ScanSource To Launch IP Security Portal For VARs
Called IP Center and due to go live May 15, the site will serve as a repository of information on networking and network-based video and access control technologies for security dealers. It will also provide information on products and the physical security market.
ScanSource's security distribution arm also is holding a nationwide series of two-day IP Center Workshops, including one Tuesday and Wednesday in Philadelphia, for which about 75 IT and physical security resellers have already signed up, the Greenville, S.C.-based distributor said.
About 80 security dealers and VARs attended ScanSource's first event last month in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Tony Sorrentino, vice president of merchandising for ScanSource Security Distribution. The events and Web portal are targeted at security and IT solution providers looking to integrate IP-based physical security products with customers' networks, he said..
"Our approach with this whole educational initiative is two-pronged. It's to help the traditional security dealer understand networking and IP and to introduce the IT integrator to the opportunities that are available to them now that these products sit on the network," Sorrentino said.
"The manufactures are very excited about it because they need dealers that are savvy enough to sell these products," he added.
Chris Wise, president and co-founder of Security 101, a Marietta, Ga.-based security dealer, said ScanSource's planned site and training will benefit IT resellers looking to get involved in selling physical security, but he noted that getting into that business requires a bigger commitment.
"If a large IT-based [reseller] company chooses to get into this industry, they will have to make the monetary investments and time investments to understand the when, why and how to deploy that hardware, because it's just as sophisticated," Wise said.
Solution providers looking to get into the physical security game also could partner with security companies, according to Sorrentino. ScanSource has helped bring companies together informally and is considering a more formal partner network, he said.
"Only a certain segment [of our customers] are really going to grasp this IP solution and are going to run with it. So there has to be somebody else to come in and take over for the people who decide not to go after this business," Sorrentino said. "It's very similar to what we saw in telecom when things went from the telephone business to IP. A certain segment of the dealers embraced it, and others chose not to."