Bell gears up for SME product push

Virtual infrastructure management bundle aims to help VARs win SME business

Murphy: We see this as a massive opportunity for our partners

Bell Micro has launched a partner-exclusive IT infrastructure management product based on technology by HP and VMware.

The product is called the Bell Micro Insight Operations Appliance and has been designed to help SMEs keep tabs on the performance of their virtual and physical IT infrastructure.

The bundle features HP’s server and application management tools, as well as VMware’s virtual infrastructure performance management product vCentre.

Scott Murphy, HP and Symantec divisional leader at Bell Micro, said the product was being introduced to help make it less costly for SME users to manage their IT infrastructure.

“Large enterprises tend to be adequately covered by enterprise-class solutions, whereas until now the needs of small customers have been left to niche players delivering point products,” he said.

“As a package, the bundle is far more cost effective to deploy than purchasing each product individually.

The offering is exclusively available to the distributor’s troop of partners, revealed Murphy, providing them with margin in the region of 10-to-15 per cent.

“We see this as a massive opportunity for our partners,” said Murphy.

David Norris, HP Software sales manager at Bell Micro partner Logicalis, said a product aimed at helping SMEs get the most out of their virtualised infrastructure was “long overdue.”

Norris said: “The Bell Micro software appliance will enable clients of all sizes to benefit from enterprise class software, with a great deal of the complexity removed.”