IDG News Service - Looking to change computer storage from a commodity to competitive differentiator, hard drive manufacturer Seagate Technology LLC launched a new set of tools today to help its channel partners change the way they take storage to market.
The vendor sees an increasing demand for storage driven primarily by two trends: the increased storage demands of the Windows Vista operating system and the advent of the digital pack rat, who stores ever-increasing amounts of songs, pictures and videos.
Consequently says Pete Steege, Seagate's senior marketing manager, storage is playing an increasingly larger role for system builders.
"We're seeing a couple of trends in the market adding up to real opportunity for solution providers that we're taking advantage of," said Steege.
The hard drive has gone from an afterthought, says Steege, to the heart of the machine. Calling Vista the "poster child for storage" he says users need 250GB to 1TB of storage to fully leverage the operating system. And with the need for backup, that becomes 500GB to 2TB. Seagate's offering in this higher-end space is the Barracuda 7200.11, its new 1TB drive (see " Unfashionably late: Seagate, Samsung unveil 1TB hard disk drives").
"We want to equip solution providers with some solution-selling tools and a program they're used to getting from longer-term vendors like Intel, AMD and Microsoft," said Steege. "We now see the opportunity to help them like that from a hard drive perspective."
Seagate's goal, he said, is to provide partners with tools to help them sell higher-value systems by offering the right storage option for the intended use.
Dubbed "Learn, Market, Sell" the program is a comprehensive set of tools to help partners assess their customers' storage needs and offer them storage options that will meet those needs. It also includes marketing tips, support and collateral to help them go to market more easily.
"It gives them a chance to use storage like they really haven't before -- to use it as a differentiator," said Steege.
In the Learn category, partners will have access to white papers and case studies, training webinars and a solution guide to help them choose the right product for the right scenario. The scenarios feature various types of users -- including the power user, the mobile user, the videophile and even IT professionals who need officewide deployments -- with appropriate hardware recommendations for each.
The Marketing category includes e-mail templates, print ads, Web and banner ads, direct-mail materials, flyers and other customizable marketing materials.
The Sell category includes call scripts and sales and technical support as well as targeted promotions.
"This isn't rocket science. We understand other firms have done this in the past," said Steege. "We believe we're the first in the hard drive industry to do this, though, to take advantage of the new value of storage."
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