Iomega cosies up to EMC for SMB push

Storage vendor pursues parent company's partners

EMC-owned storage vendor Iomega is scouring its parent company's channel for partners to support its SMB growth plans.

Iomega was acquired by EMC in 2008 to help the enterprise storage giant establish a presence in the SMB and consumer market.

The firm recently unveiled its PX range of NAS devices, which allow SMBs to deploy their own private clouds.

Speaking to ChannelWeb, Andrew Connor, UK and Ireland country manager at Iomega, said the new range plugs the gap between his firm's offerings and EMC's entry-level products.

"The products we are bringing to market now really have the EMC side coming through, which brings features that the enterprise has been taking for granted down to an SMB level," explained Connor.

"They will also allow small companies to upgrade to some of the bigger EMC products as their businesses and needs grow."

This scalability means the products could be a good fit for members of the EMC Velocity Partner Programme, who may have typically focused on the enterprise.

"There are a lot of traditional EMC partners who now have a need for products that have enterprise features, but do not come in at the same price point," claimed Connor.

"At the moment [Iomega's] partner split is 70:30 in favour of non-Velocity partners, but we are trying to educate the market and recruit a few more."

Iomega is also actively looking for non-EMC partners with a good understanding of the SMB market, added Connor.

To this end, the company has recently been running a series of reseller events in tandem with Ingram Micro, and plans to lean on its other distribution partners, which include Avnet, CMS Peripherals and Computer 2000.

"We do not want the SMB channel to think we are just giving them a box of storage to push," he said. "They will receive marketing, online returns and rebate support."

Brett Edgecombe, managing director of VAR 101 Data Solutions, said he thinks Iomega's new offerings will prove popular with the EMC channel.

"There are a lot of large enterprises that need desktop or branch office storage products, and the Iomega kit is very high capacity and low cost,"
he said.

"They have also made it easy for Velocity partners to get hold of because it can be purchased through EMC's distributors."