The distributor has teamed with MaintenanceNet to offer a portal that gives VARs pricing and information for Cisco products.Ingram Micro, the world's largest IT products distributor, has teamed with MaintenanceNet to offer its VARs a Web portal specifically designed for Cisco products.
The new portal, called Cisco Services Quick Quote Tool, will help Ingram's VARs with the ordering and pricing of Cisco products.
The portal consolidates a number of applications, such as ordering services and regional pricing, into a single location.
In April 2006, Ingram, based in Santa Ana, Calif., and MaintenanceNet, a provider of maintenance contract management services, teamed up to offer the Reseller Service Portal, an automated tool that allows VARs and integrators a way to keep track of warranty and maintenance contract renewal dates.
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That service works with vendors such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco, and the two companies said other vendors are scheduled to join in the future.
Research firm IDC, based in Framingham, Mass., has estimated that about 50 percent of maintenance contracts are allowed to expire, and the servicing of those contracts has turned into a bigger and bigger priority for distributors and the channel.
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