Tech Data Launches StreamOne Software License Selector
Tech Data Corp. this week went live with a software license tool designed to simplify and speed up ordering for resellers and to reduce the errors and subsequent delays inherent in the formerly manual processes for vendors.
"I've talked to so many owners who say their sales reps don't even handle software licensing anymore because it's gotten too complex," said Joe Quaglia, senior vice president of U.S. Marketing at the Clearwater, Fla.-based distribution giant, in a phone interview.
Two years ago, a team at Tech Data started working on a tool with the design goals that the system be automated, less complex and intuitive to improve accuracy and speed, Quaglia said.
The project became the StreamOne Software License Selector. To use it, a reseller works through four tabs in a matter of minutes. The tabs are called "select end user," "select vendors/categories," "select product" and "get part number & price." Answers in each tab narrow the choices in the next, sifting hundreds of thousands of software SKUs and applying complex business logic to fit each vendors' licensing rules.
"Microsoft, of all of our partners, they were ready first," said Toby McDuffie, director of product marketing software at Tech Data. "The tool that we rolled out will actually verify if an end user wants to, say, add a license onto an existing agreement that they had and provide that agreement to us. [Before StreamOne] we had to look it up. Today our system can go ping Microsoft and get that answer."
Nearly all other major vendors are now participating in StreamOne, which has been in beta with resellers for several months and has been in production use by Tech Data's sales reps and for EDI customers since mid-2010. At launch, the tool can handle SKU selection and order qualification for nearly 40 software vendors that represent more than 99 percent of Tech Data software licenses purchases, the company said in a statement.
In addition to Microsoft, supported vendors include Absolute Software, Acronis, Adobe, Autodesk, BitDefender, CA, Check Point, Corel, Datawatch, Diskeeper, Double-Take, Ericom, Filemaker, Intuit, Ipswitch, Kaspersky, McAfee, Micro Focus, Novell, Nuance, Oracle, Panda, Parallels, Red Hat, Sage, SAP, SCO, SolarWinds, St. Bernard, Sybase, Symantec, Trend Micro, USA.NET, Vasco, Vizioncore and VMware.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 02, 2011 at 11:58 AM