Ingram promises honeymoon in June for its European resellers
Distributor launches pan-European software initiative to drive VAR sales
Distribution behemoth Ingram Micro has kicked off June with a pan-European software initiative to help drive sales of licenses and bundles through VARs.
The June Software Month campaign will be held across 14 European countries. The scheme aims to provide resellers with incentives, special bundles and promotional items to assist them with generating sales.
Ingram has already run similar schemes in the past few years for servers, mobility and digital imaging, but Anita Lussenburg, director vendor management at Ingram, said June is the ideal month for software.
"Traditionally June is a very strong month for the software segment and also the renewal month for the software licence annuity programmes," she said.
The distributor said it has become increasingly important for resellers to develop the ability to integrate software products into multi-vendor environments. Ingram also said it will put an increased emphasis on training at the events.
"The software sector is becoming increasingly complicated, so training is needed to help simplify it. We want to make it as easy as possible for resellers to get their licence revenue," added Lussenburg.
In April, Ingram added Computer Associates to its Click2Licence scheme. This allows resellers to quote, build and order multi-vendor, multi-programme and multi-product licence solutions through Ingram's online ordering system, IMpulse.
The software initiative is also supported by a number of large software vendors, including Microsoft and Adobe. Bobby Dhaliwal, distribution manager at Computer Associates, welcomed the scheme.
"This is good news. More focus and awareness will inevitably lead to more channel sales," he said.
Separately Ingram confirmed that it expects its second-quarter profit to be in line with previous expectations, ahead of the official announcement tomorrow. The distributor hinted that for the period ending 2 July, its total profit will be between $41m and $46m. Ingram also said it expects its Q2 turnover to be between $6.7bn and $6.9bn.
Greg Spierkel chief executive of Ingram, said: "Our business is solid, and we remain confident in the guidance we disclosed in April. Despite reports of economic softness in certain European markets and continuing competition in North America, our differentiation and growth initiatives are helping us to rise above the challenges of individual markets."