D-Link, NCR strike services deal

The deal forms part of the D-Link's plan to hit the enterprise market with services contracts attached to product sales and attack Cisco Systems, which it claimed charges a price premium to enterprise customers.

Maurice Famularo, marketing director at D-Link Australia and New Zealand, said NCR will provide 24x7 managed services including onsite installation services, help desk support and remedial services for D-Link gear only under D-Link's NetProtect brand.

D-Link channel partners will make a few points margin brokering the NCR services contracts, he said. "The margins are honest. We have never done on-site services before, it's always been telephone support for us. With NetProtect, we can provide a range of services that are normally only available via dedicated IT outsourcing arrangements.

He said: "A lot of resellers don't want to get involved in providing post-sales support. The smaller resellers often can't guarantee the service level so they sell NetProtect and make a few points margin," he said.

Famularo said the company - which has previously sold mainly to SMEs - wants to play at the top end of town and will unveil enterprise-class switching products in six weeks.

"In India, we're the number one [network equipment] vendor. We throw Cisco out the door just about on every quote. D-Link is the enterprise provider there [in India]. For us to get switching gear into Telstra [in Australia] is almost impossible," he said.

D-Link and NCR plan to rollout the agreement across some parts of Europe and Asia before the end of the year.

Famularo said Cisco Systems have had the enterprise space for so long and are now trying to move downscale. "They [Cisco] are saying there's not much money in the enterprise space - that's because they're charging a premium. They're prices are still expensive," he claimed.

"Our products in some cases are 30 to 40 percent cheaper [than Cisco's]," he said.