Canadian distributor Supercom Canada has announced that starting next month, it will begin offering Microsoft’s entire OEM hardware and software product offerings as an official Authorized Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) distributor. In doing so, the distributor is hoping to further expand its current reseller base by attracting smaller resellers across the country.
Edman Lau, director of product development at Supercom, said this new accreditation will likely attract smaller resellers across Canada from small cities. The company has branches located in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal and currently has more than 5,000 active resellers listed in its database. By Supercom becoming an authorized distributor, Lau said it will give resellers the confidence in knowing that the products they purchase are coming directly from Microsoft Canada.
“In general, we sell to the SOHO (small office and home office) types of resellers, although we’re open to working with anyone,” Lau said. “Resellers will know for sure that all of our Microsoft products are genuine from Microsoft Canada because especially now, there’s a lot of gray market products coming into the country.”
From a financial standpoint, Lau said resellers that purchase Microsoft products from Supercom will also receive rebates from Microsoft Canada. In addition, he notes that with other bundle opportunities also in place, margins will be higher for resellers that purchase from the company beginning April 1.
“We see positive impact and more revenue and gross profit for not only our resellers but also for Supercom and Microsoft as well,” Lau said.
Three key areas that Lau cites Supercom expects to see growth in include Windows Vista, Windows Server as well as Microsoft’s Office products. He said the company is now working to train its sales and technical support employees to help ramp everyone up to speed on the Microsoft portfolio. Training for Supercom resellers, he said, will be available through a combination of both Supercom and Microsoft efforts.