Bell Micro Channel Voice 8

Channel ISSUE 8

VOICE The Enterprise Newsletter from Bell Micro

Why Bell Micro and HP are ‘Investing in partnership’

How Bell Micro are making it easier for Business Partners to SECURE THE DEAL

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Look out in this issue for: Realising virtual Windows of opportunity with Symantec

Meeting the Data Management challenge head-on with IBM

How to sharpen your HP Services revenue this winter

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Managing Change to create IT opportunity There’s no denying that things have changed in the channel, post financial crisis and as we move into a recession. At Bell Micro we believe the best strategy is to adapt to change, meeting the challenges of the new economy head on. More than that, we firmly believe that our value-add proposition to you means providing the insight, ideas and commitment you need to respond to recessionary IT agendas. You can see from the testimonial included on this page that Bell Micro is pulling out all the stops to make things happen for you and your customers.

We’re focusing our efforts on identifying and promoting the technologies that address today’s most relevant IT business drivers including: cost optimisation, energy efficiency and information security. Inside this edition of Channel Voice you will find information about ‘Secure the Deal’, a dynamic new programme from Bell Micro Security aimed at revenue growth via security attach.

Similarly you can read how our HP team is ‘Investing in partnership’ with proactive channel partners to build the skills and insight needed to thrive in even the toughest economy.

Take a look at how Bell Micro is making virtualisation a tangible opportunity via

Symantec’s data protection solutions for Windows.

Finally, on this page, you see how Bell Micro Financial Services is responding to the changing economic climate by directly challenging the lack of commercial credit that’s causing deals to be shelved, see how our finance solutions are challenging even the sternest financial pushbacks from your customers.

Regards

John Toal, President, Bell Micro EMEA

Bring old deals back to life

‘‘

Just a quick email to say a tremendous thank you to you and your team for the continued outstanding support you provide to us – a real testament to the quality of Bell Micro’s value added partnership, espoused by many but delivered by very few!

Adam Lawton and Ian Jolley responded to impossible timeframes to support us in a last minute tender for the public sector team and went the ‘extra mile’ to help us make this happen – a big thank you to those guys and all the team there at Bell.

’’

Mike Whittle Director, The DTP Group Enterprise Division

Has your project been shelved indefinitely? Your proposal may be the best in the market, but without budget the deal will not close!

Bell Micro is keen to help you revisit those deals where the customer has pushed back on finance, and take to them a compelling new finance solution from Bell Micro Financial Services. You may have already agreed that the deal is technically attractive for your end-user; with this finance option it can become commercially viable too.

Whether it's hardware, software or services, we can arrange a finance solution for you. If it's a solution destined for your customer's IT environment or technology you need in your own business, an agreement with Bell Micro Financial Services can close this deal for you.

Key advantages: • Finance hardware, software or services • Risk reduction • Tax advantages • Improves cash flow • Payment plans to make life easier/ to suit • Capital conserved for other projects • Budget management becomes easier • Payment achieved much earlier • Technology refresh, and ability to resell at a later date

Contact your Account Manager or the Bell Micro Finance Team to find out more: Dee Weston DWeston@bellmicro.eu or 07909 995 561 alternatively Gary Grant GGrant@bellmicro.eu or 07986 072 801.

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At Bell Micro we believe that security is too often an afterthought. We have all done the hard work around a server, storage or infrastructure deal but then overlook the margin and solutions opportunity that security can bring to the deal. SECURE THE DEAL challenges this status quo by ensuring that security is embedded into every business opportunity.

All of Bell Micro’s sales teams receive ongoing security

Even in the toughest economic conditions there are areas of IT that stubbornly demand attention and budget. IT security is one such issue. These days you can’t see the news or read a newspaper without hearing a story about lost laptops and memory sticks, sensitive data left on obsolete hard drives or critical information that’s leaked onto a website.

The simple truth is that your customers are still talking about keeping their data, systems and networks secure, they’re worried about being compromised by people inside or outside the business and they’re concerned about the damaging impact on their business reputation and profitability if their security fails. The opportunity around IT security is everywhere and growing.

All of this reaffirms Bell Micro’s determination to put IT security at the core of our value proposition. ‘SECURE THE DEAL’ is an exciting new programme from Bell Micro that is designed to make a big impact on the way we all sell security. We are investing now in campaigns, resources and skills that will help our channel partners to access available security budgets in their customer base.

sales training, helping you to spot and build opportunities in your base. Our specialist Bell Micro Security Division supports these teams and your business by providing all the security expertise and resource you need to confidently approach and win any security deal.

