Tech Data Canada has introduced the distributor’s accessTD mobile application in this country.

The accessTD app was first introduced in the U.S. at the distributor’s fall TechSelect conference last November, offering full access to the distributor’s inventory from iPhone and iPad devices.

To say the application was well-received by the TechSelect faithful would be an understatement – Phil Fillippeli, the company’s vice president of e-business, was chanting for the mobile app as he introduced it at the show.

“Our goal for the mobile app is to make a useful app based on reseller feedback, especially from the TechSelect community,” Fillippeli said.

And it was based on that feedback, he said, that the decision was made to go with Apple’s mobile platform fist and foremost. Fillippelli said that there is as “overwhelming reseller demand … for iOS in general and the iPad in particular.”

On stage at last fall’s event, Fillippeli walked resellers through the capabilities of the app, explaining that “a lot of the features are extensions of the TechData.com Web site, but we tried to do it in a way that’s intuitive and easy to use.”

The app includes the ability to browse or search for Tech Data SKUs, and to process shopping carts either by checkout or by creating a quote, complete with the solution provider’s logo and information (and markup) if provided by the partner. Other capabilities include the ability to check stock on any SKU across the distributor’s warehouses, and to check on the shipment status of existing orders.

And while initial feedback as in favor of iOS as the platform of choice, Fillippelli was actively soliciting attendees on what other platforms on which they’d like to see accessTD available.

“We want to grow this application,” he said. “This is a very strategic tool as part of our e-business arsenal.”

Based on the distributor’s experience with the app in the U.S., Tech Data Canada says it expects to see uptake up from about 10 per cent of the company’s reseller base. The distributor is also working on an HTML5 version of the accessTD service, which the company expects to see boost uptake by a further 15 per cent.

Tech Data’s accessTD app is available now for iPhone and iPad on the iTunes App Store for free.

AccessTD makes Tech Data the second of the major distributors to introduce an application-based extension of their e-commerce Web site for mobile devices. Rival Synnex has offered it MCexpress applications for about a year, as part of an overall push on offering outsourced mobile app development through its VAR community. Although Synnex’s mobile tools have been around since 2010, the company just launched its mobile app capabilities in Canada late last year.