SCH Distribution highlights importance of partnerships in the evolving IT reseller marketplace

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:38:58 GMT

Leading specialist technology distributor, SCH Distribution, has called on IT resellers to continue embracing a more collaborative approach to business as the industry adopts new models, in a bid to remain profitable in a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive marketplace.

Recognising that concern over falling revenues and a sector-wide squeeze on profitability has motivated many companies to explore a partnership-based approach to market, SCH Distribution believes that resellers must continue working more closely with distributors and expert technology enablers in order to continue delivering profit-making, best of breed services and solutions to customers.

"There have been a lot of drivers pushing for change. Resellers are finding customers putting greater pressure on them to make better use and get more out of their existing IT, while at the same time responding to the increasing customer demands for virtualisation solutions and energy efficient IT." said Sean Fane, Managing Director, IQ-Sys.

As the technology industry continues to mature, the complexity and range of platform options available is making it increasingly difficult to profit from standalone propositions. Profitability is the main challenge and increasingly resellers are tackling the problem by working with partners who can provide them with the enhanced scale and expertise they need.

SCH Distribution currently works with, for and as a number of IT resellers, providing specialist expertise, competencies and logistics, particularly around desktop and server virtualisation solutions. The group can combine best of breed vendor relationships - not just across hardware platforms including IBM, HP, Fujitsu and Sun, but market leading positions with Citrix and VMware - to help resellers grow market share.

"Supporting partners on major projects and working with them to provide delivery is just the beginning. Increasingly, we are working in partnership with our resellers to provide pre and post sales support, marketing and vendor enablement.” added Sean.

Over 90% of the UK's servers are not yet virtualised and over the next three to five years the majority of customers will not only refresh but look to optimise their IT infrastructure. This means a massive opportunity for those resellers who embrace partnership and collaboration to accelerate their ability to deliver solutions.

SCC urges widespread adoption of server consolidation to reduce environmental impact of IT

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:23:41 GMT

CTO’s must adopt enterprise wide server consolidation strategies if they wish to make a genuine impact upon their carbon footprint, according to Europe’s largest independent technology solutions provider.

In the wake of a House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee statement that both government and industry must be more ambitious in their pursuit of greener IT policies, SCC Chief Technology Officer Rhys Sharp has called upon organisations to embrace server consolidation as a vital step towards reducing their carbon footprint. Highlighting European Data Centre codes of practice recommending the move, he believes the consolidation route offers companies the ability to drastically reduce both their power consumption and IT overheads.

“The industry may not have come up with instant answers to the environmental question, but various technologies are now coming together that can greatly help reduce organisations’ carbon footprints, while the environmental savings possible from server consolidation are increasing all the time,” said Sharp.

“This isn’t brain surgery. By simply reducing the number of servers by a typical 5:1 consolidation ratio, companies are going to see four or five times less power consumed by the server. There’s less cooling required, generating further savings, and we’re now seeing the introduction of new technologies that throttle back on the server’s CPU performance when it’s not being used, reducing power consumption even more.”

Research shows that by consolidating their servers, companies can reduce their systems’ carbon footprint by 90% whilst freeing up 89% of available floor space. Despite such figures, however, it is estimated that up to 50% of UK companies have failed to implement such a strategy.

Rhys Sharp added: “We’ve seen a lot of adoption in the test and development areas, so clearly there are many firms prepared to dabble in this. Because some of the software vendors have been reluctant to support their products on the virtualised platform however, full scale migration has proved to be a step too far for many organisations.

“There is no doubt that this reluctance on the part of software vendors has been a major obstacle. But as time wears on and product becomes much more mature in the marketplace, we’re finally seeing vendors begin to take more of an interest, so that barrier is starting to break down now.”

In addition to its environmental impact, server consolidation can also have a marked impact on costs. Recent research from SCC revealed that by carrying out such a strategy, up to half of UK organisations would be able to reduce their IT operating costs by 50% whilst enjoying a healthy return on investment (ROI) within eight months.

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SCH Distribution highlights importance of partnerships in the evolving IT reseller marketplace

SCC urges widespread adoption of server consolidation to reduce environmental impact of IT