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Many enterprises are finding that buying software or services has become an almost unbearable challenge, a challenge that can be summed up with a single word-licensing. After all, there are hundreds of software vendors and cloud service providers, along with thousands of license types and numerous end-user license agreements (EULAs) to worry about.
Tech Data, which is one of the biggest distributors of IT products, aims to lessen that burden with the launch of the StreamOne Solutions Store, which is designed to empower Tech Data’s army of partners to handle all of the tedious details normally associated with selling software, cloud services and the related licenses.
These new StreamOne Solutions from Tech Data, which the company officially announced Jan. 23, is aiming to leverage an old concept to handle the latest challenges of purchasing software and services, a concept once referred to as the channel, or more specifically the reseller, or VAR. That is something most enterprises and IT professionals know well. In the past, businesses relied heavily on VARs as a conduit for purchasing hardware, software and services.
“Tech Data has set the new standard for the IT channel with the goal of making software and cloud service logistics faster, affordable, personalized and far more accessible,” said Tech Data CEO Bob Dutkowsky. “The StreamOne Solutions Store pioneers an untapped path for ISVs and cloud providers to directly access niche markets previously unavailable, while providing a simpler and more efficient interface for VARs.”
However, as direct sales became more the norm and enterprises created relationships directly with software and services vendors, the process of purchasing became fragmented and complex.
This cut VARs and channel partners out of the picture.
What’s more, thinning margins and complex vendor relationships made the software and resale of services markets less appealing to VARs. In one fell swoop, Tech Data will try to rebuild those relationships, eliminate those barriers and simplify the resale process to make the purchasing of software licenses and cloud services a pain-free procedure, for both VARs and their customers.
The StreamOne Solutions Store works by providing authorized Tech Data partners with a portal-based store that unifies the access to tens of thousands of product SKUs and new consumption and billing models. Enterprise customers will be able to turn to a single VAR for access to software license, electronic downloads or cloud services, without having to face an intense jungle of pricing tiers and complex licensing rules.
StreamOne’s Software License Selector guides resellers through the steps to select and provision software and services from a multitude of vendors. What’s more, customers seeking niche cloud services or products will be able to rely on their favored VAR to provide access to those products as needed. Customers benefit because they are able to work with fewer VARs to gain access to the products they need, while vendors benefit from the ability to reach more customers, and VARs benefit from the time savings and singular billing methodologies that can be used for selling a multitude of products and services.
At launch, StreamOne will offer access to an array of vendors and service providers, including basic cloud services, software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and others.