Bringing together vendors, Bell Micro and our broad community of channel partners, SECURE THE DEAL is focused on driving security business. From tactical lead generation activity and security sales training right through to strategic alliance building with the industry’s top security solution providers, SECURE THE DEAL has been created to make it simple to spot and win the security opportunity.

For our existing resellers, SECURE THE DEAL means a fresh approach to the market with dynamic new sales tools and messages that resonate with customers. For resellers looking to access security revenues, this programme delivers painless entry into the sector by providing everything required to go to market in one place.

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Realise Virtual Windows of Opportunity FACT: Windows is growing rapidly within the datacentre Windows Servers growing at 22% p.a., Microsoft Exchange expected to have a 66% market share by 2008 and SQL Server the fastest growing Relational Database Management System at 28% p.a.

FACT: Server virtualisation is becoming increasingly popular Delivering improved hardware utilisation and considerable cost savings, amongst a host of other benefits.

Server virtualisation and the proliferation of unstructured data (any data not held in a database) prevalent in a Windows environment have created their own challenges, which your customers will undoubtedly be looking to address.

Data Protection in a Virtualised Environment Symantec provides a range of solutions that help organisations to protect both information and applications, enhance datacentre service levels, improve storage and server utilisation, manage physical and virtual environments, and drive down operational costs.

The new release of Backup Exec 12.5 allows organisations to easily protect their data and systems in a physical and virtual environment through award-winning technology to provide comprehensive data protection for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and conventional physical systems from a single console. Backup Exec also reduces complexity by enabling users to backup an unlimited number of guest machines within a Microsoft Hyper-V host environment to disk or tape from a single agent.

EV8 New Feature

Summary of New Functionality

Optimised SingleInstance Storage

Best storage footprint of any archive: • Optimised Single Instance Storage • Sharing between email, attachments & files • One common storage model for all archived items

Seamless End User Experience

• Mobile Search – Blackberry & Windows Mobile – Search & access archived information • Vault Cache – Replaces Offline Vault – Synchronised offline vault access – Bandwidth optimised

Simplified Deployment, Administration and Management

• Getting Started Configuration Wizard – Option to install known default settings – Uses known best practices • Easy day-to-day administration – Age & Quota archiving in same policy – Common Tasks Dashboard – Exchange 2007 Managed Folder Support • Simplified Backup

Discovery Accelerator with Guided Review

• New analytics tools speed review (Guided Review) – Conversational view of email threads – Bulk message marking (rules based) – Search within search • New higher productivity user interface – Lightweight client within browser – Quickly filter by sender, date, tags, category etc

The Windows Challenge A Symantec survey of IT managers conducted by Applied Research in September 2008 found the following: • 85 percent rated protecting business information ‘important’ or ‘extremely important’ • Half say that their email and SharePoint content is growing at a rate of more than 30 percent annually • 75 percent indicate that reducing the amount of storage for unstructured information is ‘important’ or ‘extremely important’ • Only 15 percent feel confident that they could quickly produce information required for legal discovery The Symantec Solution to Data Management Symantec’s industry leading email and content archiving platform.

Enterprise Vault 8.0, helps organisations reduce the costs of storing unstructured information such as email, instant messages and files by more than 60 per cent through a combination of enhancements to its data de-duplication and electronic discovery features and through associated energy cost savings.

Visit www.bellmicro.eu/symantec or contact your Bell Micro Account Manager for further information

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Meeting the Data Management Challenge Head On Your customers will undoubtedly be facing the challenges of managing explosive data growth, ever-increasing requirements for regulatory compliance and the complexity of managing distributed data. With the potentially devastating costs of lost business information, it’s obviously critical for organisations to employ effective, companywide data protection strategies.

Always looking to help However, in today’s economic climate, you stay ahead of the game, it’s also vital that they can do so Bell Micro has become the first in a way that is both cost UK distributor for IBM Information effective and resilient.

Protection Services – Remote Data

Protection: a highly reliable, distributed data protection service available on a ‘pay as you use’ basis.

Information is backed up to a secure IBM datacentre using the client’s existing IP network. In the event of a system failure or

IBM Information Protection Services give you the opportunity to generate new annuity revenue streams, whilst also directly addressing key customer pain points.

Contact your Bell Micro Account Manager to find out more.

accidental deletion, clients can use the Web restore engine to identify and recover files or folders from the backup location.

