Mitel cuts training time for ICP offering
Resellers targeting SME market to receive free half-day training sessions
Mitel is launching a cut-price channel promotion to attract resellers to its integrated communications platform (ICP) product for SMEs.
Resellers that buy through Mitel's distribution partners and that target the sub-40-user SME market will receive free half-day training sessions for the vendor's 3300 ICP product.
The 3300 ICP is a scalable communications system that provides call control facilities, through IP-PBX capability and applications such as voicemail and auto-attendant.
The ICP also operates across LAN/WAN infrastructures. Mitel said its latest promotion will target firms with between eight and 64 users.
There is also a two-day (formerly a five- to 10-day) technical training course, which qualifies resellers for Mitel's Silver accredition. This gives them access to sales support, tailored sales promotions and incentives.
Robert Hutton, national sales manager at Mitel, said there are millions of customers in the sub-40-user space but that no firm has yet cracked the market because they haven't grasped control of product pricing and complexity.
"We've cracked this market space by getting the price right for customers and by making installation and maintenance easy for the reseller," he said.
"We'd like to get 100 resellers in this market space. Resellers can expect hardware margins of about 35 per cent, and there are value-added services to gain extra revenues from, too."
However, Simon Brown, director at reseller Scalable Networks, thinks Mitel is operating a risky channel strategy.
"It doesn't sound like a good move to me. At Scalable Networks we'd prefer to keep training as it is, because it's a very complex product," he said.
"Resellers will be doing little more than replacing existing IP telephony kit. The 3300 is just the start of clever IP telephony programs, but it needs lots of knowledge and training to understand it."