Emerson ups its channel focus

Vendor to draw on strenght of recent acquisition Avocent for channel push

Emerson Network Power is ramping up its channel efforts as it looks to grow its SMB market share in the UK and Europe.

The uninterruptible power supply vendor launched its channel strategy just two years ago, but is looking to sign additional partners to its Innovation Partnership Programme across EMEA.

Peter Lambrecht, vice president of channels at the vendor (pictured), told CRN Emer­son had let its competitors steal a march in the SMB space for too long.

"In the past Emerson has not been a real channel company and we realised it was a strategic error not to focus on the channel in the SMB space.

"We bought Avocent two years ago, which is a real channel player, and plan to leverage the strength of the Avocent channel team."

He said the vendor is keen to sign partners selling blade servers and server technology that could earn extra revenue from adding "an extra element" to their offering.

"We class everything below 50 racks as SMB so it is a significant opportunity for our partners," he said.

The vendor works thr­ough three UK distributors: Ingram Micro, Micro-P and Gamma Global.