Simms: how to survive as an Apple reseller

Managing director of Simms International, Danny Moore, has urged Apple resellers to move beyond offering from Apple's mass merchant retailers.

Moore told CRN that Apple's mass retail channel "is doing a fantastic job". Apple resellers, however, have got to move into integration to avoid competition.

As the vendor continued to open more retail stores of its own,"it is becoming more difficult for these guys", said Moore. "A lot of that [reseller] channel is still a consumer play."

While Apple has made no bones about focusing on the consumer, consumers are taking Apple's technology into the enterprise, said Moore.

The iPhone in particular has opened up opportunities for integrating Apple products with business systems, he said.

"Resellers need to take it to another level," said Moore. "Apple resellers are three or four years behind PC resellers" in business integration, he added.

Apple delivered 85 percent of its products direct to Premium Resellers, which included Next Byte and Comp Now as well as the mass merchants.

The remaining 15 percent went to Apple resellers through the vendor's three distributors, Simms, iTX and Express Online.

"The Apple [trade] channel is about enthusiasts, and they've been there for a long time. [But] a lot of it is around the consumer.

"The opportunity [now] is around the small and medium businesses for these guys," said Moore. 

"For businesses owners who say, ‘I want to run an Apple environment', who are the partners that can run it?" he said.

Arthur Pennas, director of Sydney-based Powermedia, an Apple Professional Reseller partner in the government space, said he's been in business for 15 years due to a specialised approach.

"I've worked previously for generic resellers and the reason why I launched Powermedia was that there were clients that wanted solutions, not just a computer. It's the other elements around it," he said.

"In any PC or any sort of solution selling market you need to know about the product, rather than selling a box product and not being able to hook it up or understand how it works.

"At the end of the day a computer is not a computer without the software and hardware components."

But, he admitted, it takes years to become specialised. "You've got to have the time", he said.

Meanwhile, Simms' Moore said the enterprise was still far from Apple's mind.

"There's not enough apps for Apple to be in the enterprise," he told CRN. "We're still a long way a way from getting into the classic Windows reseller."