Shoden UK and Hitachi in channel symphony

Storage vendor on UK VAR hunt on behalf of Hitachi and its blade servers

Shoden will be selling Hitachi’s BladeSymphony 2000 and BladeSymphony 320 blade servers in EMEA

Storage vendor Shoden Data Systems is on the hunt for UK resellers to offer Hitachi Europe’s new blade servers.

Shoden will be selling Hitachi’s BladeSymphony 2000 and BladeSymphony 320 blade servers in EMEA.

John Taffinder, chief executive of Shoden Data Systems UK, said: “Shoden has been in the UK for about nine months and the Hitachi Symphony is a new venture for us, so we need resellers that can offer support.

“By the end of the next quarter – end of summer – we would like between five and 10 resellers on board with a good vertical and geographical reach for these products.”

Shoden Data Systems UK’s parent company, Johannesburg-based Shoden Data Systems Ltd, has been a supplier of Hitachi BladeSymphony blade servers since 2006.

In addition, two new models of the compact BladeSymphony 320 blade server are available. Both the BladeSymphony 1000 and BladeSymphony 320 support the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series.

In other news, Shoden has created a customer service team to support end users located across Europe.

Of the new team, Taffinder said: “This is a great milestone for us because we can now support our customers locally, thus offering an even higher level of service.

“We expect to at least double the CS team’s size by the end of the year as more organisations see the benefits of our solutions and our customer base expands.”

The team currently includes Paul Miller and Sundeep Dhillon, who together have nearly 25 years’ experience in the IT industry, including positions at EMC and Siemens.