IBM, in partnership with distributor Storgate Africa, intends to replicate its meteoric growth in the European disk drive and storage sector in the South African market.
"Response has been excellent since the local partnership was created in January," says Storgate Africa managing director Peter Blaauw.
"Although it`s not widely appreciated, IBM has been a leader in the disk drive and storage market since 1956. In the past three years, however, IBM has surged to second position in the European disk drive industry, growing at a phenomenal pace.
"Storgate`s challenge is to ensure that IBM wins a similar market share of the drive and storage market as it has established in Europe."
Henri Richard, IBM`s vice president of sales and support, Worldwide Distribution Technology Group, attributes IBM`s strong growth to research and development programmes geared to delivering superior products and performance, along with a fundamental trust in the IBM brand.
Other factors include creating new markets, such as the 25Gb desktop sector, plus innovation, which has seen shrinking disk drives accompanied by expanded capacity.
IBM`s soon-to-be-released microdrive, for instance, is the smallest available while offering 340Mb capacity - and Richard predicts that it will spark a paradigm shift in the concept of where and how data can be stored.
Growth has been achieved largely in the OEM market, with far- reaching agreements recently concluded with Dell and EMC.
"We`ve reached the position where no disk drive distributor aiming to be a serious market contender could risk being without IBM," says Richard.
"We`re certain that in Storgate Africa we have the right partner in place in the local market and are confident of repeating our European success.
"South African buyers value brand names and stability as much as any other market. In addition, the relative remoteness of the territory means that it`s vital that IT buyers are making the right purchasing decision for the present as well as for the future."
Blaauw`s plans for the local market include building brand loyalty in the mobile computing sector, as well as creating a presence in the high-end desktop and storage solutions markets.
"The desktop market in South Africa is entry-level and price conscious, rather than being driven by capacity considerations. Storgate will be working with systems integrators in this sector and views this as a huge opportunity.
"We will also be tapping into the potential of the upgrade market along with high-end solutions based on the SCSI interface. Storgate`s main thrust will be to emphasise the performance, reliability and quality of the IBM brand," says Blaauw.
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