Oxygen discount drives e-Warehouse channel
Vendor woos between 20 and 50 channel partners with 50 per cent discount on flagship product
Software vendor, e-Warehouse, is offering resellers a 50 per cent margin on its flagship Oxygen product as it opens its doors to the channel for the first time.
Oxygen is a web-based IT incident management application developed to support IT departments. It is available either as an installed or hosted application.
The firm was originally a service division of integrator Sol-Tec, until it was acquired by technology entrepreneur Richard Althorp earlier this year.
Althorp, managing director of e-Warehouse, told CRN: “We’ve been selling direct, but are now embarking on a recruitment drive for channel partners. I’d like at least 20, but no more than 50, IT VARs. We’re putting together a three-tier reseller programme as we speak.”
The vendor is adopting a two-pronged approach to attract prospective resellers: a 50 per cent resale margin on Oxygen is available in addition to a substantial discount on the Oxygen Dealer Suite, a package it has created to enable resellers to implement the software to improve their own IT service desk delivery.
New e-Warehouse partners will automatically qualify for the discounted suite, which includes five-user licences, the Oxygen software, installation, training and a year’s support for £1,995. Retail price is £7,500.
“The fact that Oxygen is web-based differentiates it from the more traditional client-server applications that tend to have a higher administrative and technical cost,” Althorp said. “We believe this makes it a compelling proposition.
“There aren’t many resellers in this space currently, but the helpdesk market is evolving very quickly and there are lots of services that resellers can wrap around Oxygen to increase their margin.”
Clive Longbottom, service director at analyst Quocirca, said: “The top end of the helpdesk software market is pretty much sewn up by Remedy, part of BMC Software, and Peregrine, part of Hewlett-Packard, while the middle arena has offerings from CRM vendors such as Onyx and Oracle.
“If e-Warehouse gets resellers to target SME users, then it should be a good opportunity for VARs. It’s web-based so it can be sold as a managed service by resellers as well.”