Tech Data Paves Way For Vars In Storage

Executives at the Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor believe that certification, training and other costs prevent solution providers from adding more vendors in product lines they already sell, despite strong projections for growth in the storage space.

"Why would solution providers sell just one company vs. adding another? They couldn't afford to," said Tom Ducatelli, senior vice president of sales at Tech Data. "Between investments in engineers' time [and] the cost of the certifications itself, [it is] cost-prohibitive even if they have the right skill," he said.

Tech Data approached several storage vendors about creating a program that waives some technical and sales certification requirements if a solution provider has proficiency in the technology. The distributor declined to name the vendors.

"A blade is a blade is a blade. If you are selling IBM or EMC, you should not have to take someone out of the field for three weeks to get [Hewlett-Packard]," Ducatelli said.

Dave Gilden, partner at Acuity Solutions, a Tampa, Fla.-based solution provider, likes the idea—but with limits. "A lot of the same things you learn from one vendor are applicable across multiple vendors, so it works well for smaller resellers constrained by resources and training dollars," he said. "The downside is if I've spent a tremendous amount of time getting certified to differentiate me and then a competitor gets cross-certified, that negates the effort I put into a vendor I've focused on. There still should be some type of advantage, whether it's an additional discount or whatever."

IBM also would endorse a program that placed boundaries around an authorization process for customers selling competing lines, said Frank Vitagliano, vice president of global distribution channels at IBM. "It makes no sense to force solution providers to relearn basic industry kinds of things. But you have to ensure that there are integrated things specific to your product," he said. "It becomes how does a particular vendor approach that marketplace, what key attributes are there to that particular vendor."