Arcserve believes consolidating with a single broadliner will strengthen their market presence as they continue to bring a range of new offerings to market.
Erin Malone, Arcserve’s Vice President, North American Channel Sales
Data protection vendor Arcserve has reworked its North American distribution strategy, naming Ingram Micro as its strategic North American business partner, and making them their exclusive distributor on this continent.
“We had been a 100 per cent channel company for a long time, even when we were part of CA, but after we became an independent company on August 1, we took a hard look at how we go to market, and concluded what we had in terms of distribution wasn’t the right match for our business model,” said Christophe Bertrand, Arcserve’s VP of Product Marketing. “We began formalizing a strategy that we are in the process of executing now which will drive strong growth, especially in North America.”
Prior to this change, Arcserve had been working with all three broadline distributors in North America –Ingram Micro, Tech Data and SYNNEX. They had worked with Avnet and Arrow in North America in the past, but had not been with them recently. Going forward, they will be working with Ingram Micro exclusively in North America, although the other distributors still have a role in their global distribution strategy.
“We knew we were too diluted among our distribution partners coming out of CA, and we knew there was a better model, which would create greater relevance with the right distributor,” said Erin Malone, Arcserve’s Vice President, North American Channel Sales.
Arcserve discussed their intent to consolidate with each of the distributors, before deciding on Ingram Micro
“They brought a very high level of business intelligence to the table, had a significant range of tools available, and were best able to meet our margin enhancement programs that we want to put into the channel,” Malone said. “They also had significant relationships across the board with our partner community, although we are being been very careful to work with partners who aren’t currently with Ingram Micro and facilitate those discussions.”
While Arcserve’s technology was created by Cheyenne Software in 1990 before its acquisition by Computer Associates, just before Arcserve became a separate company it was reworked into a next-generation unified data protection offering, with global source-based deduplication, multi-site replication, tape support, and automated data recovery capabilities. Earlier this year, Arcserve put this technology in an appliance form factor for the first time, with its UDP 7000 series. Going forward they plan to introduce larger appliances which will play at a higher tier in the market, and also intend to unveil a new cloud service. Ingram Micro will play a key role in this expansion of Arcserve’s offerings.
“We have a very thoughtful plan, and getting a partner to best execute it was part of our due diligence,” Malone said. “We want to leverage Ingram Micro’s capabilities as we look to expand our own capabilities in North America. Similarly, we are looking to expand our channel program around IMOne.”
Malone said they believe Ingram can make their existing partner base more productive, and assist in the selective recruitment of new partners.
“We are looking to them to make our existing partners more efficient, and are also looking to use Ingram’s business intelligence to recruit the right partners into our program,” she said.
Arcserve has been a long-time partner of Ingram Micro in Canada, and has a strong presence in the Canadian market.
“We have been working with Ingram Micro for 15 plus years there and have been a very active participant in the VTN community in Canada, which has helped us be very strong there in the Canadian market,” Malone said.
