Dicker Data has announced its first direct relationship with a software vendor, signing up as an authorised distributor of Microsoft OEM software as well as Full Packaged Products and Services.
The agreement is the first direct software relationship for Dicker Data, which has a long history as a hardware distributor. The company is "looking forward to growing our presence in this market segment", chairman and CEO David Dicker said via a statement.
According to the statement, "The new partnership supports both Microsoft and Dicker Data by strengthening their reach into the SMB market, not only with traditional software products, but also with new services and devices."
Speaking to CRN this morning, david Dicker said: "We were traditionally always a hardware distributor. Obviously you want to try to expand. There are opportunities on the software side if you can get them."
Dicker said the Microsoft agreement was a matter of "putting the runs on the board", describing vendor alignments as "incredibly hard to get."
"It's a very long-term project" he said. "We spent three or four years buying the Microsoft products from their other official distributors – we dealt with all of them – and selling them through our customer base in an attempt to build enough revenue to mount a case that we should have direct supply.
"Distribution is about numbers. If you have numbers you can get relationships. The better the relationships are, the harder they are to get."
Hardware remains an important focus for the company, he added. "We're probably still HP's biggest customer in Australia.
"The hardware market might be in a lower growth phase but it's a gigantically huge market and someone's got to supply all that equipment," he said.
Last year, Dicker Data announced it had more than doubled the size of its Sydney warehouse. In the last financial year Dicker Data announced a record profit.
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