Broad-based black empowered ICT distributor Pinnacle Micro - renowned for its Proline range of desktop PCs - is to focus more aggressively on the server marketplace with the announcement that it will now "separately brand" its range of Supermicro servers from US-based Supermicro, for which it is the exclusive southern African distributor.
Tim Humphreys-Davies, sales and marketing director of Pinnacle Micro, said the server range used to be marketed as the 'Proline by Supermicro' brand.
"We will now be branding them separately - and we will be focusing aggressively on the server market in SA, where we believe we can make significant inroads with our Supermicro server range."
He said Supermicro, founded in 1993, had just concluded its IPO and had committed "additional resources to southern Africa" in order to enhance its penetration in the region. Supermicro emphasises superior product design and quality control to produce highly reliable mission-critical servers that maximise price/performance ratios for global customers.
The company's high-end motherboards and servers consistently out-feature and out-perform the competition, said Humphreys-Davies.
"Pinnacle Micro's share of the server market in SA is currently minimal, but we intend to increase this level significantly in the next three years, using our Supermicro range as our main vanguard."
He said sales of Supermicro servers and motherboards are "increasingly buoyant", adding that Supermicro, worldwide, commands more market share than Intel white-box servers. "There is a massive opportunity in the South African server market. We are offering an affordable server range that ranges from front-end applications all the way to the top-end enterprise level. This is a big drive for Pinnacle Micro and we are very excited to start marketing Supermicro as a separate brand. More budget will also be allocated to this drive," he said.
Commenting further, Humphreys-Davies said that Supermicro's biggest strength is innovation. The company pioneered dual processing technology and recently announced its Intel-based Caneland range of products. Supermicro was also first to market with its four-processor servers and recently launched the 1UTwin server range. "This," said Humphreys-Davies, "is a brand new innovation - where two servers are housed in one chassis."
Supermicro also announced it is ready for AMD's new Barcelona Quad core processing technology - which will also benefit the local market. "Supermicro is ready to go to market with AMD's new Barcelona Quad core processing technology already - ahead of AMD itself. This points to their first-to-market attitude - and this is what is going to help us gain market share in the local server market."
It was the first company to introduce a dual processor in 1996. It was also one of the computer server manufacturers to introduce blade servers. "Pinnacle Micro's Proline range of desktop computers is one of the best-known brands in South Africa right now," said Humphreys-Davies, "but we are now really gunning for the server market with our Supermicro range. We believe its product innovation - and its superb price/performance - will give us an edge."
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