| 08 July 2010 |
Netgear eyes up mid-market |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at analyst euroLAN, said: “Cost-conscious organisations will have to look at [Netgear]. But it is a market that is really over-subscribed.”
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| 15 June 2010 |
D-Link looks to sign partner elite |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at analyst euroLAN, claimed the loyalty demanded by D-Link at the top level can be hard to come by in the channel.
“It needs a programme that allows partners to build joint solutions with other manufacturers in areas such as security,” he said.
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| 20 April 2010 |
ProCurve, 3Com brands to become a memory |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at channel analysis outfit euroLAN, forecast that 3Com's previous channel history would now be "quietly forgotten".
However, he cautioned, "I would like to see a more detailed product roadmap, as there are issues that remain".
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| 16 April 2010 |
D-Link eyes enterprise assault |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at analyst euroLAN, claimed enterprise success was “all about routes to market”.
“It is important to get on a recruitment drive and make sure it has a defined partner offer for SME VARs,” he said. “One of D-Link’s strengths is its green credentials; it could market around that.”
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| 01 April 2010 |
VMware points VARs to desktop |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at euroLAN research, said the adoption of desktop virtualisation was gathering pace in the enterprise.
“In the mid-market and below, adoption is not as widespread, but VARs should be getting on board with Citrix, Microsoft or VMware sooner rather than later if they do not want to miss the boat,” he said
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| 29 March 2010 |
Bell Microproducts sold to Avnet for $594m |
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EuroLAN managing consultant Keith Humphreys said the deal would make Avnet a "serious player in the datacentre space".
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| 19 March 2010 |
Force10 courts Cisco resellers |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at euroLAN Research, said the vendor’s “opportunistic approach” to the Cisco/HP rift had yielded results, but may not in the future.
“It has made Force10 headlines, grabbed market attention and given its market share a boost,” he said. “But, most end users will take the line of least resistance and stick with what they know, so it is unclear how effective this vendor-targeted app-roach will be in the long run.”
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| 08 March 2010 |
Brocade targets 50% customer growth with channel shake-up |
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EuroLAN managing consultant Keith Humphreys said that given Brocade's OEM-focused model, the firm's slip-up was not surprising, but warned that the vendor will have to do more than expand its own channel teams to make up the lost ground.
"Brocade can recover from that, but not through Foundry partners. They'll have to go and recruit elsewhere and get to the Ethernet market through data centre VARs, which is a better route to market anyway," he said
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| 04 February 2010 |
Cisco names Magirus first speciality datacentre distributor |
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With no competing server or networking vendors at Magirus, the Cisco partnership looks like a logical choice in the view of Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at euroLAN and network industry watcher. “Magirus is hanging its hat early on the cloud computing model and that’s a brave move – and probably right,” comments Humphreys. “And for the smaller UCS focused partners, they can potentially offer a good service but the big datacentre integrators don’t really need them.”
Humphreys points to the existing big Cisco distributors like Westcon, Azlan and Tech Data who already have many elements of the datacentre story from Cisco as potential overlap. “The only thing Magirus is missing is a Microsoft element,” comments Humphreys, adding that he would not be surprised if that was something they added later.
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| 04 February 2010 |
Magirus lands Cisco data centre distribution contract |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at euroLAN, said the UCS was reference architecture and as such Cisco required Magirus to stage and configure systems.
"If Cisco had not appointed Magirus, the danger was that it was not going to get to the partners that specialise in the data centre, [this gives them the ability to] reach, recruit and an on-boarding capability that broadliners do not really have," he said
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| 29 January 2010 |
ShoreTel squares up to market silverbacks |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant for analyst euroLAN, claimed ShoreTel would be wise to home in on its most successful horizontals, rather than trying to square up to the market’s silverbacks.
“I think it has a very good space in the mid-market and the top of the SME market,” he said. “I would think aiming to recruit the big boys would not be the ideal strategy.
“Cisco and Avaya are going to stay sitting at the top, and companies such as ShoreTel and Mitel are going to duke it out.”
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| 15 January 2010 |
Gamma hits the road in tech drive |
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Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at euroLAN, said it was crucial for vendors to communicate their message properly to business partners.
“Partners need to be educated on how to be able to sell these products, and particularly with a managed service/annuity sell, so they can learn how to reward the sales teams,” he said. “The evangelising play has to be part of a face-to-face event such as this.”
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