MaintenanceNet says its data solutions are designed to bring order and usable data to VARs entering the managed services field; Tech Data is marrying its POS line with a data storage solution from an ISV to create a more functional solution; and Avnet is jumping into an open standards education program to cultivate the next generation of minds behind the technology.
MaintenanceNet this week announced the general availability of its contract management applications, designed to manage maintenance and service contracts for the growing number of VARs and service providers offering the services.
MaintenanceNet provides a hard “data foundation … to drive increased sales and improved operational efficiencies” for resellers who are increasingly turning to managed services for steady revenue, said Andrew Africa, MaintenanceNet’s chief operating officer.
The company’s suite of data aggregation, reporting and analytics tools allows service providers to streamline the process of managing, maintaining, tracking and auditing IT maintenance contract information.
IT distributor Tech Data Corp. will bundle its point-of-service hardware lineup with data storage solutions by ISV MTI Technology Corporation Inc., providing more functionality to VARs and customers in the retail and supermarket sector.
The agreement, a first between Tech Data’s POS/Data Capture Specialized Business Unit and an ISV, will give a broad reach to MTI’s five software offerings.
Tech Data will distribute its POS hardware with MTI’s PlatinumSupermarket, PlatinumRetail, RetailEnterprise, Merchant’s Watchdog and WWWorldStore, providing its VARs with additional functions including back-office solutions such as inventory control, purchasing, and customer relationship management (CRM) and data warehousing, said Karl Werner, director of Tech Data’s Advanced Technologies Group, in an announcement of the program.
Tech Data will assist VARs in becoming MTI trained, he said.
IT distributor Avnet Partner Solutions Inc. is putting its intellectual weight behind IBM’s Academic Initiative, to produce the next generation of open standards minds.
In September, Avnet’s staff began instructing students at Texas A&M University in storage-focused technology. Ultimately, Avnet expects to invest more than $100,000 in the program and expand to further academic institutions, the company said in a statement.
The program is designed to promote the skills that will drive demand for open-source technology in the future, the statement said.
In collaboration with IBM, Avnet Partner Solutions will assist in shaping open standards curriculum at colleges and universities and partner with students on technology projects. In addition, Avnet Partner Solutions, along with IBM and other industry sponsors, will help support the growth and development of the Shared Software Infrastructure (SSI) Hub.
Avnet is a major channel supplier of open standards technology for the enterprise, such as IBM solutions.