Seagate and Adaptec unveil SAS programme
Vendors set to educate resellers on the benefits and opportunities of Serial Attached SCSI
Adaptec has launched a Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) EMEA channel programme with Seagate in an effort to educate the market about the technology’s potential.
The two vendors have teamed up to encourage early deployment of the technology by system builders and resellers through creation of the SAS Starter Kit, which is a package consisting of two 36GB Seagate hard drives, an Adaptec SAS card and associated cabling.
The manufacturers are making the starter kit available to channel partners at half the recommended retail price. Both vendors claimed the kit had been designed to integrate easily into any server environment with a PCI-X host interface, allowing resellers and system builders to gain a greater understanding of SAS technology.
Russ Johnson, general manager of Adaptec, told CRN that SAS presents a great opportunity for partners, but that they first need to be educated.
“This gives the channel the opportunity to understand the technology. As market adoption increases the channel’s revenue from SAS will increase, as will its market of customers,” he claimed.
“Seagate is an ideal partner and has a strong SAS drive manufacturing background. I think adoption among UK resellers will be strong.”
Both vendors added that the Starter Kit will also enable channel partners to discover the additional benefits of SAS, such as: simple integration, scalability, compatibility and SCSI integration.
Gerard Marlow, business development manager at Adaptec distributor Hammer, agreed that both vendors’ resellers will need educating on SAS technology.
“End-users aren’t aware of this technology yet, or of its advantages, so Adaptec and Seagate are using the channel as a back door to open up the market,” he said.