Predictable and affordable

Usage-based monthly billing, based on total amount of data protected

Peace of mind

A managed service that automatically protects business critical data servers and PCs

Secure and efficient

Provides secure, bandwidth efficient, network-based daily backups to a ‘data vault’ at a remote Internet data centre

Quick restores

Delivers rapid, user-initiated, web-based restores

No capital investment

Fully automated service that includes all hardware, software, expert staffing, and 24x7 monitoring and management

Global support

A global help desk is available 24x7

Tivoli Storage Manager ®

Our research tells us that most end users have a back-up strategy…

Your customers may be using a home-grown fix, IBM Tivoli or an alternative product – but if you're not supplying their back-up solution you could be missing a great opportunity.

Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) is a natural extension of a hardware sale or a software application – it provides end users with secure secondary copy of their data so if disaster strikes their critical information is not lost.

And by selling TSM you can gain additional margin and service opportunities from your existing customer base.

Whether you prefer to offer full support service with high margins or a low-touch sale with base-level discounts, Bell Micro can help. Our experts can help you skill-up on TSM, or they can install and configure the products on your behalf - so with Bell Micro's assistance you're supported all the way.

Please contact Matt Jarvis to find out how Bell Micro can help you make money out of Tivoli. Matt’s number is 07979 954817, or email mjarvis@bellmicro.eu

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Thinking about Diet and De-Tox? Help your customers fight the fat with IBM N series With the festivities behind us and the start of a brand new year, we’re all full of good intentions to lead a healthier lifestyle. So, why not take the same approach when it comes to your customers’ storage infrastructures – finding ways of helping them to consume less, whilst also reaching and maintaining peak performance.

Labelling schemes on food packaging are a great way to help consumers make better choices by giving ‘at a glance’ information about nutritional content. With IBM N series solutions, you can help your customers to select their data storage solution with the same level of confidence.

IBM N series solutions will make storage infrastructures fitter – not fatter!

With rapid provisioning capabilities and efficient cloning that does not waste capacity with full copies of data, IBM N series storage systems help to reduce the demand for power, cooling and space – lowering the total cost of ownership and ensuring an all round leaner and greener IT architecture.

Historically, storage efficiency has been low – with often as little as 50% of storage capacity utilised effectively. IBM N series solutions with FlexVol technology make thin provisioning a flexible and straightforward process, allowing your customers to quickly adapt to changing business needs and minimise costs, whilst still meeting high performance requirements.

For instance, if they are running VMware on IBM N Series, using the FlexVol technology to enable thin provisioning could increase storage utilisation by at least 30%, cutting capital expenditure costs on new storage by 50%.

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Finding escalating storage demands hard to digest?

Are your customers worried that their storage systems are carrying excess weight that simply can’t be sustained, particularly given the current economic climate? Here’s how you can help them to address this particular pain point, with IBM N series solutions:

1. Flexible Volumes N series’ FlexVol storage virtualisation technology offers the following benefits: • Adapt quickly and easily to changing storage needs, through the creation of ‘virtual volumes’.

• Reduce capital expenditure and overheads through the use of “just-in-time” storage with built-in thin provisioning.

• Pool physical storage, so that volumes can be created and resized dynamically and automatically without disruption, as application needs and business demands change.

• Improve, and even double the utilisation of existing storage.

• Improve I/O performance and reduce bottlenecks, by distributing volumes across all available disk drives.

2. Active Deduplication N series deduplication provides on-box, block-level deduplication within the entire flexible volume on N series storage systems for primary, backup and archive data.

No other solution can do that – providing significant cost and management benefits: • Utilise minimal system resources - primary data, backup data, and archival data can all be deduplicated with nominal impact on data centre operations.

• Schedule deduplication to occur during off-peak times, applications can sustain critical performance but still realise significantly reduced storage capacity requirements.

• Install the simple, command-based deduplication feature in minutes. Once deduplication is enabled and scheduled, no other action is required.

• Select which datasets to deduplicate with tools designed to evaluate those datasets and help point out the areas that will provide the greatest return.

• Perform a full byte-for-byte validation before removing any duplicate data for worryfree deduplication.

3. Space Efficient Copies N series’ Snapshot™, FlexClone®, SnapMirror® and SnapVault® technology offers the following benefits: • Use Snapshot™ to perform instant backups with no impact on performance and minimal consumption of storage space, while applications are running.

• Use FlexClone® to instantly replicate data volumes, files and LUNs as virtual copies - speeding up development and test activities, facilitating thin provisioning and reducing space, power and cooling costs.

