VIP gets green light from Seagate
After four years of preparation, distributor to slot in alongside Ingram, Avnet and Hammer as HDD vendor's fourth UK disti
Hard drive vendor Seagate has signed VIP Computer Centre (VIP) as its fourth UK distributor in a partnership that has been four years in the making.
Seagate is looking to work with the distributor to drive incremental growth through the channel as well as aiming to reach out to new customers.
Dave Stevinson, sales director at VIP – which joins incumbents Ingram Micro, Avnet and Hammer – said the agreement will see a wider range of products available to the channel.
"The channel will benefit from increased availability; our resellers in particular will have the reassurance they can buy original Seagate hard drives direct from VIP, rather than buying all their components from VIP and then heading elsewhere to buy the Seagate hard drives," he said.
"This gives VIP an ideal opportunity to increase our offering to the industrial and enterprise resellers."
The distributor has undertaken a series of audits and built up its capabilities over the past four years in order to finalise the deal.
Duncan McAuley, purchasing director at VIP, said the deal fills a gap in VIP's portfolio.
He added: "This is a massive vendor acquisition for VIP. A direct relationship on hard drives has been the missing element for VIP and will strengthen our offering considerably."
Purchases made through the distributor will qualify for customer incentives through any future Seagate partner programmes.
Seagate is the biggest company in the HDD market, enjoying a 38 per cent market share, according to 2011's Q3 data from iSuppli. Rival Western Digital ranked second with 28 per cent, after suffering losses following a halt in production caused by last year's flooding in Thailand.
Mark Whitby, vice president of EMEA sales and marketing at Seagate, said: "This is an exciting time in the storage industry, with rapidly evolving opportunities in many markets including mobile computing, cloud computing and solid state storage.
"VIP's understanding of the local market will be instrumental in capitalising on these opportunities to grow both our businesses in the UK."