Technology distribution giant Ingram Micro (NYSE:IM) will partner
with IBM (NYSE:IBM), Intermedia and Fujitsu to enable partners to build
out their own cloud offerings to customers, the companies announced at
Ingram Micro's VTN Spring Invitational in Chicago April 11.
Ingram Micro made the partnership announcements amid a storm of
cloud announcements in the technology industry, from IBM to HP to Cisco
to Synnex, to name just a few.
"Our strategy is to be the leading cloud aggregator for the
channel," Renee Bergeron, vice president of cloud computing and managed
services at Ingram Micro, told VTN attendees. "We are shifting to
cloud."
New cloud-based services available from IBM and Ingram Micro include the following:
- IBM Smart Business Cloud Enterprise – This compute-on-demand,
infrastructure-as-a-service offering enables partners to provide
customers with quick access to a secure enterprise-class virtual server
environment on the IBM Cloud. The offering supports development and
test and dynamic production workloads. offering supports
development and test activities, as well as other dynamic production
workloads.
- IBM Managed Backup Cloud - Fast Protect Online – A secure,
affordable offsite data backup solution that protects laptop and
desktop user data against loss and corruption, along with easy-to-use
restore capabilities.
- IBM Managed Backup Cloud - Remote Data Protection – A managed, offsite data backup and recovery solution for servers.
Ingram Micro is also partnering with Intermedia to provide a hosted,
business-grade PBX service that offers VOIP that is integrated with
Intermedia's hosted Microsoft Exchange service. The companies said the
offering can be remotely managed from a single control panel and offers
features such as "click to call," hunt groups, OCS calling,
unique extensions, unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada, “voicemail
to email” functionality, international calling, music on hold and
toll-free numbers.
Ingram Micro also announced a new partnership with Fujitsu to
provide a 24x7 service desk solution. The companies said that the
services are designed to complement managed IT and cloud-based service
offerings with a team of "highly experienced customer service
representatives."
The Ingram Micro Service Desk is available now and is based on ITIL
principles and backed by Lean Services methodologies from Fujitsu. It
provides Level 1 service desk under the channel partners' brand.
Service desk representatives are trained in service requests, incident
management, service maintenance, information requests and first level
support for systems and software, according to Ingram Micro.
Cloud Computing 
