Ingram sees Tegile’s Zebi hybrid storage arrays as being a particularly strong play in Canada, and looks to replicate the success Ingram has had with Tegile in the U.S. through this Canadian deal.
Kevin Forster, Senior Sales Manager, Advanced Solutions, Ingram Micro Canada
Ingram Micro Canada has announced a new distribution deal with Newark CA-based Tegile Systems, which makes flash-driven storage arrays and which sells through a 100 per cent channel model. The agreement gives Ingram the exclusive broadline rights to distribute Tegile in Canada.
The deal is an extension of one Tegile signed in 2013 with Ingram’s Promark subsidiary in the U.S.
“We have seen significant growth with them in the U.S. since we began to work with them there,” said Kevin Forster, Senior Sales Manager, Advanced Solutions, Ingram Micro Canada.
Forster indicated they are optimistic about Tegile’s prospects with Ingram in Canada because while Tegile offers three types of offerings – hybrid flash, all-flash and converged – Ingram believes the hybrid flash arrays will be especially attractive here for end user customers who are new to flash.
“We believe partners will find their hybrid flash solution will offer unique value, that’s the number one thing that appeals,” Forster said. “It allows a customer choice of moving into flash gradually as opposed to going with an all-flash solution immediately.”
Tegile, which was founded in 2009, has no direct sales force and has sold entirely through channel partners from their inception. They market their Zebi hybrid storage arrays as being the most cost effective in the industry, and they have been well-reviewed. Channel partners can determine the respective percentages of flash disk storage a customer needs, to get the right blend of cost savings and high-performance.
Tegile’s patented IntelliFlash technology accelerates performance and enables inline deduplication and compression of data. The arrays also come standard with built-in snapshot, remote-replication, near-instant recovery, onsite or offsite failover, and VM-aware features.
“The mid-market and enterprise space is their sweet spot, and we see this as a great fit for that market in Canada,” Forster said.
Tegile has Canadian partners, but they have not had a distribution relationship in Canada previous to this.
“We will use our exclusive broadline distribution in Canada to recruit new partners and grow their business,” Forster said. “We think our partners will like the versatility of what Tegile offers.”
Forster also said the Tegile deal also illustrates the growing strength of Ingram Micro’s Advanced Infrastructure solutions in Canada.
“It shows the importance of Ingram Micro Canada specifically expanding its Advanced Solutions as we continuously look at how to best offer our customers the strongest solutions for their end users,” he said. “We are definitely expanding our storage portfolio, and continuously looking at unique storage vendors. We see Tegile as one of those.”
