NHR enters distribution business with Force10 12 January, 2009 By Chris Talbot

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NHR has been a top-level partner for Force10 for nearly three years, and according to Holger Peters, sales director for Network Hardware Resale, NHR has worked with Force10 while the vendor built up its channel strategy and program.

"As a partner, we've been with them for quite awhile and been with them since the early stages of their channel program. They really started out as a direct sales organization and then expanded their channel focus to the point of strategic alliances, a three-tiered system of silver, gold, platinum," Peters said.

Force10's partner levels are 1 Gig Authorized, 10 Gig Premier and 100 Gig Strategic. NHR is one of the few 100 Gig partners worldwide, and Peters said the company has helped Force10 in defining its channel partner program and becoming a more channel-centric company. Over the last year, that channel strategy has grown to the point where the two companies decided to work even closer together, with NHR becoming a distributor of Force10 products.

"NHR has an excellent reputation for addressing customers' networking equipment needs reliably, efficiently and cost-effectively," said Andrew Stewart, vice president of global channels at Force10. "As a Force10 distributor, NHR will be even better positioned to rapidly deliver Force10's efficient network infrastructure to data center and enterprise networking customers throughout North America."

Part of the reason for expanded relationship is so Force10 could capitalize on NHR's capabilities in supply and order chain management, Peters said.

"When you take a look at our operations ... supply chain management truly is where we shine, bringing in inventory, running it through an entire cycle system, getting it out of the door quickly -- and that's within one day. [It] is something that Force10 and NHR felt was a good synergy for us to become a distributor," Peters said.

Although the distribution agreement is a worldwide agreement, NHR will begin by distributing to the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, NHR will begin by distributing only Force10's entry-level S-Series products.

"That's where the market is the most dynamic. And from there, we'll build it into the core switching products, the C-Series and E-Series. That's where we'll become very active -- starting out with the low-end equipment and moving up to the core products," Peters said.

However, the distribution contract will enable NHR to branch out globally with Force10's products. Peters said the initial plan is to distribute to the U.S. and Canada for the first quarter to get an idea of run rates and necessary stocking.

"It requires no tweaking of our operational process whatsoever," he said.