InTechnology gains Access
UK storage distributor signs Sun reseller to market NetApps products in Scotland
Distributor InTechnology has selected Scottish reseller Access Computing as its route to market for the Network Appliance (NetApps) portfolio in Scotland, and is strengthening its presence in northern England and northern Ireland.
Mark Chippendale, divisional director for NetApps at the distributor, described the addition of Access as a "double whammy".
He said the move brings NetApps into a new area of business in the UK - academia - where Access is strong.
Access is the first reseller InTechnology has signed for NetApps since it announced its exclusive distribution relationship with the Nas vendor in November.
That deal was designed to grow NetApps' UK channel of 15 or so resellers. Chippendale said three or four more VARs are close to following in Access's wake.
John Livingstone, managing director of Access, said his company is a major Sun reseller, so the relationship with NetApps is designed "to open doors to non-Sun customers" with a product range suitable for multi-vendor environments.
Livingstone said the NetApps business is complementary to the Sun business.
"NetApps has a specific role for multi-vendor environments, and our customers have been asking for it. It slots in easily to any environment, manages the data, and can cope with Windows," he said.
He added that one of the main reasons for signing with NetApps was that Access does a lot of business in Veritas and Oracle, both of which are getting closer to NetApps. "We're leading with solution sets," he said.
The growth of NetApps' channel follows the announcement in December of an agreement with storage software heavyweight Veritas to sell a bundled offering for the growing market in regulatory compliance products.
NetApps' SnapLock and SnapVault software are to be integrated with Veritas Data Lifecycle Management and NetBackup software, using NetApps' Nas filers and NearStore range of ATA-based nearline storage products as the hardware platform.
The packages are designed to enable the two companies to compete more effectively with EMC, which is bundling software from recently acquired Legato and Documentum onto its hardware for the same market. .