Intel gets real about servers

The Australian leg of the campaign will be launched at Intel channel conferences in all states from 2 June.

Thomas Tapsas, channel account manager for Intel Australia, said the Real Server Campaign would provide marketing support and training resellers to increase revenue from the two-year-old range of servers based on its Xeon processor. He said Intel research suggested many smaller businesses were “making do” with desktop PCs or older proprietary systems instead of buying new dedicated servers.

“The SMB segment is an important area where our channel is strongest,” he said. “We will have channel account managers in every state talking to the channel, [using] face to face visits as well as the roadshow.”

Tapsas would not give any figures, but said sales of Xeon-based servers were still “going quite well”. The company wanted to increase its presence in emerging Asian and Pacific markets, he said.

“This marketing campaign will be the same all around the world. There's no lack of performance by the [Australian] channel,” he said. “Some of them do a great job but we think we need to go broader.”

The main focus would be “educational”, Tapsas said, although Intel would also offer bigger purchase-based rebates. “For example, if you buy an Intel server board you will get a rebate of up to $US50,” he said.

Training materials will soon be sent out to the channel, including whitepapers, online templates, checklists outlining main selling points, advertising templates for web, email or hard copy, and customisable marketing kits with Real Server branding that can be tailored by resellers and sent out to customers. “We will be sending out collateral and CDs to the channel, training [them] on our server benefits and how to get that message out to the SMBs. There will be lots of useful assets, [including] graphical stuff that customers can use both online and collateral,” Tapsas said.

Craig Quinn, product manager at ASI Solutions, said the correct server could cut business downtime. “However, a small business frequently does not have staff technical experts to find and install the right server, and small system builders and resellers often don't have the right tools to reach them.”