Westcon Group plans to offer VARs market intelligence through its Web portals in a partnership with research firm Current Analysis.
When signing in at one of Westcon's partner portals, VARs will have access to information comparing products from a range of vendors and for various market segments, covering areas such as price, technical specifications, strengths and weaknesses, and applicable markets, said Duncan Potter, vice president of worldwide marketing at the Tarrytown, N.Y.-based distributor.
Information on market trends also will be available, and the data is intended to be used with Westcon Group's SalesVision, LeadVision and MailVision tools. Areas like network security, enterprise infrastructure and telephony will be covered, along with other product areas such as fixed and modular switching, IP access routers, enterprise and SMB PBX systems, firewalls and VPNs.
"Not only will you know what your strengths and weaknesses are if you're bidding a Cisco solution, you're likely going to be able to know what the Nortel comebacks are to those," Potter said. "This allows us to make sure [VARs] have the right tools in place all the way around the sales cycle to be able to position solutions not just for the foundation vendors but also with all of the various best-of-breed, complementary vendors to make them more effective and add additional profit."
VARs partnered with any of Westcon Group's three divisions will be able to use the information free. Comstor, the company's Cisco distribution arm, will give access to partners participating in its OneVoice and OneDefense programs. For the Westcon division, which handles Nortel products, resellers who participate in ConvergencePoint, ConvergencePoint SMB and SecurityPoint can access the data. Westcon's Avaya distribution arm, Voda One, will offer the research to partners in its ConvergencePoint program.
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