Ingram promises CA rebates

Broadline distributor aims to lure Veritas resellers with price reductions

Broadliner Ingram Micro is hoping to lure Veritas resellers into the Computer Associates (CA) camp by offering price reductions on the vendor's storage software in an exclusive deal.

CA has teamed up with Ingram to offer up to 43 per cent reductions on the standard upgrade pricing of its BrightStor ARCserve Backup Release 11, with the aim of stealing market share from Veritas. CA also partners with Computer 2000 (C2000) and CMS Peripherals, but this deal is exclusive to Ingram.

Terry O'Loughlin, UK distribution and OEM sales manager at CA, said it is unlikely that resellers will switch to Ingram from other distributors.

"This promotion is aimed at new resellers that do not already sell our products."

"Ingram Micro does not have any competitive products in its portfolio, whereas our other distributors do. We see them adding energy to this promotion," she said.

However, Axel Lagerborg, head of software and licensing at Ingram, said he hoped the additional incentives will attract existing resellers as well as new ones.

"There is no reason why CA partners shouldn't switch to us from other distributors," he said. "We have taken an initiative which suits us because we can promote CA without upsetting other vendor partners."

Lee Perkins, general manager networking at C2000, said he was disappointed. "We are multivendor and more than capable of positioning each of our vendor's products with the required focus," he said.

Tony Price, managing director of online reseller WStore, said he would be "surprised if CA's other distributors were happy about extra rebate going exclusively through Ingram".

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