TD Azlan set to rock up at EMC, murmur sources

EMC is to sign up TD Azlan as its third UK distie with a specific focus on the small biz space, The Channel can reveal.

Distribution has been a tinker-free zone for EMC since it hauled in Arrow at the start of 2010: but with a raft of SME tech in the pipeline the vendor undertook a review of its roster.

Sources close to the situation reckon TD Azlan, the enterprise arm of broadliner Tech Data, could hitch itself to EMC's channel as early as next week.

"EMC wanted to look to see if it had capacity in the system," said a well placed onlooker, adding that the new face in the vendor's channel will concentrate on the sub-$25,000 tier of the market.

This is a part of the market arguably best suited to TD Azlan - parent C2000 has a huge database of small reseller customers - and means it will turn up to the party with something different.

The last thing EMC's incumbent UK disties Arrow and Avnet want is to compete over a potentially smaller share of the market, even though resellers could use this a chip to play off them off against each other.

The channel has taken centre stage for EMC in the last year - it sought to tame its direct sales force, will sell cloudy wares through partners and upped the cash partners can make.

EMC and Azlan refused to comment. ®