Ingram Micro To Beef Up Efforts In U.S. System Builder Space

The new unit will be headed by Geno Marcoux, who will serve as vice president and general manager of the unit. It will offer volume pricing, special bidding services, lead-generation tools, technical support and logistics services for processors, hard-disk drives, memory, motherboards and other unbranded PC components, said Pat Collins, senior vice president of sales at Ingram Micro.

"It's important for us to be a player in that space," Collins said. "You see

numbers like 40 percent of SMBs owning an unbranded PC, more than any other brand. That's significant. We see this as a way to augment our business in the systems space."

The unit features products from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Hitachi, Kingston Technologies, Maxtor, Seagate and Western Digital, as well as a slew of second-tier vendors, Collins said.

Ingram Micro will compete in the white-box market against the likes of D&H Distributing, which has an established components business, and Tech Data, which has a components specialized business unit. Ingram Micro already has components business units in Europe and Asia.

"Like other businesses, we're never afraid to compete head up with those folks as well as others," Collins said. "With the services we can offer, from logistics and technical support, we match up very favorably to our competitors."

Executives at D&H and Tech Data could not be reached for comment.

It will be a challenge for Ingram Micro to gain traction in the components space, said Larry Souza, president of Maximum Micro, a South Yarmouth, Mass.-based system builder.

"I think they're out of luck," Souza said. "I probably would not be interested unless their pricing was very attractive. I've been with Ingram before, and their pricing has not impressed me."

Ingram Micro initially hopes to attract current customers that buy components from other distributors, but it also plans to target new customers, Collins said.