A Graham, Tex-based storage vendor is eyeing the Canadian market for the first time in its 30-year history after signing a deal with GE Access.
Prior to becoming a vendor partner of the distributor, Media Recovery Inc., which provides a variety of tape technologies including 9840, 9940, LTO
I, LTO II, DLT, SuperDLT and DDS, relied solely on its U.S.-based direct sales team to sell its storage products and services.
Now as a GE Access partner, Media Recovery can tap into the Westminster, Colo.-based distributor’s base of solution providers.
In turn, the distributor can offer its resellers another option for rapid turnaround on tape media and associated services at a competitive price. GE Access declined to put a dollar figure on what that price is.
John Prymak, Colorado branch manager for Media Recovery said the partnership will, “”open up markets and clients through (GE Access) reseller network,”” and “”give (Media Recovery) breadth across North America.””
Prymak said Media Recovery, a U.S. $110 million dollar company, hopes to grow its business by 10 to 20 per cent in the next couple of years. Its main clients include IBM data centres, financial institutions, telecos and oil and gas companies.
Mike Koprowski, director of enterprise storage with GE Access, said it opens up doors for GE Access as well.
“”It’s a two-way street,”” said Koprowski. “”We can bring Media Recovery into some opportunities that they weren’t aware of and vice versa.””
GE Access learned about Media Recovery’s products and services after it approached the firm one year ago to help it re-label media that had been incorrectly labeled by manufacturers.
“”We were intrigued by some of the services that Media Recovery provides around tape,”” said Koprowski. The three main services offered by Media Recovery are media conversion, media destruction and media buyback.
For example, if a customer bought a tape library two years ago and is looking for something larger and faster, Media Recovery will buy it back and apply the credit towards the purchase of new media library, according to Prymak.
Customers can receive from 10 to 30 per cent savings on their initial purchase.
So, if the type of media the customer wants is worth $10,000 and it has 1,000 tapes in its old library, the company will buy the old tapes back for $10 apiece.
Using an analogy to describe what Media Recovery provides, Prymak said: “”We provide gas for cars.””
One of the main benefits is a faster turnaround time for tape media.
“”The turnaround is now three days as opposed to three weeks,”” Kowprowski said.
In the past storage vendors, who often didn’t have the tape media in stock, had to buy from manufacturers and often ordered the wrong type, he added.
The delivery time from the manufacturer to the vendor usually took about three to four weeks.
Because Media Recovery keeps all media in stock, Prymak said its orders are ready to go, saving customers from five to 25 per cent in total cost.
Another benefit for channel partners, said Kowprowski, is they can add to their sales.
“”The tape media sale can help drive additional hardware sales for our valued tape hardware providers.””
In terms of return-on-investment, Kowprowski said that since tape technology doesn’t require a huge training curve, the reseller won’t have to invest a great deal time and financial resources to sell the media.
