Alstom IT adds app management

In its third signing in as many weeks, Alstom IT has won exclusive rights to distribute Mercury Interactive application management software in Australia.

Greg Newham, GM at Alstom IT, said business IT management software vendor Mercury Interactive had selected Alstom as the exclusive Australian distributor for its SiteScope application management software. Previously, that product had been available here direct or as a packaged component.

'The Mercury Interactive product gives us the opportunity to be able to provide monitoring and tuning of applications on the network,' Newham said. 'The object of the product is to enable people to get more performance out of their existing infrastructure.'

He said the deal was expected to net Alstom IT about $1 million in sales in the first year.

Alstom IT already distributes a networking management product from HP, but Newham said the new range is geared specifically for applications rather than networking.

The distributor was building a 'whole-solution' approach to its range and was adding vendors that seemed to fit into that strategy as required, he said.

Another vendor announcement is expected in about two weeks. 'We've just had a number of [signings] at one time - but we might not do anything new for another year after that. It's coincidental that these signings have all come together,' Newham said.

The product was more suited to SMBs and enterprises using larger numbers of applications, meaning it should sit well within the offerings of most of Alstom IT's corporate and government-focused resellers, he said.

Alstom IT has hired a new technical business development manager, John Puz, who is being certified for SiteScope to drive sales.

'He's had experience in another business, working on ... a similar product,' Newham said.

Graham Sowden, MD at Mercury Interactive Australia, said the product had only been available here direct, via 'major' system integrator partners and as part of a package.

'The product lends itself to this model ... [as] this is very small incremental-type of business,' he said.

He said the main advantage of SiteScope was it was agent-less, thus reducing the amount of technology companies needed.

'Which is a massive management benefit. Also, it's downloadable off the internet. It installs in days,' he said.

Sowden said the product was acquired when Mercury Interactive bought out another company 18 months to two years ago. 'It's been around for quite some time. There are 5000 organisations using it around the world,' he said.

Mercury Interactive claims its SiteScope application management software targets business-critical distributed systems, continuously monitoring systems and infrastructure and alerting companies to performance problems as they occur.

The Alstom IT deal would 'enhance SiteScope's positioning' within a growing Australian market. Resellers for other products were also being sought, he added.

Mercury Interactive is a US-based company with revenues of US$500 million a year and a market capitalisation of US$4.5 billion, Sowden said.