NEC Inks Deal With Synnex

"From an overall channel perspective what this signifies to the channel partners is that NEC is really making a big push to re-establish ourselves in the North American market. We feel this is a market that has been very underserved by us, but we're back. If [resellers]thought we weren't here, we are," said Steve DeBonis, channel director, IT Platform Group, NEC Corporation of America, Santa Clara, Calif.

"I think with Synnex in particular it really shows that we had a desire to get back into the market from this perspective," he said. "And it's one thing for us to have that desire, but Synnex saw the value and the opportunity and sees it as significant as well. That's how this partnership came together."

NEC's entire portfolio of products will be distributed through Synnex, including products from NEC's various lines of business including the NEC Express 5800/1000 series enterprise servers, NEC D-Series enterprise modular storage arrays and NEC's ExpressCluster high availability and disaster recovery software.

"This is an important relationship to Synnex because NEC is a true innovator in the industry with dynamic, scalable, highly reliable and cost-effective IT products," said Bob Stegner, Synnex's senior vice president of marketing for North America, in a statement. "Through this agreement, we strengthen our portfolio to offer our VAR partners smart IT solutions that provide a competitive edge in today's challenging marketplace."

For NEC, Synnex's ability to distribute products across a wide range of solution providers and markets was what made the distributor an appealing partner.

"Additionally their ability to target specific segments of the market and to have that ability to take specific solution sets and products to different market areas is something we think we can achieve with them as well," DeBonis said.

"We think we're going to get access to a much broader set of partners through Synnex," he said. Although NEC products have been available in the U.S. and North America, NEC is hoping that its relationship with Synnex will help it gain ground in the U.S. and North American marketplaces.

"Our organization is not as large as other organizations so we really are relying on the channel to scale for us," DeBonis said.