IBM offers safety net to Kingston customers

Kingston Technology has signed a contract with IBM Global Services to join the vendor's maintenance programme

Memory manufacturer Kingston Technology has signed a contract with IBM Global Services that will see the services giant join the vendor’s maintenance programme.

The deal, which was announced last week, means that IBM engineers will now provide onsite support for Kingston’s server and desktop memory products, explained Ann Keefe, sales director at Kingston.

“For customers and resellers this means that when they file a support call, instead of it being tossed around between us or IBM or someone else, it is now seamless; IBM engineers will now replace the memory,” she said.

The deal will include any firm that has an existing IBM maintenance agreement, extended IBM warranty or IBM warranty.

Keefe stressed that Kingston always partners with resellers that want to partner with it for maintenance. But under its KingstonCare programme, some smaller resellers do not have the facility to do maintenance themselves, she said.

“We would always use a preferred partner if there is one, but with this deal we have greater facilities to back up the smaller VARs,” she said.

Abdul Terry, marketing manager at VAR Equanet, said: “It’s a great benefit for us. Under the agreement all our IBM customers are backed up in the unlikely event that Kingston Technology’s memory fails. This gives peace of mind, especially for our IBM customers who work in mission-critical environments.”