Astaro pushes into SME market

Bullish unified threat management (UTM) vendor Astaro is confident it can double its reseller base to 100 by January, after appointing Arc Technology as its third UK distributor, says VNU Net.

Astaro claims to have enjoyed solid success in the enterprise sector through distributors Northamber and Softek, but has brought Arc on board to aid its push into the SME market.

Shameem Ibrahim, UK sales director at Astaro, said: "We did a telemarketing campaign recently and generated 21 leads in a week, but there is no one to give them to. We need more assistance and Arc has resellers throughout the country."

Entrepreneurs are faced with the challenges of sustaining their SMEs due to a lack of capital and management expertise, says Menafn.com.

In light of these challenges, InnoVest Group plans to establish technology SME incubators in the Middle East and Eurasia regions to minimise the risk of failure among small technology enterprises, thereby providing an environment in which SMEs can flourish. These incubators are called International SME Incubator House.

The failure rate among start-up businesses is normally very high, so when they are on their own without integrated support services, they often experience implementation problems, and fail in the first couple of years.

Sun Microsystems is planning to focus more of its efforts on SMEs to improve channel relations and generate more partner involvement, reports VNU Net.

Sun, which is best known for its enterprise solutions, will be expanding its existing portfolio to include specific products that are aimed at smaller end-users.

William Trotman, storage product marketing manager at Sun, says: "Sun is becoming more SME focused to give its channel partners more scope. Aiming at the low end and mid-market, Sun wants to broaden and balance its portfolio to get the channel involved again."