CA, Ricoh Sharpen Channel Focus At XChange

CA and Ricoh hosted a Technology Symposium Wednesday evening at the XChange conference in Las Vegas, illuminating for solution providers the ways in which the two vendors are working to improve their channel programs and products.

Bill Lipsin, CA's senior vice president and general manager, global channel sales, told solution providers that the company is enhancing its go-to-market strategy to be more partner-focused as customers demand more solutions from their vendors and technology solution providers.

The company is changing the way it works with partners, giving its direct-sales force commissions for sales they make with partners to the company's top 3,000 accounts, and CA will rely on solution providers to serve other customers, including small businesses. CA is making the same changes world-wide, Lipsin said.

Lipsin spoke of the need to take an integrated approach to solving customers' challenges because 80 percent of customers are looking for integrated solutions.

"If you have used our technology in the past and abandoned it, it's worth your time to take another look at it. We're spending time and money to provide more and more integration within our own technologies but also with other industry-leading technologies," Lipsin said.

CA has also tried to make its software easier to get into the hands of customers. "Sales almost increased overnight by doing nothing more than making it easier for you to sell and easier for the customers to buy," he said.

Solution providers at XChange are being given $500 toward materials available through CA's Web site for its r12 product.

Meanwhile, Ricoh's senior director of IT channel sales, Linda Braun, showed solution providers a new technology that the company brought to market last month: a printer that allows mobile users to print wirelessly.

In partnership with a company called PrinterOn, Ricoh launched what Braun said was the industry's first mobile, secure printing solution -- Ricoh's HotSpot printing technology. "It allows anyone to print anything from anywhere at any time. You can print documents, e-mails or Web pages," she said.

Braun asked attendees if any of them had ever had the need to print from a PDA while on the move, and said Ricoh's solution is a way to resolve that pain point for PDA users by allowing them to forward e-mails to an e-mail address associated with the printer. When users enter a secure release code, the file prints.

The printers also work with Internet-enabled notebooks. The system works through PrinterOn's hosted servers, and a subscription to the service is required to use the printer's capabilities.

Ricoh is targeting retail, hospitality, education and other markets, Braun said. Solution providers can receive discounts, rebates and royalty spifs through Ricoh's Ricoh Rewards Program.

Ricoh is giving solution providers at XChange the opportunity to try out its HotSpot printers at its booth and in Demo Room 519.