90-year old power vendor takes aim at UK channel

Tripp Lite claims it can offer resellers an alternative to market daddy APC after signing distributor Tekdata

The world's longest-established uninterruptible power supply (UPS) vendor is aiming to ramp up its UK channel after adding Tekdata to its distribution line-p.

The $10bn (£6.6bn) global UPS market may be dominated by APC, but Chicago-based rival Tripp Lite was founded way back in 1922 and claims it can offer resellers higher margins.

VAD Tekdata joins parent company Micro-P in Tripp Lite's UK stable.

Tripp Lite UK country manager Peter Airs said Tekdata would complement broadliner Micro-P by running seminars, events and training programmes and "putting some value back into the channel for our partners".

"Our products have kind of been available in the UK, but it is only in the past year that we have put some skin in the game and started to spin up," said Airs.

Tripp Lite makes all the kit that goes in the datacentre barring servers, storage and switches. This includes racks, cooling, cabling and UPS – a market that analyst IMS Research expects to be worth $10bn by 2015.

Airs said some resellers were leaving sales on the table by not quoting for racks and other datacentre technology when punting servers.

"The perfect Tripp Lite customer is a mid to full enterprise that is building a small to mid-size datacentre," he said. "That is a booming space right now – no matter what happens in the world, they will always need power and will always need to protect it. And because of the nature of the product, it has a limited life span so there is always a refresh opportunity."

Airs said he was undaunted by 800-pound gorilla APC (which is a spritely 31 years old), claiming Tripp Lite could offer higher margins – in the 20s, 30s or even 40s – while remaining price competitive against the competition.

"What we can bring to the reseller channel is extremely high-quality products, a broad portfolio – we have 24,000 products listed for Europe – and a local warehouse for fast delivery. But the main thing we deliver is margin," he said. "We want to find between 10 and 20 quality resellers that will give us coverage across the UK."

Jason Hill, sales director at Tekdata, said the signing would allow the distributor to offer a one-stop shop for resellers targeting datacentre deals, alongside Dell servers, storage and networking.