Sun Pitches New Partner Perks

Sun, Santa Clara, Calif., also is recruiting solution providers to target the midmarket and aims to add 200 new partners by year's end, said Bill Cate, U.S. iForce program office director.

From now through the end of June, Sun is increasing rebates for its existing Target Account Rebate Program and new midrange storage products, Cate said. TARP is an account registration program that lets solution providers register accounts and receive rebates for all products sold to those accounts.

Currently, solution providers in TARP receive back-end rebates of 10 percent of list price for all products sold to registered accounts. If solution providers close TARP- registered deals between now and June 30, they will receive 20 percent rebates instead, Cate said.

Tom Kuni, president and CEO of Sun VAR SSI hubcity, Metuchen, N.J., called the extra incentives "evidence of [Sun's] drive toward regaining profit- ability and pertinence."

Cate said Sun is seeing some real traction from TARP. Partners have brought in 162 "new to Sun" customers through TARP in the past nine months, generating close to $50 million in revenue for Sun through these new accounts. In turn, partners have received about $7 million in rebates from TARP business in the same period, he said.

Sun also has added incentives to its new midrange storage products to drive sales. For each new SE 5000 and 6000 product sold between now and the end of June, all Sun solution providers will receive a 15 percent back-end rebate, Cate said.

David Auerweck, vice president of strategic markets at Helio Solutions, Santa Clara, said Sun is really pushing its midtier storage products, although they are difficult to sell beyond accounts that use Sun hardware. "Sun is not known as a multiplatform storage vendor," he said.