Buffalo premieres channel partner events in Sydney and Melbourne

Storage and networking vendor Buffalo has hosted the first in a series of reseller training events which aim to introduce channel partners to the company’s new range of network attached storage (NAS) solutions for business and support Buffalo’s continued expansion in the Australian market.

More than 90 channel partners attended events held in Sydney and Melbourne last week. Hosted by National Business Manager Boris Shen, the events were significant with Satoshi Inaba, General Manager, Buffalo Asia Pacific travelling from Buffalo’s global headquarters in Nagoya, Japan to welcome guests and discuss the company’s vision for the future.

“Buffalo has been the worldwide consumer NAS market leader since 2005[1], yet our relationships with Australian IT resellers are relatively recent,” said Shen. “Earlier this year, we signalled our intention to more aggressively target small to medium businesses and Buffalo recognises that strong partnerships with the channel are vital for reaching these customers. These events enable us to share the Buffalo story, deliver training on the latest products and provide sales and marketing support which will help our channel partners target customers and make sales.”

In May, Buffalo announced the launch of two new TeraStation NAS devices (TeraStation 5000 and TeraStation 7000), with visitors to the company’s stand at CeBIT being the first to see the new products. With stock now in the country, the training component of the event focused on these devices.

The new TeraStation NAS devices sport faster CPUs, provide up to 36 terabytes of storage and are designed to bring enterprise level storage to small and medium businesses. With improved backups, file sharing, storage and disaster recovery, they provide an affordable RAID based solution.

The TeraStation 5000 is Buffalo’s first NAS to incorporate the Buffalo surveillance server which supports up to 10 IP cameras and enables video captured to be both stored and managed by the device. To demonstrate this capability, Buffalo partnered with Axis Communications who had a representative onsite at both events to discuss how resellers can deliver a complete surveillance solution to customers.

“IMS Research predicts that demand for video surveillance equipment will remain strong in 2012, with network video equipment sales estimated to grow by 25 percent[2]. The entire market is shifting from analog to IP-based systems and this represents a significant opportunity for IT resellers and security system integrators. Partnered with IP cameras, the TeraStation 5000 delivers a complete surveillance solution that not only offers high performance but is incredibly affordable,” said Shen.

Also in May, Buffalo launched its channel partner program with the intention to recruit up to 300 channel partners across the ANZ region within twelve months.  To support this campaign Buffalo opened a local product support centre, created a dedicated channel partner website (https://partner.buffalo-asia.com/login/) and developed a portfolio of sales and marketing resources for resellers. To date, Buffalo has 120 resellers signed to the three-tiered program.

To enquire about becoming a Buffalo channel partner contact Boris Shen on 0431 124 534, email sales@buffalo-anz.com.au or visit the Buffalo website at www.buffalo-anz.com.au.

For sales enquiries call Buffalo’s distributor Dicker Data on 1800 688 586.

[1] Worldwide Consumer Network-Attached Storage, In-Stat 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

[2] The World Market for CCTV and Video Surveillance, IMS Research 2011