D&H Signs Deal To Distribute Lenovo Systems

D&H will carry the Lenovo 3000 family, including the J100 and J105 desktops and the C Series, N Series and V100 notebooks. In addition, it has access to the Think family on a case-by-case basis, the companies said.

The Harrisburg, Pa., distributor intends to showcase the Lenovo lines this week at CMP Technology's XChange '06 in St. Louis, as well as at its own reseller show in Quincy, Mass., and plans a series of training events around the vendor's products.

"We're excited about this. [Lenovo's] market share in the SMB reseller category is clearly not where it should be based on their product segment and global presence," said Michael Schwab, D&H vice president of purchasing. "We can help them get after the right resellers and increase their market share."

The pact is indicative of two channel trends, Schwab said. First, more vendors are trying to reach small-business customers. Second, the vendors are adopting simpler SMB channel programs that require less investment from the solution provider and include more standardized pricing.

Many D&H solution providers build their own systems, and several said they would now offer Lenovo as a low-cost alternative to their own machines.

"We market Acer as a price competitor to Best Buy. Lenovo gives us a little more option at the low end, and there have been some availability issues with Acer," said Glenn Pubal, sales manager at Royal Business Equipment, Elyria, Ohio.

Ray Izadi, store manager at Golden Tech Computers, a Woodbridge, Va., solution provider, said Lenovo could be successful in the SMB channel if it stays away from the big-box retail stores. "They have the opportunity to move product. If they start doing the monkey business, it's going to be difficult to go with them," Izadi said.

In the past year, D&H added Cisco Systems and recently picked up VoIP services from EarthLink and Vonage. "We want to drive what were historically enterprise-level solutions that are now being re-engineered and repriced to fit a broader range of SMB resellers," Schwab said.

A couple of years ago, D&H wouldn't have been able to pick up those vendors, Schwab said. "We've spoken to IBM for a number of years before [the PC business was sold to Lenovo]. Based on their go-to-market strategy and price point, it was not a viable solution for D&H's reseller base."

D&H has proved adept at serving the SMB market, which is why it was a logical choice for Lenovo, said Steve Mungall, vice president of channel and transaction sales strategy at Lenovo. "Our existing distributors [Ingram Micro, Synnex and Tech Data] have great enterprise-level focus and some SMB focus," he said. "We are looking for certain VARs to help us penetrate the SMB market."

VARs do not need immediate certifications to buy the Lenovo 3000 line, Mungall said. "We are trying to create an easy to understand, easy to get authorized, easy to purchase program."