By Alex Scroxton

18 August 2008

Two months after Cisco first began to make details of its new SmartCare services offering public, Westcon's specialist Cisco unit, Comstor, has started selling the SmartCare package in EMEA.

As explored by MicroScope earlier in the year, SmartCare services are designed to allow resellers to deliver a personalised and proactive network management service to their users, allowing them to create further cross-selling opportunities, recurring revenue streams and higher margins in the commoditised network space.

The service hinges on an advanced discovery tool that allows resellers to see right inside their customers' network to identify kit that is in need of repair before it becomes a problem.

Cisco has said the tool will also allow resellers to identify counterfeit or grey market boxes.

Comstor European vice president John Pritchard revealed the distributor had selected a target group of SMB-focused resellers in EMEA, including around 75 UK dealers.

"We looked at SMB Select partners that are already selling SMARTnet. If someone isn't already selling services, there's no point as we'd need to train them on SMARTnet first," Pritchard explained.

According to Pritchard, Comstor has around 500 Cisco SMB Select partners on its books in the UK, and deals with around 300 of them on a regular basis. It hopes to have 200 on board to sell SmartCare by the end of the year.

Pritchard also dismissed security concerns raised by some Cisco dealers when SmartCare was initially unveiled, assuring them the vendor had measures in place to secure the data gathered by SmartCare.

"The purpose of the tool is to optimise the user's network, so it has to get a picture of the existing network," Pritchard said. "The positive benefits for resellers far outweigh any risks involved."

Cisco was unavailable for comment.