SAN JOSE – Bell Microproducts Inc., one of the largest value-added distributors of storage and computing technology, has created a new security division for its North American customers.

Duncan Hume, who spearheaded Bell Microproducts’ U.K. security division and has served as a divisional manager for the past eight years, would serve as director of the newly created North American security division for the company.

Hume believed that the timing is right for Bell Microproducts to expand its security distribution business.

“Fundamentally, Bell is a strong player in the storage marketplace here in North America and we want to ensure those partners who want to work with us in securing their data are able to do so,” he added.

Another reason why Bell wanted to establish a security division in North America was the market convergence of storage and security suppliers.

“The key value that we can bring is technology to partners who may not have considered selling security solutions to their customer base and in this day and age when information is under attack from many different areas, I think it is essential to not only sell storage but also security to protect the integrity of stored data,” explained Hume.

He added that the target resellers for Bell’s security division are storage VARs that want to add to their product portfolio by selling security solutions and also security-centric VARs that want to sell complete solutions.

With compliance requirements such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley forcing businesses to think about the security of their stored data, Bell Microproducts’ resellers can now better serve their customers by offering a broad range of technologies that, when combined with Bell Microproducts service and integration services around servers, storage and software, ensure seamless security deployments.

Reseller technical services offered by Bell Microproducts will include pre-sale, integration, post-sale, implementation and lab services support. The division currently offers a multitude of security options to resellers including anti-virus spam filter, SSL virtual private networks, unified threat management, firewall, e-mail firewall and intrusion detection and prevention.

Bell Microproducts offers multivendor expertise within a single organization, best in class enterprise field organization, leading financing options and a highly qualified inside technical sales teams for quoting and configuration with an approximately four hour response timeframe. Key security vendors already signed by Bell Microproducts include AEP Networks, Barracuda, Bloxx, Clearswift, Utimaco and SunBelt Software. As well, one of the focuses of the division is not to carry three to four of the same product such anti-virus from multiple vendors but just one.

In terms of support, Bell Microproducts currently has four product managers with two based in Atlanta, one based in San Jose and one based in Montgomery, Alab. The division will also have product champions in each of the distributor’s key sales offices across the U.S. Canadian support for Bell’s Canadian security practice will be located in Markham, Ont. As well, there will be a technical resource center in Minneapolis that will be providing first and second line support on products that Bell is selling.

In addition, Bell Micro would be offering training opportunities for resellers to familiarize themselves with the latest offerings from leading security vendors. Bell Micros’ Security Sales Academy would assist resellers in gaining the knowledge they need to be successful, including developing a sustainable and profitable security business, building security sales expertise within the organization, and obtaining access to exclusive campaigns and offers from vendors. In the U.K., the Security Sales Academy occurred once a month and Hume hopes to have similar scheduling in North America.

“As a result of the Academy, we ended up dealing with specific technology areas with specific VARs, which was the intention,” said Hume. “Once you start selling one element of the security practice, it gets them looking elsewhere to broaden their horizon and we want to replicate that here.”

With time, Bell Micro would rollout additional security services. Hume cited penetration testing and security audits as examples.

“We want to go from a product phase into a product and services phase of this business,” he added.

Over the next six months, Hume hopes to have about 100 resellers be part of the division and hopes to grow the North American division to numbers close to the U.K. division.,

“When I left [the UK division] it was transacting in excess of $50 million this year and I hope to achieve that number very quickly here,” he said.

This column was written by Vanessa Ho of ConnectIT, an IntegratedMarCompany

a>>