• Use SnapMirror® to protect business-critical data effectively and efficiently, by replicating only changed data blocks to your disaster recovery site over an IP or FC connection.

• Use SnapVault® to ensure the speed and simplicity of backup and recovery – minimising the storage capacity and administrative resources required.

For more information visit www.lowfatstorage.com or call Heather Haworth at Bell Micro on 01706 898249.

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Investing in partnership Investing in you As we all face the business implications of first the credit crunch and now a looming recession it’s critical not to suffer from paralysis by analysis.

Some organisations will be caught in the headlights of the financial crisis and will fail to act, unable to adapt and change to suit today’s stark economic reality. But at Bell Micro and HP we intend to take a more proactive route forward than that, seeking out the opportunity in this adversity from leaner meaner technologies and cost-cutting IT investment.

‘Investing in partnership’ is about Bell Micro’s partnership with our customers and our partnership with HP. We know it’s our job to work with you to identify the issues that will drive customer spend on IT – issues like reducing IT energy costs in the business, exploiting virtualisation and consolidation effectively to reduce IT infrastructure costs or building high availability to ensure or improve customer service standards in today’s highly competitive atmosphere.

Bell Micro is a key distribution partner for HP, we’re number one or two in each of the markets we engage in with HP because we know their technology inside out, we understand how it works in your customer’s business context and we invest in the skills necessary to help you scope and deploy these solutions.

We’re already great at this, but Investing in partnership also means we will work harder than ever to make sure we can translate HP’s offer to suit you and your customers. Our Product Managers, Pre-Sales and Account Support teams thoroughly understand HP’s evolving product and service set, so that we can quickly and effectively align these messages with your customer’s specific needs, always looking for appropriate attach, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities to maximise the value of the deal for you.

Investing in your in-house capabilities Not only will we invest time and resources in unearthing the truth about IT spend in a recessionary environment, we will focus on helping you build the capabilities you need in-house to make the most of these opportunities, building your internal service revenues and having the sales skills required to extend and maximise every deal.

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Our Sales and Technical academies are already a proven vehicle for skills transfer into qualified partner businesses. Now aligned with Business Matters and our thorough knowledge of the HP offer, you can be confident that the time invested in the technical and soft skills these academies provide will rapidly translate into revenue. Where it’s not feasible to acquire these skills in house Bell Micro is investing in people within our Partner Services team to ensure we can always find the skills to complement your in-house offer, letting you approach every deal with confidence.

Identifying the technologies that count ‘Business Matters’ is a new initiative from Bell Micro (launching Jan/Feb 2009) that’s dedicated to investigating your customer’s boardroom agenda. It’s critical that the IT channel aligns itself effectively with these issues, creating solutions and business arguments that resonate with your customer base and provide you with compelling business arguments in any customer conversation. Business Matters is designed to do exactly this and we’ll be talking to you very soon in more detail about how this initiative can contribute to your business.

From Integrity BladeSystem bringing the energy and efficiency of blade computing into business-critical computing environments to ProLiant Virtualisation and continuous consolidation via Insight Dynamics VSE – Bell Micro is investing in understanding the HP solutions that will really make a difference to your sales.

The people behind the partnership At the very heart of Investing in partnership is our Account Management partnership with you. We don’t simply take your order and conduct our relationship over the phone, our experienced IT Account Managers work directly with you, focused on your business. They have the skills and business insight you need to build an effective sales strategy for 2009, plugging you into Bell Micro and HP in the most profitable manner. They can quickly put you in touch with the people that can make a deal happen and make delivery simple and rewarding.

The brief for Bell Micro Account Managers is more than about maximising the number, it’s also about building a relationship that will stand the test of time, that will see us all through a recession and ensure our partnership is positioned to take advantage of a future upturn in business.

Find out more about Bell Micro’s investment in partnership and what this means for you by visiting www.bellmicro.eu/hp or contacting your Bell Micro Account Manager.

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Brighten your Services business this winter

Sharpen your HP Services with Bell Micro

Selling vendor services has always been margin friendly, and with Bell Micro it’s even more rewarding. Over the last few quarters, more than 40 HP business partners have already received over £15,000 in Capital Bonds through our Contract Retention, Incremental & Overall Contracts incentives.

