26 November 2007
by Billy MacInnes
Magirus is preparing to launch a web-based support portal next month, which it says will enable resellers and their customers to track the progress of service calls and make it easier for partners to deliver SLAs to users.
The support portal, described as the communication interface between the customer and the Magirus support team, is part of the distributor’s bid to increase its focus on services.
Magirus has been busy repositioning over the past few months by trying to boost its support and services side and focusing on high growth areas like security, virtualisation and services. The distributor completed the sale of its enterprise infrastructure division, which focused on IBM and HP, to Avnet last month.
The support management tool, which will also cover EMC and virtualisation, documents the history of all support cases online and provides partners with 24/7 secure access to multiple open calls to keep up to date on their progress. They can also allow users to access the information.
Niall McGrane, director of security and virtualisation at Magirus UK, said the service
would reassure partners and users that a support call "hasn’t gone into a black hole — it hasn’t disappeared".
There are a number of base service levels dependent on guaranteed response time, prioritisation and availability and resellers will be able to add options "to enhance their value as a partner".
McGrane claimed the service will provide them with additional opportunities to sell customisable options to customers. Having a log of when customers need support and being able to track the calls will help resellers to prove they are meeting their SLAs, McGrane added.
One source said that hosted services were becoming the main approach in security and pointed to F-Secure’s recent announcement and Trend Micro’s activities as evidence of that shift (MicroScope 19 November).
