PROMISE also expects that working with SYNNEX will significantly strengthen them in Canada, and they will also be adjusting some of their product to make it better suit Canada, where SMBs tend to be smaller than in the U.S.

PROMISE Technology, a storage vendor with a deep focus on the media and entertainment industry, as well as cloud and video surveillance, has expanded its distribution network through a North America-wide agreement with SYNNEX, through which PROMISE’s full inventory of storage solutions will be available to SYNNEX resellers. For Promise, the deal means much more than just adding a new distribution cog. It is the first event in chain which will see it make its introduction into the hyperconverged space this year, along with the reorganization of its distribution network which will see PROMISE part with most of its existing distributors.

“We have been involved in the rich media section of the market for many years,” said Behrouz Zali, PROMISE’s senior director of channel sales and marketing. “While we have been involved in the IT sector of the market, we have been more active in areas like video editing and post production work. This year, we will put more emphasis on the IT sector of the market, and develop a far stronger portfolio there. We have several products on their way in hyper-converged and cloud geared to the IT section of the market. With hyper-converged, we would like to come in with a scalable feature-filled product, but more economical than companies like EMC.”

Zali said that is what makes SYNNEX valuable to them now, with the distributor’s focus on addressing the increasing storage requirements surrounding video capture complementing PROMISE’s solutions relating to everything from the editing and distribution of 4K footage to the capture, backup and archiving of high-resolution monitoring.

“SYNNEX has a large field presence in that sector, and we believe they will help us position these products well,” he said. “They will give us a very fertile ground to launch this new portfolio, leveraging their relationship with their partners. In turn, we will bring our expertise with rich media working with their salespeople to position us well.” That, he said, will help SYNNEX to further penetrate key IT markets in this area like video surveillance and public safety.

PROMISE has been working with Tech Data, Ingram Micro and Avnet on North American contracts, but the addition of SYNNEX means that some of these others will soon be dropped.

“We are going to consolidate number of partners down to a couple, and SYNNEX will be one of them,” Zali said.

He also indicated that SYNNEX’s comparative strength in the Canadian market should help PROMISE there.

“We are looking to strengthen our revenue portfolio within Canada,” he said. “We do not have a very large partner base in Canada. There are not the type of pure rich media specialists there like we have in the U.S. We have about partners who have a strong media and entertainment practice, but within the context of other practice areas. In total, there are about 40-50 partners in Canada that we do business with.”

Zali indicated that some of their Canadian partners had specifically suggested that they work with SYNNEX.

“Our partners told us that we needed to tailor our portfolio better for Canada, that the SMB market in Canada was not the same as SMB in the U.S., and they recommended SYNNEX to help us do that,” he said. “We will be adjusting our product so that it will be more relevant for the Canadian portfolio. At the lower end of the market, we will add more controllers and data services for the Canadian market. We also expect to benefit there from SYNNEX’s strong field presence.”

Zali said that as part of their new focus, PROMISE will be a lot more visible at IT industry events.

“We will participate more in shows like VMworld,” he said. “Before, we had been more in video editing and post production-type shows.”