Tech Data boosts BTO offerings

The Mississauga, Ont.-based distributor is helping white box builders delve deeper into constructing white servers, build-to-order (BTO) notebooks and media PCs.

According to Ray Gonsalves, its director of product marketing, these three markets are hot and where system builders should be directing their energies.

“In the past they have been system builders, but now they have to be solution builders and that is the service they can’t get through a toll-free number,” said Gonsalves.

He added the average selling prices for basic desktop PCs are low now thanks to the logistics supply chains of direct sales companies.

Gonsalves is asking system builders to leverage local relationships with small and mid-size customers for service rather than compete with such manufacturers.

He said it is a matter of confidence between the system builder and the local customer. “They have built up these customers and this is the best opportunity they have going forward,” he added.

In the past, Gonsalves said, system building wasn’t much more than assembling CPUs, motherboards, cases, hard drives and memory. “That was the solution. Now you get notebooks with networking gear and some applications and (system builders are) deploying those. That is the solution and that is the system solution that these system builders need to provide today.”

To that end, Tech Data Canada has entered into an agreement with notebook PC and mobile product provider Sabio Digital. The distributor already has partnerships with Quanta and Compel, through its association with Bizcom, for build-to-order services. Sabio Digital provides products that range from bare-bones models to configured notebooks. Through this new relationship, system builders can purchase Sabio Digital’s custom-built notebooks for the mobile market place from the distributor.

White Servers
The server market is another hot opportunity for system builders, Gonsalves said. He believes that Microsoft, with its Small Business Server software, is fueling demand among small businesses across Canada.

“Local system builders can cash in on (Small Business Server) for selling servers and software for back up scheduling and be their IT shop.”

The overall forecast is for white server sales to show between 15 and 20 per cent growth in entry-level servers alone, he said.

Tech Data Canada has more than 150 system builders signed on to its System Builder Business Unit.

Tech Data offers an online configurator for resellers for BTO so that they can compare notebook and server pricing. The distributor also has a partnership with W3 so that each white product has a guaranteed warranty with upgrade options.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Paolo Del Nibletto
Paolo Del Nibletto
Former editor of Computer Dealer News, covering Canada's IT channel community.

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