Tekdata targets travelling sales staff with iPhone app

Distributor's Tekdata in your Pocket app designed to help reseller staff close deals

SonicWall distributor Tekdata has launched an iPhone app for reseller sales staff on the move.

Tekdata in your Pocket (TiyP) is designed to help resellers close deals by handing them access to the latest IT news, live stock feeds and product datasheets from the palm of their hands. It also allows them to place orders.

The app, which will in the future also be available on Android, is free but resellers must have a credit account with the distributor for the stock feed to be automated.

Tekdata sales director Jason Hill said he hoped multiple sales staff from each of its 1,500 active reseller partners would download the app, which has just received clearance from Apple.

"We want to enable resellers to have some tools that are at their fingertips when they go into a potential sales opportunity. This could make their meeting simpler and easier," he added.

"We looked at the usual suspects on the app store but we could not find any other distributor that has launched this kind of tool."

A second release is planned, featuring a module that will allow Micro-P-owned Tekdata to alert partners to subscription services nearing renewal.

Howard Bedford, director of Epexcel, which developed the app, said research Tekdata conducted recently suggested that about 85 per cent of the distributor's resellers had an iPhone.

"The difference between a website and an app is you have all this functionality that is integrated. This gives you everything at your fingertips," Bedford said.