Avnet Partner Solutions Sharpens IBM Blade Focus

The Tempe, Ariz.-based distributor has launched BladeCentral, a program to help IBM solution providers sell IBM BladeCenter solutions to their customers. BladeCentral includes dedicated sales and marketing resources, technical and sales training, demand-generation activity, leasing options and quick shipping services for selected nonintegrated and high-volume products.

"We're trying to get partners enabled and comfortable with the technology, to break down barriers to the end users and get the technology in place," said Jack Morris, vice president of IBM Software and xSeries for Avnet Partner Solutions. "The premise is to quickly ramp up and give an advantage to our partners when competing for these sales against other [distributors'] partners or other vendors."

BladeCentral integrates several earlier Avnet programs, including FootPrint, in which end-user customers received the first IBM blade chassis for free, Morris said. "It gets them into IBM culture around blades more quickly," Morris said.

Jeff Propps, xSeries brand manager at Software Information Systems, Lexington, Ky., said BladeCentral should help him close more blade solution sales.

"The BladeCenter chassis represents only a portion of the investment that a customer will make. Avnet's seed program allows us to assist our clients in implementing a BladeCenter infrastructure faster and allows them to start realizing the value of the product at a lower initial cost," Propps said.

Avnet created the programs amid a rise in customer inquiries about blade technology, Morris said. "A year to six months ago, that wasn't the case. It's becoming part of every sales discussion," he said. "Total cost of ownership is a key separator. You get more computing power in a relatively small space."

Server and storage consolidation are driving blade sales to Software Information Systems' customers, according to Propps. "From the smallest to largest IT environments, customers are working to establish a cohesive direction that either addresses their consolidation issues and pains or positions their IT infrastructure to grow dynamically and flexibly, so that 'server sprawl' is contained," he said.