Tech Data Execs: Unlike Ingram Micro, We Don't Compete With Channel In Cloud

Tech Data executives made one thing clear during their partner conference: They have no intention of cannibalizing channel partners and following Ingram Micro into hosted cloud.

"We don't sell direct," Joe Quaglia, Tech Data's president of the Americas, told some 400 people Friday. "And we never will, unlike some of our competitors."

Quaglia was one of three Tech Data executives during the TechSelect event in Henderson, Nev., to indirectly or explicitly reference Ingram Micro's April decision to offer hosted cloud services, including virtual private servers, web hosting and hosted exchange.

[Related: Ingram Micro Ups Cloud Ante: Adds Partnerships, Channel Enhancements, Hosted Services]

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Both Ingram Micro of Santa Clara, Calif., and Tech Data of Clearwater, Fla., were named in late September as aggregators for Cisco Intercloud, a global network of connected public, private and hybrid clouds.

But Angela Beltz, vice president of Tech Data's Cisco Solutions Group, told CRN Thursday that Ingram Micro is focusing more on hosted cloud transactions, while Tech Data remains truly committed to partner enablement.

Some 90 percent of Tech Data partners host cloud themselves, and Beltz cited it as one of the best ways for solution providers to add value and boost their bottom lines. For that reason, Beltz said Tech Data absolutely will not adopt Ingram Micro's model and actually go into the cloud.

"We don't compete with our partners," Beltz told CRN.

Likewise, Stacy Nethercoat, vice president of product marketing at TDCloud, said Friday that Tech Data has differentiated itself from peers such as Ingram Micro by remaining dedicated to playing a role in the channel.

"We are not competing with our partners who are hosting solutions they are offering to their end-user ecosystem," Nethercoat told CRN.

Partners have expressed concerns to CRN that Ingram Micro would be competing with solution providers, or no longer be vendor-impartial, since it had an offering in the market. Ingram Micro's hosted services are powered by cloud hosting firm SoftCom, which the distributor acquired in September 2013.

Paul Bay, Ingram Micro's North American president, acknowledged to CRN in September that the distributor's hosted cloud offering has blurred the line in terms of overlapping with partners, but said it ultimately provides solution providers with more flexibility in terms of how they want Ingram Micro to show up.

"If we're out touching an end user, it's on behalf of a partner and on behalf of the channel," Bay said.

And Renee Bergeron, Ingram Micro's vice president of cloud computing, told CRN in April that Ingram Micro's business model wouldn't work if it drove business to its own solutions over competitors, and are in the hosted cloud market to give partners choices.

"Reseller partners like having options," Bergeron said. "We aren't telling them, 'Take the Ingram solutions.' We are saying, 'Here are the choices that you have, and here is the merit of every single solution.'"

Tech Data also is looking to take small solution providers (SSPs) from Ingram Micro and other distributors by building out a 20-person account acquisition and onboarding team.

Gregory Banning, Tech Data's vice president of sales and general manager, said the company is proactively placing calls to SSPs who lack a relationship with Tech Data in an attempt to convince them to come on board.

The effort has been successful in attracting many new channel partners, Banning said, the vast majority of which already had relationships with other distributors.

Banning said he doesn't feel any of the other distributors have taken a good, organized approach to acquiring and onboarding new SSPs. And with roughly 40,000 resellers nationwide with eight or fewer employees, Banning sees a market opportunity in selling them on what Tech Data has to offer.

Banning said all new SMB resellers are assigned an onboarding ambassador, who is tasked with making the solution providers aware within 30 days of everything available to them, including free sales programs.

PUBLISHED OCT. 27, 2014