New Delhi: Unveiling its channel partner strategy for commercial business in India, S Rajendran, Chief Marketing Office, Acer India took the opportunity to reaffirm its commitment towards the channel. The vendor announced the launch of a partner program called Acer Select.

The program is designed around Acer's commercial range of products and is a step towards engaging with partners and helping them understand customer requirements. Through the program Acer is looking at partnering a number of system integrators to drive their business. So far the vendor has roped in 50 partners and hopes to have 100 by end of December.

“We are not looking at box-movers. The partners we want should be technology focused and should understand what we are offering,” informed S Rajendran, Chief Marketing Office, Acer India. The program has been rolled out in a phased manner. “In the first phase they will recruit partners in Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune. In the second phase Mumbai, Indore, Trivandrum and Hyderabad would be covered. There will be special focus on the SMB and corporate space,” detailed Rajendran.

About 85 percent of Acer's business comes through the channel, while the remaining 15 percent comprises the large government projects which come direct to Acer. It may be recalled that in early 2009 partners in South had complained about Acer doing business with Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) and offering discounted rates to the government agency. In response to the incident Rajendran stated, “The Elcot incident was a long time back and we were able to resolve it well with the channel. We are now doing well in Tamil Nadu.”

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