Avnet drives into mid-market

Distributor Avnet Partner Solutions has launched Avnet Ready -- a division that combines IBM and Novell SuSe Linux hardware and software bundles for resellers targeting the mid-market.

The distributor said it would on-sell IBM’s Express portfolio of products and services and hoped to lift Novell SuSe Linux sales to the reseller channel, which had been slow to date.

Avnet struck a distribution deal with Novell SuSe in February as part of an expansion into the mid-market and to broaden its reach to ISVs.

Michael Costigan, marketing director at Avnet Partner Solutions, said most Linux products sold to existing partners had been around SuSe Enterprise Server Edition 9.

The company recently signed new partners at its Avnet-Novell roadshow, held around Australia.

Costigan said sales had been slow, but the company hoped to drive demand with Avnet Ready on the back of IBM’s Express range.

Colin McKenna, managing director at Avnet, said “actual business was not happening yet" despite a "good degree of interest" from resellers around Linux.

 Resellers were still learning how to sell open source platforms, he said.

“Linux is really a strategic position for us. We’re actually quite pleased [with sales results]. We didn’t look at Linux as a major revenue or margin [earner] but there’s a flow-on effect,” he said.

Avnet Ready would see the distributor create “solution stacks” aimed at the low end of the market. Resellers would order the "aggressively priced" packages over the telephone or web, said McKenna.