To help you reap the rewards of this business, Bell Micro has now extended these great incentives until the end of January:

NEW 20% with HP new business initiative To help you be even more competitive, HP will also be offering an additional discount of 20%** off your standard ASMP buy price from now until the end of January, for any business where the customer has: • Never held a support contract with HP • Currently been on contract with a 3rd party and is looking to migrate back to HP • Not had a support contract with HP in the last 90 days

Contract Retention incentive • If you renew a contract over £10k net during the incentive period you qualify for £150 Capital Bonds • If you renew a contract over £20k net during the incentive period you qualify for £300 Capital Bonds This is based on order value to Bell Micro

Incremental Services revenue post point of product sale For incremental revenue of: • £5,000 win £100 Capital Bonds • £10,000 win £150 Capital Bonds • £20,000 win £500 Capital Bonds

Overall contracts incentive This incentive is open to all partners.

During the incentive period, all of your placed orders will be entered into a draw to win £1,000 Capital Bonds

This is based on order value to Bell Micro

Why Bell Micro for Vendor Services You can be confident selling Vendor Services with Bell Micro. Channel only, our dedicated specialists enjoy a thorough understanding of the offerings from HP and IBM, and are always on hand to help you scope and win business.

Our team is employed directly by Bell Micro so you can be confident your data and customer insight is in safe hands.

We have a fantastic pedigree in Vendor Services, representing your business back into the vendor at the highest level and leveraging the resource and expertise you need.

We are also represented on the European Services Advisory Board.

There is no need to register for the incentives as Bell Micro automatically tracks and monitors sales. All you have to do is focus on doing this business. Prize winners will be notified by email. The Bell Micro decision is final. *This incentive targets systems not already on contract. For the purposes of the incentive systems = processor or EVA. The incentive does not cover items recently bought at point of product sale. If the systems targeted are on warranty or HA, they are not included unless there is uplift in service to a higher level. **The additional discount cannot be used to target business already direct with HP or another HP partner, nor should it be used to compete against an opportunity that would normally have been fulfilled by Care Pack.

For more information please contact the Bell Micro Vendor Services team on 01706 222 180 or visit www.partnerservices.co.uk

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Hosted Email Security:

global intelligence, local protection Nowadays standalone anti-virus software is no longer enough to stand up to the onslaught of spam or the complex array of email security threats battering businesses.

Organisations Gartner estimates 1 in 20 emails contain malware, and with cyber criminals that do not adequately increasingly using a blend of threats – threats originating on the Web, delivered in address messaging security email and targeted at critical information – this presents a huge challenge.

‘‘

IT managers need to look for an intelligent security solution with accurate, built-in threat analysis and zero-day protection. With a hosted service, email protection is provided away from the customer network, thus keeping threats away from the network without any loss of control for the administrator.

Websense captures more than 90 million unsolicited spam, phishing or exploit campaigns destined for Websense customers every day so it’s no wonder that a hosted service offers many IT managers peace of mind that this is all taken care of in the cloud.

Here are a few of the considerations for IT managers to weigh up when making a decision: • Cost and complexity • Internal IT resources • Network capacity and scalability • Email content inspection • Reporting and policy setting

problems face legal liabilities, financial risks, the potential for not being in compliance with statutory and legal requirements and other risks.

’’

Advantages of a Hosted Security Model.

Osterman Research, April 2008.

Websense ThreatSeeker Technology Websense hosted services stand out by offering local protection based on global security intelligence delivered by the Websense ThreatSeeker Network.

This technology feeds security “intelligence” to Websense Web, email and data security solutions to provide the most up-to-date protection.

Websense SaaS Solution Websense Hosted Email Security is a solution that provides your customers with comprehensive email security against the latest threats and protects essential business information.

Websense Essential Information Protection Websense Hosted Email Security forms part of the unique technologies offered by Websense, i.e. integrated Web, data and messaging security solutions that work together to protect your customers’ most important information. Customers who choose at least one of the product families will realise the benefits associated with vendor consolidation, such as reduced costs, better return on investment and products that work together to provide a better level of protection.

To arrange a free evaluation of Websense Hosted Email Security for your customer (or Web and data security solutions), visit www.websense.com/downloads or call the Bell Micro Security Team on 0208 410 7995.

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New starters Lesley Craine

Account Support

Terry Curling

IBM Sales Specialist

Craig Dodge

BDM – Security

Matthew Fordham

Pre Sales Technical Specialist

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BDM, Data Centre Solutions

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Pre Sales Consultant

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Resource Consultant

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Pillar Data Business Manager

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Senior Account Manager

Nicola Wood

Order Management Acc Manager

Samantha Willey

IBM Brand Manager

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