Providing value-add in any market can become increasingly difficult as the competition continues to mimic your every move and steal you thunder. But keeping pace with Bell Micro, and their ever expanding programs, might leave some of the competition a bit dizzy and scrambling for a response. The latest expansion in business was the introduction of HP equipment by Bell Micro to their large OEM customer base. This effectively transformed how Bell Micro, through their OEM-Ready program, is able to provide OEMs access to branded equipment along with Bell Micro resources, supply chains, product lifecycles, priority, and services available nowhere else..
In the past Bell Micro has used their expertise in the storage industry to not only sell storage but also provide a skill-set and value-add services to help OEMs build their business throughout a product’s lifecycle. Recently, this analyst has come across information that Bell Micro stirring up the pot again. Just so happens, Bell Micro is rounding up vendor service offerings in the market. Then, working with a select group of vendors and VARs, Bell Micro is getting ready to introduce a new set of value-add services. With this new service offering, vendors are responsible for delivering the services in their area of expertise–allowing VARs to concentrate on selling, gain flexible financing support from Bell Micro for leased-model services, and stabilize their businesses with recurring revenue streams.
Under a new program called GoServices™, Bell Micro will be launching these services that extend beyond typical managed services to include services for assessment analysis, data management, remote management, and asset management. To make this work, Bell Micro will be drawing on their experience in relationship management between vendor and VAR while standing behind every service offering. This is not new to Bell Micro, is part of their mission, and they have proven execution in the industry, especially within their new OEM-Ready program. It is my understanding that Bell Micro has coined these areas The Four Pillars of GoServices, focusing on:
- Assessment Pillar–help new customers through a needs analysis to determine the validity of innovative technologies such as consolidation, virtualization, recovery archive and backup, compliance, etc. to help lead to follow-on services and product sales
- Data Pillar–supply hosted services by using proven data management technologies to build secure, efficient, scalable, and reliable systems that address the increasing demand for storage related to data growth and regulatory requirements.
- Managed Pillar–provide the remote management skills and services to manage any device or technology being sold to customers.
- Lifecycle Pillar–offer the services necessary to manage IT assets of a company from procurement to retirement to help lower both OEMs cost as well as those of the customer.
Proof things are working, albeit behind the scenes, I’ve heard that Teneros, a provider of application continuity appliances for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, just happens to be one of the vendors. For Teneros, it would make complete sense to turn around and offer their Software as a Service (SaaS) offering through the GoServices program–making Teneros both an OEM customer of Micro Bell, and a vendor in the GoServices program. Something I would assume other VARs/OEMs will soon express a desire to take part in. For the same reasons VARs and OEMs work with Bell Micro, jumping on the bandwagon to provide services back through Bell Micro as GoServices vendors makes more than good business. GoServices have the potential to go far beyond the strong manufacturer relationships already built by Bell Micro. With the proper tools, support, and services Bell Micro stands alone in offering VARs a method to transform traditional transaction-based reseller businesses into a broad set of service offerings.