Sony hits its reseller target

Sony has reached its reseller targer, but new resellers are still welcome

Sony has reached its target of signing 1,500 UK VARS to its Sony 1 programme (CRN, 30 May), ahead of schedule, but has not closed its doors to new resellers.

“We are continuing to sign up resellers. We are not just going to stop now we have reached our target,” said Paul McKeever, Sony UK’s marketing manager, Business.

Launched in April, the Sony 1 channel programme has brought all of Sony’s partner programmes under one umbrella.

“The initial deadline was to recruit 1,500 resellers within six months. But we decided instead that we wanted to do it in three months, which we have now done,” McKeever added.

Under Sony 1, there are seven solution categories: Digital Imaging; Medical; Broadcast and Professional Audiovisual; IT and Display; Security; Storage; and Business Communications.

“Now we have undergone this mass recruitment process, the next phase is to work out which resellers will be capable of selling in which product categories,” McKeever said.

Resellers will be tiered as Authorised, Certified or Specialist, with the latter receiving the most prominence during Sony’s ad campaigns.

The vendor has also launched an ad campaign to help its 19 specialist public sector resellers. “The campaign is promoting our professional notebooks which we have bundled with either a free printer or a free storage device,” McKeever added.

Rob Gowman, senior sales consultant at videoconferencing reseller JKC, said: “We signed up to Sony 1 a few weeks ago. Sony is really pushing its videoconferencing offering now, and with products such as the new TL30 and the G50, hopefully they will be getting closer to where Polycom is.”