Gateway guns for server market share
Acer-owned vendor outlines server market share strategy for year ahead
Papale: We have invested a lot in training and ensuring our partners can engage with us
Vendor Gateway has launched a Europe-wide channel recruitment campaign in a bid to increase its share of the global server market to 10 per cent by 2011.
Speaking at the launch of Gateway’s new line of server products in Milan yesterday, the Acer-owned vendor said it was planning to recruit 1,000 resellers per country in the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany to achieve its market share goal.
The vendor also revealed it is on the verge of widening its UK distribution network with two new signings to be announced over the coming weeks.
John King, server and storage business development SME manager at Gateway, said the company would be selectively targeting resellers “geographically and vertically” to ensure its partners are not “fighting against each other” for the same business.
He added: “We are looking for people who are very focused on the value add and differentiating themselves, not just adding another brand to what they already stock.”
In a one-to-one with CRN, Antonio Papale, vice president at Gateway for EMEA, said the vendor had also reworked its Business-In-Action partner programme to help drive server sales by upping the levels of support it offers.
He said: "We have invested a lot in training and ensuring our partners can engage with us in the best possible way.
“If partners are not able to attend some events or create lead-generation campaigns, we will do it for them and take care of all of the communication in that partner's name.”
The Business-In-Action partner portal has also been improved, said King, to make it easier for partners to find product information.
He added: “In some other portals, you end up having to obtain the information you need by going to other additional sites, but all the [Gateway] sales, marketing and technical information is in one place, which makes things easier for our partners.”