Q&A; Graham Dean, Quest Software, on how resellers can make money out of its solutions

Graham Dean, partner and alliances manager ANZ, Quest Software talks to CRN about how Quest is providing the non-Windows coverage for more than 230 non-Windows systems and devices via Microsoft's Operations Manager.

Microsoft System Centre Operations Manager is an automated systems management solution that gives organisations a holistic view of their whole support stack.

In April last year, Microsoft announced its intention to extend Operations Manager support into non-Windows platforms and is relying on partners like Quest Software to provide much of this non-Windows support.

Quest and Microsoft's combined solution, gives IT managers a fully integrated solution for enterprise system management.  

CRN: Tell me about Quest's Microsoft offerings
Dean: A large part of Quest Software's development effort, goes into making sure we maintain our tight alignment with Microsoft, which includes understanding Microsoft's solution direction.

 Specific to System Centre we have created solutions that extend and enhance Microsoft's offering to 230 platforms that help data centre managers leverage their Microsoft Investment better.

We reduce risk, add vale and increase ROI in other crucial areas such as SQL Server, Sharepoint, Hyper-V, Email Archiving, Notes and Domino Migration and more.

This approach is part of the reason we have been the Microsoft Global ISV of the year two years out of three.

CRN: What does this mean for resellers 
Dean: For resellers where the Microsoft Solutions are important, again we will reduce risk, and logically extend the offering they can propose. Often our engagements can be three way, with the partner, Microsoft and ourselves and this helps bring more relevant expertise to a customer engagement. Ultimately we extend the footprint and value of the solution.

CRN: How will this benefit resellers 
Dean: Our partners range from pure licence resellers to SIs and the value this bring varies across the spectrum, but in all cases we can help increase both the value of the transaction and the compelling argument to purchase.

For example where a customer may have 80 percent of their servers as Microsoft machines and 20 percent of the infrastructure they wish to manage may be Cisco devices, Unix, Linux, and combination of those 230 platforms we currently support, including a seamlessly integrated Quest Solution into System Centre.

Quest clearly adds to the value a System Centre solution can bring. Another example may be a partner working with a customer on a migration from Lotus Notes or Groupwise to Exchange - instead of that being just a single point engagement we can not only reduce risk through our automated process, but allow the partner to bring in management solutions for Exchange and Active Directory and provide real business value.

CRN: What margins can resellers make on this software 
Dean: The margins vary according to the type of partnership we have, but the solutions are priced competitively to enable the partners to drive good sales in the market.

What we are looking for is a sound business partnership and that will generate good margins.