GE Access Boosts Sun Business, Adds New Vendors To Its Stable

Sun's resurgence was one of the highlights of the show for GE Access, as was the enterprise distributor's emphasis on moving downstream into the midmarket. GE Access president and CEO Anna McDermott told solution providers at New Frontiers that the distributor is committed to helping them reach more midsize business opportunities.

"We have a good product lineup with Sun for the midmarket," she says. "We have to help push marketing and demand generation for our VARs in that space. Clearly, the vendors are all eager to get into the midmarket."

And Sun is just one of GE Access' vendors looking for a larger piece of that pie. GE Access announced that in addition to the Sun Fire V20z server, it will add Sun's newest AMD Opteron-based server, the Sun Fire V40z, as part of its volume products push. The distributor also added new incentives for its resellers with a new program under Sun's Upgrade Advantage Program that dishes out rewards and quarterly incentives to GE Access resellers who help clients upgrade to new Sun systems.

So successful was GE Access' second-quarter Sun business that the distributor had heated discussions with Sun about getting more Sun products into its warehouses, according to Frances Draper, vice president of GE Access' Sun Business Group. "We had a very robust quarter, and we're starting to see traction in the channel with new things like Java Enterprise System," she says.

Strategic Technologies, a Sun iForce partner based in Cary, N.C., has reaped some of the benefits. The solution provider, which sells the V20z system, generated more than $1 million in new-to-Sun account sales in the past year and also received an iForce award for its performance in the midmarket and for winning new Sun business.

"Most people had forgotten about Sun on the low end until the V20z," says Stuart Borie, account executive at Strategic Technologies in Cary, N.C. "We've sold a lot of the V20z servers; it offers better performance than most low-end servers, and it offers amazing flexibility with Linux, Solaris, Windows and both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures."

In addition, GE Access touted some of its newest vendors, including McAfee and McData. The distributor brought aboard McAfee, which recently severed its longstanding distributor agreement with Merisel, to help bolster its security product lineup. As with Sun, GE Access is hoping to generate more business through another reformed vendor intent on improving its channel business.

"We think GE Access' enterprise model suits us well and will allow us to work with more skilled integrators and VARs," says David Roberts, senior vice president of North American channel sales at McAfee. "We're at about 80 percent channel sales, but we want to be at 100 percent."

During the New Frontiers conference, McDermott also highlighted RFID and VoIP, two emerging technologies that GE Access, along with other distributors, such as ScanSource and Westcon Group, are gearing up to build substantial, revenue-rich practices. "RFID is a big opportunity for the channel," McDermott told the audience. "The VoIP space in the SMB market is equally compelling."

McDermott highlights Sun's RFID efforts in particular. The computer maker opened its RFID Test Center in Dallas earlier this year and followed the grand opening with the launch of its Java Enterprise System RFID software. While RFID tags themselves may not seem like the ideal channel product, McDermott says the opportunities around RFID infrastructure are enormous for resellers. "It's going to take a lot of servers, networks and software to support these RFID systems," she says.

While VoIP and RFID are two of the hottest emerging technologies in the industry, many other distributors also are moving quickly to dominate the markets. That could leave GE Access going up against a range of distributors, from ScanSource to Westcon Group. The increased competition, however, doesn't seem to scare McDermott or GE Access. "These markets are going to be so big and diverse," McDermott says, "that I think we'll all be able to play."