GE Access Unveils New Name, Solutions

The Westminster, Colo.-based distributor, formerly known as GE Access, is developing initiatives around consolidation, compliance and security for solution providers to offer and is looking to recruit new vendors, company executives said.

"Consolidation continues to be a growing opportunity in the Solaris sense," said Scott Zahl, vice president of marketing and vendor relations at Access Distribution. "Compliance and everything that goes around it is driving interesting discussions around IT environments. Third, we are seeing a convergence between electronic security and physical security."

In order to build those solutions, Access Distribution is looking at new vendors to complement its Sun Microsystems focus. That means Access Distribution's reliance on Sun will decrease, but the manufacturer's technology will still drive the distributor's solutions, said Anna McDermott, CEO of Access Distribution.

"Sun is not the only vendor to solve business problems for your customers. There's a Sun solution out there, then there's infrastructure to support it. The more Sun-centric we become, the less value we have in the marketplace," McDermott said.

About 67 percent of Access Distribution's revenue comes from Sun Microsystems, down from 80 percent two years ago, she said. Its Sun unit volume increased 36 percent compared with last year, but revenue is flat.

"Everyone has the same problem, IBM, HP, EMC, Sun. Because of where the technology has gone, we sell a lot more units and make the same revenue. Growing revenue is going to be challenging on the platform," McDermott said. "[By offering complementary vendors' products] in the [United States] we have brought [Sun] into markets they would not be able to penetrate."

Solution providers such as Don Swanson, president of Downers Grove, Ill.-based dcVAST, are encouraged to hear there's a strategy to go along with the new name.

"I don't know if the name change is significant to me or to the client base their reseller partners have," Swanson said. "But I believe they are heading in the correct direction by offering complementary things to Sun. We do that in order to provide a total solution to a customer. Combining into that one sourcing organization makes sense."

All GE company names will now better describe what the companies do, said Mark Kulaga, director of corporate communications and marketing at Access Distribution.

"When we were thinking of names, we thought down the road to a name we could withstand for the next five years. We carry the message around the name. Our goal is to provide access. Access to products, access to financing, access to services," he said.