Tech giant, Dell, has announced Altech Computers will be its first distributor in Australia. An initial selection of 13 printers and associated toners will be distributed through the channel starting today.
The news confirms moves revealed exclusively by <i>ARN</i> in September 2010 that the vendor was planning to put products through the distribution channel, starting with printers.
Although Dell has signed with Ingram Micro in the US and Simms International in New Zealand, it has traditionally avoided distributors in the Australian market.
According to Dell director of channel business, Jay Turner, the vendor will continue to supply the 13 single and multi-function monochrome and colour laser printers direct to customers as well as through Altech. He said this came from customer and reseller feedback.
“It’s the culmination of months and months of work to get ourselves to this point,” he said. “There’ll be no advantage buying direct or indirect through a partner but at the end of the day I can’t tell you what price Altech will be selling the products for because it’s completely up to them.
“We believe we’ve got a really strong range that covers 85 per cent of the commercial space now and between ourselves and Altech we offer a strong opportunity to channel partners to extend and expand their businesses…we hope to shake up that patch.”
Turner also said the vendor could choose to expand the variety of products going through Altech without creating a new contact and that it could appoint more distributors if needed.
“But at this stage we’ve got a lot of work to do to get Altech on board so it would be presumptuous to say if we will or won’t go any further,” he said.
According to Altech head of marketing, Nick Popov, the agreement involved more than four months of negotiations between the two companies. He said the deal was very positive for the distie and would drive up its reseller database.
“It’s a great honour and responsibility to be chosen as the first distie in Australia but we have no doubt our excellent sales and marketing teams will meet Dell’s expectations,” he said. “[It’s mainly targeted at] small to medium business customers as well as Government customers via resellers bidding for tenders. There would also be quite a few system builders and home users.”
Popov said he would not approach JB Hi-Fi, which has an exclusive retail agreement with Dell. But he added other retailers would be approached by the disties.
“We expect to sell more [Dell printer units] than anything else we have right now,” he said. “We also stock Lexmark, Kyocera and Samsung…the SMB space will get the most sales.
“It is an ongoing contract and no time limit was discussed and…there’s no minimum sales requirement,” he added. “We will be looking to sell as well as we can to expand the database of customers for Dell and its presence on the market so that we can get more business.”
Popov also said both parties had committed to more joint marketing campaigns involving events, advertisements, materials and other methods.
