Dell sets sights on storage with CMS deal

PC giant looks to bring on board iSCSI virtualised storage specialists through new distribution partnership

Harrison: this gives us a ready-made storage channel, which we will look to switch to Equal­Logic

Dell claims its appointment of CMS Peripherals will provide it with a “ready-made channel” into specialist storage resellers.

As exclusively predicted by CRN, Dell this month unveiled CMS as its second UK and Ireland distributor for its EqualLogic storage range, alongside Hammer.

Paul Harrison, UK channel country manager at Dell, claimed that iSCSI virtualised storage is the “sweet spot” of the storage market and that CMS would expand its access points in that part of the channel.

“CMS has a partner base selling competitive technologies, so this gives us a ready-made storage channel, which we will look to switch to Equal­Logic,” he said.

CMS carries competing iSCSI SAN products such as HP LeftHand Net­works and Pillar. But product marketing manager Joe Fagan said the distributor would focus on recruiting resel­lers that sell Fibre Channel SAN, or that do not sell SAN at all.

“We would like to recruit an additional 20 storage VARs for EqualLogic over the next few months,” he said. “People are transitioning from direct-attached storage to SAN in their droves, and EqualLogic is one of the simplest ways of doing this.”

Harrison rev­ealed that 44 UK resellers have attained top-level Cer­tified status with the vendor since it launched its Part­nerDirect scheme two years ago.

Andrew Henderson, commercial director at Dell Certified partner Lanway, welcomed CMS’ appointment but said Dell should also embrace distribution for PCs and servers.
“[It] would make dealing with Dell a lot easier as distributors know our business inside out,” he said.