
Mike Hoffman, chairman of the Independent Trade Association of Computing Specialists, said the attendees at the show were different to previous years.
“There are more conversations going on this year,” he said. “People are coming here and knowing what they want to achieve. There is a good range of exhibitors and also more from the services companies.”
Hoffman, who was also at the event to showcase his new company, Drum Brae – a Microsoft small business specialist and managed services firm – said he had already signed contracts and established relationships with some of the distributors at the show.
The distributor with the biggest presence at Expo was Ingram Micro, which exhibited with more than 30 of its vendor partners.
Bhavesh Patel, UK commercial director at Ingram, said: “We had a presence from storage, networking and components vendors, as well as some of the major players such as Microsoft, Linksys, Acer and LG. We definitely got interest to our stand and have attracted new contacts.
“The quality of the leads coming through is good. They are real business resellers, but we would like more of them.”
Bhavesh added that the exhibition was a good place for new companies to showcase their products and boost their brand awareness. Ingram had used the show to bring in new partners Foxconn, Transcend, SANDisk and HDS (SME storage division).
“By showcasing our new vendor partners we want to help VARs meet their growth targets by presenting them with opportunities,” Patel said.
One firm hoping to boost its brand awareness was Taiwanese vendor ATEN. The KVM manufacturer opened its UK office in September and used Channel Expo to recruit VARs and showcase its brand, according to John Chen, general manager at ATEN.
“Before we launched in the UK we had some customers here, but we wanted to open an office to give us a bigger presence,” he said. “The show has allowed us to target lots of customers all under one roof. Also, although we go through some specialist smaller distributors at the moment, we are using the show to have discussions with the bigger firms such as Computer 2000 and Ingram Micro.”
Chen added that the firm had seen lots of reseller interest and was embarking on a recruitment drive.
“It was good to see that most of the firms that came to our stand were resellers and not end-users,” he said.
Another company exhibiting for the first time was skills trading firm OrderWork. The company, which marries together contractors and engineers with VARs that need additional skills for various contracts, said it used the exhibition to meet many of the clients face to face.
Toby Strauss, executive chairman at OrderWork, said: “The show is similar to CeBit, but on a smaller scale. It has the similar diversity of companies, except here there is more time to actually chat to potential customers because it’s less frenetic than CeBit.”
He added that it was good to see such a diverse range of vendors at the show. Intel, AMD, Apple, LG, Lenovo, Acer and Microsoft were just a few of the major players involved.
Karl Noakes, director of channel development at Microsoft, told CRNTV that he was pleased to see people queuing up to get into the Microsoft demo presentations.
“With the launch of Vista we wanted to showcase and educate at the show,” he said. “It seems to have worked because there were queues to get into some of our presentations.”
Terry Shaw, commercial manager at Westcoast, which was exhibiting with Apple in a theatre-style education stand, said: “It has been great timing for us. We signed Apple six months ago, so to be exhibiting with it has been great. Apple has been doing presentations about the company, its products and its channel story, and then Westcoast has been informing VARs about how we can help them to get support and accreditation with Apple. We have seen real interest and we’ve got some good leads.
“We have been on a recruitment drive for Apple and the proof of the pudding will be when we come to follow up these leads.”
Cate Hind, UK and Ireland channel market development manager at Intel, said: “There weren’t quite as many people as we were expecting, but we have made some good contacts. Lots of our current reseller base and some new players have come along. And the questions people have been asking are pertinent questions – they are real business people who have real business issues and needs.
“We have been showcasing our new technology, QuadCore, and our presentations have gone down really well. We have tried to make our presentations SME focused and concentrate on the business opportunities for the channel. It’s not about praising ourselves, it’s about showing resellers the genuine opportunities and how to make the most of them.”
LG, which was exhibiting on Ingram Micro’s stand, also used the Expo to showcase reseller opportunities through its partner portal, which it is currently revamping.
Louise Walsh, marketing executive at LG, said: “Our current site for VARs is UK only. We are now going to have one unified partner web site across the globe. Partners will be able to get product information, marketing materials and high-res photos of our products. Pricing will also be available on the site and updated regularly.”
Walsh said the firm is launching a ‘points win prizes’ incentive scheme based around the cricket World Cup.
“We will use this to really push our channel strategy and are looking to recruit resellers,” she said.
Of Channel Expo, Walsh said: “Our stand has been really busy and we haven’t seen many of our competitors here, so next year we may book a stand on our own.
“The attendance was from genuine business people, which is good and there is lots of business being done. We would have like to see an increase in these types of people at next year’s show.”
Marieke Visser, associate publisher, channel, at Incisive VNU – the owner of the exhibition – said: “Incisive VNU has taken all the feedback from the show’s previous years into consideration and this year worked extremely hard to build the quality of the attendees at Channel Expo. We wanted to create a real business atmosphere and early feedback from this year indicates that we went some way to achieving this.”