Power management vendor, Emerson Power Network, has promoted Alan Smith to the national channel manager's post.

Smith has been with Emerson for 18 years during which time he's held a variety of roles including product manager, business development manager and sales manager. The first point of focus this year is to meet all of Emerson's Network Service Partners (NSPs) and VARs, and to work closely with its distributors including LAN Systems and J Mills Distribution.

"We need to train VARs to show them the true value of the Emerson solution and to gain a higher profile in SMB side of the business," Smith said. "We are extremely well known at the top end of town on datacentres, but the SMB is where our worldwide growth is."

Marketing communications director, Peter Spiteri, said the vendor was bolstering channel resources by hiring new staff, as well as providing more resources such as Web-based and programmatic support that would be available through its Fast Track program.

"We have kits that go with all the training that is delivered via our distributors," he said. "For larger VARs we will go in-house and deliver that to their staff directly.

"The program takes into consideration all the things around power protection and some of the more sophisticated approaches such as mapping that into the VoIP network. It's an area that is not really touched on in the market in terms of education but it is one of the biggest areas resellers are trying to get their head around."

The vendor is also ramping up its Uptime partner portal to offer whitepapers and access to direct technical support, depending on the partner level.