Avnet Technology Solutions Expands Relationship with Sun

Avnet Technology Solutions, an operating group of Avnet, focused on enterprise computer products and embedded subsystems, and Sun Microsystems today announced an expanded relationship to offer the complete line of Sun StorageTek products to Avnet partners. By expanding its line of storage technologies, Avnet has made it easier for partners to accelerate their growth by offering a complete storage solution that includes disk and tape hardware, software and services. Products included in the expanded distribution relationship include disk systems, Network-Attached Storage (NAS) systems, storage management software, storage networking and tape storage, in addition to select Sun Fire servers in support of the storage business. The products will be offered through Avnet's Partner Solutions division in the United States. "Together over the last seven years, StorageTek and Avnet have delivered world-class integrated storage solutions to the reseller community," said Jeff Barteld, director, U.S. channel sales at Sun Microsystems. "We expect the addition of Sun's complete line of Sun StorageTek products to Avnet's offerings will help increase partner opportunities to capitalize on the strength of Sun's products and Avnet's enterprise storage expertise and technical knowledge." Avnet's dedicated Enterprise Software and Storage Business Unit aims to provide Sun partners with best-in-class sales support, marketing services, training and business development programs. Sun's complete portfolio of storage products offers partners solutions that will allow their customers to manage data simply and more efficiently in a secure, identity-enabled environment, while improving the affordability of data access, and increasing data utilization and retrieval. "Avnet's dedicated storage team and innovative storage programs and tools provide our partners with a competitive edge in solving business problems and being able to offer comprehensive storage solutions to their customers. Expanding our relationship with Sun positions us as the premier enterprise storage distributor and provides our existing Sun StorageTek partners a broader range of products from a world class technology leader, Sun Microsystems," said Jeff Bawol, senior vice president and general manager, Avnet Partner Solutions, Enterprise Software and Storage. "Sun's information lifecycle management strategy enables our partners to offer their customers efficient solutions to managing today's exponential growth of data. This, in turn, will help position them as the leading storage solution providers in their markets." "We have found that Avnet has the perfect combination of a knowledgeable sales team, excellent technical support and exclusive tools to help us grow our storage practice rapidly," said Pat Edwards, vice president, Sales, Alliance Technology Group. "With the addition of the full Sun StorageTek product line along with Sun Fire servers in support of the storage business, we will be able to deliver more robust solutions to our customers."