EMC in Clariion call to Ingram Micro

Direct storage vendor EMC, which sold direct before buying Data General, has given distributor Ingram Micro the go-ahead to supply its Clariion mid-range storage servers to the channel.

Direct storage vendor EMC, which sold direct before buying Data General, has given distributor Ingram Micro the go-ahead to supply its Clariion mid-range storage servers to the channel.

The companies signed the deal last month and Ingram will begin selling the servers next week. A special division has been established to manage the business.

Matthew Clarke, storage business manager at Ingram Micro, said the distributor had been talking to EMC for months. And while the agreement is not exclusive, Ingram hopes to make it so within six months.

"We will carve out a route to market for EMC. We are filling in the blanks for the company in terms of bringing in [former Data General] resellers who have experience of selling Clariion," he said.

Clarke said Ingram Micro is looking to recruit only about 20 resellers because EMC is not interested in a large channel. Ingram expects to sign up six resellers in the next week and is currently talking to others.

Clarke would not name the resellers involved, but said several are well known in the industry.

Ingram is delighted to have secured EMC's business, Clarke said, because the distributor is keen to invest quite heavily in the area.

The contract follows Ingram's sale of its Unix division because of Hewlett Packard's cancellation of its contract with the distributor and the poor sales of its IBM RS/6000 and AS/400 servers.

But Clarke denied that the EMC business was intended to replace Ingram's Unix business, saying Ingram was committed to the high-end storage space.

"Ingram has been very keen to put a high-end storage team together. We have invested very heavily in the training on this product. This is not something we are aiming to dabble in. EMC is looking to us to provide a lot of new business," he said.

He insisted Ingram is the best distributor to bring the Clariion to market, saying it is experienced in the high-end storage space and has the critical mass necessary to ensure it meets EMC's targets.