Sepaton seeks partners in wake of S3 contract

Vendor hints at first distribution partnership after finalising contract with third UK reseller

Virtual Tape Library (VTL) vendor Sepaton has signed Solid State Solutions (S3) as its third UK reseller and unveiled plans to ink a UK distribution deal in the near future.

Sepaton, which also has reseller agreements with Morse and Redstor, will turn to a specialist storage distributor to increase its mid-market presence.

Christo Conidaris, sales director at Sepaton, told CRN: “We do not have a distributor at the moment, but we are in negotiations. We hope to sign the distributor within the next two-three months.

“A distributor will get us more into the higher volume and mid-market arena, but our three resellers can still source product directly from us.”

Conidaris said the distributor has a strong storage portfolio and already sells one of the top three back-up vendors. It also operates in the SAN arena.

“We will not sign a broadline distributor as we specifically address the back-up needs of corporates,” he said. “We are looking for long-term relationships with our partners as developing the market is important.”

Barry Jones, director of S3, said: “Looking at the market, there is a growing need for VTL technology. We needed something that would provide us with the VTL technology that has the ability to scale up to large amounts of data.

“We are of the same opinion on distributors as any VAR: we are happy as long as the distributor signing does not affect us making decent margins and we retain a sales and marketing engagement with the vendor. Judging from conversations we have had with Sepaton, I do not think there will be a problem. "

Sepaton wants to double its UK reseller numbers