By Simon Quicke
3 July 2008
Novell has announced the first major addition to its reseller base as it starts to roll out a number of partners it has identified as being key to supporting its market ambitions.
The open source vendor has signed up Repton, ending the resellers exclusive relationship with Red Hat, and plans to make further announcements in the next few weeks.
Jill Henry, channel director at Novell UK and Ireland, said that it had identified 35 key partners across its main business areas including Linux, identity and systems management.
“We worked out who the partners were that we wanted to recruit in those areas and came up with a list of new channel partners that we want to work with in the UK,” she said.
She added that Repton had already got a track record in open source and that it needed to sign up resellers with knowledge of the SME market if it was going to expand its market share in that area.
Novell is expected to make further reseller appointments and Henry added that judging the success of a channel expansion was not just about revenue and market share but it was also looking to ensure customers that worked with resellers were satisfied.
Greg Carlow, managing director Repton, said that the relationship between Novell and Microsoft meant that support issues were reduced and it would be giving customers a greater option of products to buy.
“We are not dropping Red Hat for Novell but offering a choice,” he said.
