Rittal brings on newly-formed distributor

Datacentre hardware vendor, Rittal, has signed newly-established distributor, Rapid 5 Distribution, to wholesale its core RiMatrix5 solutions locally.

According to Rittal national marketing manager, John McCarl, Rapid 5 is hoping to establish up to 50 reseller partnerships in Australia and gain a foothold in the mining, finance and manufacturing markets, as well as key verticals.

While there is no guarantee of exclusivity between the two companies, both R5D’s sales director, Richard Wixon, and Rittal’s business development manager IT, Mark Roberts, insisted the two companies had no plans to diverge in the near future.

“We’ve been pushing this product set over the past three years and as any new market entrant, the early adopter phase tends to go through a direct channel. We’ve now had significant success and created reference sites that enables us to provide credibility to the channel, that they can take viable solutions to their customers,” Roberts said.

“Rittal is entering into this market and this space solely with R5D and like anything, that will be reviewed on a regular basis. We will be putting all our support and resources behind making Rittal and Rapid 5 a success.”

Wixon added there was no formal contract, but a 3-5 year plan had been put in place.

“Really what we’re taking to the market primarily with R5D is our datacentre solutions,” Roberts said. “We offer a scalable solution the whole way from CRAC units through to inline cooling and high-density cooling up to 30 kilowatts a unit.”

Rittal signed a datacentre hardware distribution deal with Melbourne-based reseller, Powerfirm, in February 2008. Roberts said the new distributor arrangement involved a different product and would have no effect on previous deals.

Wixon said resellers would find it relatively easy to join up at this early stage with no exclusivity required, but added that having technical training and the right target markets was vital.

“We are leaving the entry points to the partnerships nice and open. It’s critical that we get the right verticals and that they [partners] get the right mix of products, but beyond that we won’t be making any restrictions. The only critical thing is its all about the training, so they will be investing in levels of training within the organisation,” he said.

The vendor was also eager to promise it would not go direct against resellers in any whole-of-government tenders for datacentre equipment and was eager to promote their participation.

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