ChannelWeb To Introduce Product Configurator Tool For IT Solutions

EXalt is a Boxford, Mass., provider of Web-based services for IT solutions. Its Solutions Sales Platform is a workflow product that designs and specifies products for virtually any IT solution from a complex network to simple server. The tool incorporates multivendor products into the solution and then offers several alternative proposals that solution providers can then present to their customers. The proposals generally range from the most expensive solution to the least expensive. The tool then recommends what it deems the best value based on customer requirements.

Richard Korzeniewski, eXalt's vice president of business development, said Solutions Sales Platform drastically cuts the time it takes to generate a proposal while reducing errors in both pricing and product incompatibilities.

"The larger resellers may not benefit much, but for the smaller solution providers who aren't exactly sure of what they are trying to put together for an end solution, it will help them get through and configure many different items that go along with the solution," said David White, vice president of client strategy and enablement at Beacon Technologies, a Madison, Wisc., IT consulting company.

White added that having a configurator not tied to a specific vendor is also a plus. "You can expand the amount of the configuration. If I am doing a server and a network build and I go to HP and I start putting all the pieces together and I put a Cisco switch in there, I can't do that with an HP configuration tool," he said.

Robert Faletra, president of CMP's Channel Group, said the plan is to first convince vendors and distributors to adopt Solutions Sales Platform for their respective solution provider partners, and then later this year make it available to solution providers via CMP's Channel Web Portal. He said the tool is a part of the Channel Group's strategy to transform ChannelWeb from a simple provider of information to the solution provider community to a platform for online workflow services.

As part of the deal with eXalt, United Business Media, CMP's parent company, invested $2 million in the company. In exchange for this investment, UBM will acquire newly issued shares of eXalt representing a 25 percent equity stake in the company and an option to purchase an additional 15 percent.