Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) unveiled a new channel sales and support program Wednesday, officially offering its open-systems servers and data storage direct to VARs and through three distributors.
The move is the first time Santa Clara, Calif.-based HDS has worked through distributors. However, the company's storage arrays have been available to VARs since May.
As part of its channel initiative, HDS said it has signed Gates/Arrow Distributing Inc., Greenville, S.C.; Tech Data Corp., Clearwater, Fla.; and Wyle Systems, Irvine, Calif., as distributors.
HDS plans to work direct with about 10 of its current VARs, all of whom are either multiplatform storage specialists or who specialize on particular server platforms, said Steven Cizowski, vice president of sales and marketing for the company's North American distribution.
HDS also will work with the distributors to recruit and train several hundred regional VARs, Cizowski said.
HDS chose its distributors based on their specialties, Cizowski said. "We want to work with Wyle because of its experience with the Alpha platform, a result of its long-term relationship with Digital [Equipment Corp.] and then Compaq [Computer Corp.] Tech Data has NT-platform expertise, and Gates/Arrow has [Hewlett-Packard Co.] expertise," he said
The company is hitting the indirect channel at this time because of the complexities involved in storage, said Cizowski. "Because storage is becoming such a solution-oriented product, we need people with software expertise," he said. "There's no way a company can do it all on their own."
HDS expects about 90 percent of its open-systems sales, or about 75 percent of the company's overall businesses, to go through the channel, Cizowski said. About 70 percent of that will come from storage sales, and 30 percent from servers.
Datalink Corp., a Minneapolis-based company which is HDS's largest VAR, finds HDS to be a good channel partner, said Tim Rasmussen, product manager for Datalink's primary storage.
HDS is building its VAR program from scratch, and basing much of it on its relationship with Datalink, said Rasmussen. "We've given them a lot of ideas they are using in the program," he said. "They are adding more indirect channel support people throughout the [United States], and more support resources in Santa Clara."
Datalink has never had channel conflicts with HDS, except for the XP256 storage array HDS OEMs to HP, said Rasmussen. "We work with [HDS's] direct sales force. Once we identify an opportunity, we pull in both indirect and direct HDS salespeople. On the other hand, they will bring us in with their customers as well," he said. "Their direct sales force mainly works on the mainframe side, while we work with open systems platforms."
The OEM deal HDS cut with HP in May for the XP256 was a big endorsement for HDS, said Mike Kahn, president of Wellesley, Mass.-based analyst firm The Clipper Group Inc.
"HDS has products beyond the HP offering," Kahn said. "A partnership with the likes of HP gives them a lot more visibility. But in the long term, HDS will look to develop its own channel. . . . It has made some very big right steps. A lot depends on the reception of the resellers, as well as market perception."
HP in May signaled the end of its three-year relationship with Franklin, Mass.-based EMC Corp. by unveiling an OEM deal with HDS. The XP256 storage array that HP resells originally was known as the HP SureStore E Disk Array MC256, or "E MC 256," but the name was changed earlier this month in response to a trademark infringement suit filed by EMC.
HDS's move to embrace the channel is part of a trend on the part of storage vendors to focus less exclusively on direct and OEM sales to tap the expertise of VARs with heterogeneous system platforms.
Other vendors recently opening to the channel include storage-array vendors such as the Clariion Advanced Storage Division of Data General Corp., MTI Technology Corp., Andataco Inc., and even EMC, as well as Fibre Channel switch and hub vendors Ancor Communications Inc. and Crossroads Systems Inc.
