Arrow Shifts Software To Alternative Tech

Arrow Electronics' Enterprise Computing Solutions group announced on Tuesday that it will now sell software from most of its vendors through the distributor's subsidiary, Alternative Technology.

Software from Oracle, Symantec, CA, McAfee, Novell, Bakbone, BEA and CommVault will now be sold through Alternative Technology. Software from Hewlett Packard, IBM and EMC will still be sold through Arrow ECS's vendor-dedicated business units. Alternative Tech's portfolio includes Citrix, VMWare, SonicWall, Secure Computing, Fortinet and Blue Coat.

The move makes Arrow ECS's and Alternative Tech's go-to-market strategies more consistent and gives VARs looking to sell software the ability to integrate products from a wider variety of vendors into their solutions, said Bill Botti, president and CEO of Alternative Technology, Englewood, Colo.

The distributor expects to do about $1 billion in software sales in 2008 through Alternative Technology, Botti said.

"When we look at the lines that were being handled by the software group [of Arrow ECS] and how many of them could integrate tightly with the software sets we were doing at Alternative Technology, we realized we could better serve our vendors and our VARs as partners to us by combining the two," said Botti. "That's really the crux of it."

The Arrow ECS software sales team will move to Alternative Tech and will transition over the next two years from selling individual software products into broad geographies to Alternative's model, where reps sell all the distributor's software lines to customers in smaller regions.

"What they'll see over the course of 2008 is that as we add capabilities and change the training process that some of these sales people may have had," said Botti. "Ultimately our goal will be to provide a higher level of service and support for our VAR partners and show them a different way to take any one of the product lines and help them create overall solutions that really solve business problems."

VARs selling lines formerly carried by Arrow ECS will have access to Alternative's engineering and technical support resources.

"Partners will benefit from an enhanced value proposition of complementary product lines and a full suite of professional services available through Alternative Technology. Partners will also benefit from Arrow's increased depth in high-growth sectors and enhanced solutions offerings through this integration. In addition, this decision enables Arrow to best serve our software partners by providing focused support and dedicated resources," said Kevin Gilroy, president of Arrow ECS.

"2008 will be an exciting time for both our suppliers and our partners," Botti said. "There's really very little downside to how we go drive this. "

Arrow acquired Alternative Technology at the end of 2006.