SAN vendor hopes for 50 additional resellers on board by Christmas following deal

SAN and iSCSI vendor LeftHand Networks has signed UK and Ireland distributor CMS Peripherals to broaden its market reach. CMS will offer the vendor’s complete portfolio to its VAR channels in the UK and predominantly Ireland.

The distributor will join Acal as LeftHand’s second distribution partner, with both recruiting resellers on behalf of the vendor.

Doug Rich, vice president of EMEA at LeftHand, said: “Both Acal and CMS are recruiting resellers and we plan to have at least 50 by Christmas. LeftHand has expanded in the UK market with Acal and is hoping to do the same with CMS in Ireland.

“The partner portal that LeftHand launched a few weeks ago has deal registration and ensures no overlap for partners. LeftHand has recruited a lot of reseller partners recently and is very sensitive about ensuring minimal overlap.”

Joe Fagan, group product marketing manager at CMS, said: “CMS was looking for a good complementary partner and LeftHand has the most interesting proposition around.

“CMS will recruit resellers on behalf of its new vendor partner and then supply training in technical skills and sales for the VARs,” said Fagan.

Fagan continued to say that a year ago there was no alternative to SAN that was not Fibre Channel. He said that iSCSI is a cheaper alternative and the investment in people is also lower, as its takes less training to understand and implement.

Rich added: “CMS must have seen an increased interest in iSCSI to sign with an iSCSI vendor, so it can take LeftHand’s products and include them in its own customer base.”