Until recently, Aten Technology sold its remote management hardware to OEM manufacturers and direct sales companies.
But in November it will turn to the channel.
Aten, which makes keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) remote connectivity switches, hopes to sign 100 resellers here in its first year alone.
To lure them, its channel program offers $5,000 in market development funds as soon as the VAR signs on the dotted line.
“Our executives decided there’s still room for us to support our existing (OEM) customers and branch out and start branding ourselves,” Jeffrey Williams, the Taiwan company’s senior sales manager for North America, explained during a trip to Toronto last week.
“We’ve started in the U.S. to get everything lined up on how we want to go after the market, and just now started to look towards Canada as our next area to attack.”
Aten is not unknown to the channel. It’s IO Gear division, which makes KVM switches for the consumer and small business market, has gone through resellers for years. The Aten line, however is aimed at small enterprises and up.
Williams has a staff of two here already, one in Toronto who will work exclusively with VARs, another in Montreal who will continue to be a representative to manufacturers but will also help resellers.
Ingram Micro Canada has already been signed as a distributor.
The company already sells its products here through direct marketers such as Insight, CDW and Tiger Direct. “We wanted to start some volume of sales up here,” said Williams.
But Aten now wants to find value added resellers.
“We want to play with traditional solution providers,” he said.
He has a first year target of $5 million in sales. “We anticipate with the growth of KVM sales (in the U.S.) being about 33 per cent year on year – particularly IP solutions – we can easily be on par with that in five years.”
Competitors in this space include Raritan and Avocent, but Williams said Aten’s products cost less without compromising on features or quality because it builds its own equipment. Aten can also customize some hardware, if justified by volume.
Its channel program, dubbed the Six-Star VAR Program, has four levels: At the top, platinum partners have a $100,000 annual sales goal and get four per cent back end rebate on products; gold partners have a $75,000 sales goal and get three per cent off products; and silver partners have a $50,000 annual sales target and get two per cent rebate.
“Once you’re approved we immediately give you $5,000 MDF dollars to play with,” said Williams, “because we understand that there’s a cost of doing business with manufacturers, especially with us who don’t have a name like the Avocents. We know we need to help you market.”
The money can be used for print or e-mail campaigns, as well as putting on events.
The fourth level is also a registered partner, for those who don’t want to sell products but do want to be an information resource to Aten. These partners aren’t eligible for benefits.
One benefit for VARs is that the company is not over-distributed, he said, so partners won’t have to worry about price-cutting.
The company’s product line include eight, 16- and 32-port IP and analogue KVMs – as either rack mounted switch boxes or slide-out consoles with an LCD monitor – data switches, video switches and cables. Through an agreement it also is a source for NetBotz’s remote environmental monitoring solutions.
“We’re wide and deep,” Williams said of the line.
“We’re an alternative,” said Williams. “We’re not the name. We are not the Nike, not the Coke. But as you test our products you’re not dealing with a third party manufacturing company.”