With enterprises technology spend grinding to a halt and average selling prices plummeting in the consumer segment, the small and medium sized business sector has become an attractive new target market for the IT industry’s larger resellers and technology retailers.

This has meant that the small and medium sized business market faces the strong possibility of being snatched away from the small, one or two man reseller shops that have traditionally made a modest, yet stable living from the provision of ultra tailored solutions.

“Some of these resellers will see this as a death sentence and batten down the hatches for a tough couple of months ahead,” says Traci Maynard, general manager of Tarsus Technologies’ software division.

“Others will see it as an opportunity to provide their customers with reinforced motivation for the value they provide,” she says.

“And being part of the latter group of resellers comes down to providing the right solutions for the right customer needs,” she says.

Maynard says there’s a historical reason the small and medium sized business sector has been service by specialist players.

“And that reason isn’t difficult to find. To be blunt, it’s quite simply that one size doesn’t fit all.”

Unfortunately, larger resellers and technology retailers have traditionally made their money from the provision of relatively generic products and services for the masses.

And that’s something that flies directly in the face of what small and medium sized businesses require from their technology partners.

“Small and medium sized businesses require individual attention and tailored solutions,” she says.

“It’s something that takes specialist expertise, and by providing their customers with the right solutions, small and medium sized resellers will continue to be successful,” she says.

Maynard says she’s just returned from a Microsoft conference held in Los Angeles and that one of the key messages delivered was that there’s a ton of opportunity within Microsoft’s product portfolio that small and medium sized resellers can use to excite and delight their customers.

“Solutions that help resellers achieve on goals such as server virtualization, simplified infrastructure management and even hosted or cloud-based delivery for applications are at the forefront of what’s on offer,” she says.

“Add to that the fact that Microsoft has realised how dependent small and medium sized businesses are on out-of-the-office connectivity and in turn, that it’s started working with vendors in the portable computing (notebook, netbook and slate) space to create seamless solutions to this challenge and there’s another opportunity on offer,” she adds.

“Lastly, round that out with small and medium sized business specific tools, such as a bespoke portal that allows smaller resellers access to customisable, ready-made marketing materials that can drive their value proposition to the market and it’s clear that Microsoft is becoming serious about this sector of the market.

“All things considered, where some small business resellers see a threat, I see an opportunity. And those that focus on the latter will reap the rewards,” she concludes.

Acer South Africa has appointed Damien Durrant as its new channel manager.

Durrant joins Acer from HP, where he was the telco sales manager for the company’s Personal Systems Group.

Durrant started his career at Packard Bell in 1998 as a technician in the call centre. He then joined HP, where he held a number of positions that ranged from managing the service call centre to product marketing. He brings with him a range of marketing, technical and management skills, and has experience in the retail, SMB, corporate and government markets.

Tarsus Technologies has announced the local availability of the HP ProCurve 1810G series of switches, designed to increased productivity and flexibility for growing SMBs and small corporates alike.

“Available in eight- and 24-port varietals and designed to cost-effectively deliver Gigabit Ethernet performance on a budget, the smaller of the units can be powered by an upstream Power over Ethernet switch, making it ideal to deploy in places where a power outlet is not available, while the larger of the units features two dual personality ports to facilitate fiber uplink connectivity,” says Pieter Engelbrecht, HP ProCurve product manager at Tarsus.

Besides their cost-efficiency, Engelbrecht says the eight- and 24-port 1810Gs fall squarely into HP ProCurve’s ‘smart-switch’ category which features an intuitive Web interface that provides basic switch configuration, reducing the complexity involved in switch setup to such an extent that these fit perfectly into smaller companies that don’t have a dedicated IT department at their disposal.

“Additionally, both switches offer simple network security, and are capable of protecting SMB and small corporate networks against Denial of Service attacks,” he adds.

Rounding out the range’s top-level features, Engelbrecht says that both units have been designed with improved energy-efficiency in mind.

“For customers who demand energy-efficiency, the 1810G offers low power-consuming physical ports that help to manage their energy consumption. The eight-port switch in the 1810G family has no fan, eliminating noise and making it ideal for deployments that require silent operation,” he says.

Overall, Engelbrecht believes that the 1810G range will be extremely popular over the coming months as the long overdue infrastructure refresh cycle takes hold in the South African business space and smaller companies start paying increased attention to their network performance.

“We have extremely positive aspirations for the 1810G family in South Africa,” he concludes.