EMC simplifies storage sales channel for SMBs

HANOVER, GERMANY — EMC is simplifying the way it sells its storage products to small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). Working through its network of resellers, EMC will offer them a range of ready-made systems based on its existing products for archiving, backup, networked storage and business protection, or multisite replication, it announced at the Cebit trade show here.

“We have spent over a year building a new approach to making storage simple for SMBs. It solves some problems that SMBs have that nobody else is addressing today,” said David Goulden, EMC’s executive vice president of customer operations.

The company will give its resellers access to a new Web tool for specifying and ordering storage systems from a limited number of configurations it has already tested, a range it calls Express Solutions.

Prompted by the Web tool, resellers question customers about their needs and their existing systems; based on the information entered, the wizard proposes a package of EMC products. “We know all the configurations generated by the wizard work together. It’s a very safe first time environment,” Goulden said.

The configurations proposed will typically favor networking products from EMC partner Cisco Systems, but if a more appropriate product from a competitor such as Brocade Communication Systems or McData exists, it will be proposed instead, Goulden said.

EMC is not introducing new products to support the initiative, but as appropriate new products or technologies are introduced, they will be incorporated into the systems proposed by the wizard, he said.

The Web tool is already available in English for the North American market, according to Mike Wytenus, senior director for midsize enterprise marketing. Versions of the tool translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Japanese, and simplified and traditional Chinese will be made available in the second quarter. There has been no demand for a translated version from German resellers, who will be offered the English version, Wytenus said.

At the same time, EMC is also introducing an online approval system for financing sales of its products. This will be ready by the end of March in the U.S., and will be introduced in the second quarter in Europe, Goulden said.

A few thousand large enterprises make up around half the storage system market by value, with each of those companies typically spending more than $1 million on storage, according to Goulden. EMC’s new approach is aimed at the other half of the market, including the many thousands of small businesses with storage budgets of less than $50,000 — the fastest-growing part of the market, he said.

EMC will no longer require resellers in the SMB market to go through training and certification on all the 1,500 products in its range.

“We are going to be moving the certification training for partners towards the wizard, so partners can be certified for Express Solutions,” Goulden said. However, resellers will still have the option of undergoing certification on the full product range if they also wish to sell more complex systems to larger enterprises, he said.

Cebit runs from Thursday to Wednesday at the fairground in Hanover, Germany.