Back To The Basics

It's back to the future at Comdex Las Vegas 2003 this week with a stepped-up focus on new products and channel opportunities.

Ingram Micro is leading the back-to-basics charge with a wave of new vendor partnerships at the event after restructuring its product management and sales categories to take a "technology first" approach to customers.

The Santa Ana, Calif.-based distributor is pursuing relationships with newer, smaller vendors in storage, security and networking, said Pat Collins, senior group vice president of sales and marketing at Ingram Micro.

NEW INGRAM MICRO VENDORS A sample of the smaller vendors that are now part of the distributor's linecard: >> Ipswitch: Management software >> Vericept: TCP/IP monitoring software >> Xora: Enterprise mobility solutions >> PGP: Secure messaging and storage solutions >> eEye Digital Security: Networking monitoring solutions

"Oftentimes we have a hole that cannot be filled by our top 25 vendors," Collins said. "A key tenet of our category management strategy is to look at what an end user wants from a solutions standpoint and then reconcile that on our line card."

For example, Ingram Micro is the first distributor for Vericept, a Denver-based developer of TCP/IP monitoring software, said Ken Totura, director of partner development at Vericept.

"The previous perception I had [of Ingram Micro was] that you had to be a goliath software company with millions of dollars in business to hand off to them and that you had to have a Fort Knox supply of market development funds to get launched with them. I was pleasantly surprised," Totura said.

On the product side, Samsung Electronics leads the pack with a raft of new offerings it will introduce at Comdex, including the company's first color laser printer and serial ATA drive, its first public display available to all channel partners and a new slim, 17-inch LCD monitor that has a 50 percent faster millisecond response time.

"With the predicted reduced attendance [at Comdex], we are hoping this year's show will be focused more on the channel as the primary influencers in the IT buying process," said Rey Roque, vice president of marketing for the Digital Information Technology Division of Samsung Electronics, Seoul, Korea.

Samsung to launch slim, 17-inch LCD monitor boasting faster response time.

Last week, Samsung appointed Gregg Prendergast, a former Acer America vice president, as vice president of sales for the commercial channel. Prendergast's aim is to move the mix of commercial channel sales to 70 percent, up from 50 percent, compared with the retail offerings.

Prendergast, who is already putting in place a commercial dealer council, is looking to add another 50 to 100 VARs that compete in the midmarket and large enterprises. "The initial goal for 2004 is to continue the growth ramp we are on, which has been 30 percent-plus per year," he said.

In the security segment, Computer Associates International is announcing the general availability of its eTrust Secure Content Manager, a comprehensive offering combining protection from spam, virus and blocking of inappropriate Web sites.

The new product, available immediately, is priced at $55 per user, with eTrust antivirus upgrades starting at $27.50. CA, Islandia, N.Y., said it is offering a 50 percent discount, or $13.75 per seat, to customers who purchased CA eTrust antivirus between March 1 and Nov. 17.

"We're hoping to lay the groundwork at Comdex getting VARs interested with demonstrations and signing on for the product and then building the pipeline with them with our call center when they get back home," said Alan Komet, channel manager at eTrust Security Solutions.