GE Access Offers Slew Of Services To Solution Providers

On Aug. 5 at its New Frontiers Conference, Westminster, Colo.-based GE Access launched Channel Services, a new practice group aimed at offering professional, maintenance and educational services to solution providers, said GE Access executives.

Channel Services is the fourth practice group created by GE Access. The others,networking, security and storage,were created to help resellers provide end-to-end solutions to their customers, said Will Sumners, vice president of enterprise solutions, logistics and integration at GE Access.

"We're always trying to develop depth with best-of-breed products and back that up with technical support, marketing and financing," Sumners said.

Randy Wright has been named director of Channel Services. Previously, he directed GE Access' Sun Microsystems services business. Channel Services will broaden the distributor's services offerings to include additional vendors and solutions.

"Randy has 20 years in the services business," Sumners said. "He's been instrumental in growing our Sun services business, and we want to extend that to other vendors we carry."

As part of that strategy, GE Access plans to resell to solution providers professional services from StorageTek, Louisville, Colo.

The professional services SKUs can help solution providers fill gaps in their coverage and could be used when developing large storage solutions, said George Karabatsos, vice president of reseller channel sales at StorageTek, speaking at the New Frontiers Conference in Keystone, Colo.

"They can sell the whole story, from up-front services for infrastructure design to implementation," Karabatsos said. "All of a sudden, they have a whole team of StorageTek folks to help them construct the ROI story."

In particular, StorageTek Professional Services can help sell the company's Information Lifecycle Management strategy, which details effective storage consolidation solutions, Karabatsos said.

"Solution providers can't just sell hardware or software. They have to provide solutions," he said. "The trick becomes recognizing and dealing with the fact that all data is not equal. Some information is less significant than other [information]. Having the right tools to store and manage that data becomes key. That's where you can show end users how they can see increased productivity and reduced costs. The partner can add real value."

In addition, Channel Services will help Sun fulfill its promise to ratchet up partnership opportunities between solution providers and Sun Professional Services, solution providers said.

"If [Sun] can provide services we don't possess, or if they can leverage our bench in areas such as security where we have deep expertise, that's very positive," said Mike Hjerpe, executive vice president of Acclaim Technology, a San Jose, Calif.-based solution provider.

Services accounted for about 27 percent of GE Access' revenue in July, compared with about 15 percent last July, said Scott Zahl, vice president of the Sun business unit at GE Access. The percentage of Sun services revenue is just more than one-third of total Sun revenue at the distributor, Zahl said.