White-boxes and Dell bashing

COMMENTARY: CRN held its inaugural white-box solutions event on Thursday 14 July at Sydney’s Vibe Hotel.

Speakers from Compucon, ASUS, Seagate and Optima spoke to approximately 100 resellers and distributors about the future of our strong system builder market and why we should buy Australian-produced systems.

Greg Schroeder, marketing communications manager at Compucon, did his best to warn resellers that if they are making their revenue from hardware sales, they may want to rethink their business models.

Seagate’s Kevin Ho advised that it might be handy for resellers to focus on selling to specific vertical markets that have a need for a trusted adviser that understand their business.

Albert Liang promoted the intense product testing carried out by up and coming hardware player in Australia, his company ASUS, while Optima’s Cornel Ung explained how resellers can engage with arguably Australia’s largest PC builder.

CRN followed up with a ‘panel’ session where resellers could fi re questions as the assembled speakers.

Resellers, obviously coming under pressure from the price-aggressive direct seller Dell, questioned system builders on how they can survive against the kings of mass-produced computer hardware.

Compucon’s Schroeder suggested: "Transfer yourself from being a hardware salesperson to a business consultant". Good advice indeed.