Press Centre

Avnet Technology Solutions strengthens HP team in the UK to support 3PAR storage sales

Bracknell, UK, 16 February 2011:

Avnet Technology Solutions, a solutions distribution leader and an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT) has increased the size of its HP team in the UK to help business partners benefit from the opportunity to sell HP 3PAR utility storage technology solutions. A 55 strong Avnet team of people is involved in a series of awareness campaigns, training sessions, technical workshops, pre-sales support and briefing meetings so that business partners will gain an understanding in business terms of the issues that HP 3PAR solutions address.

Scott Murphy, HP divisional leader, Avnet Technology Solutions UK said, “It’s no understatement to say that HP 3PAR utility storage solutions are a transformational technology for our business partners. Recognised as a strong green storage proposition and built for the cloud, HP 3PAR combined with Avnet delivers an opportunity for high growth to those partners who embrace the technology.”

HP acquired the storage specialist 3PAR in September 2010 and Avnet has been quick to develop marketing collateral and end-user messaging and make this available to business partners via its online marketing tool, campaignWorks. Using this innovative tool business partners can create customised and focussed marketing campaigns for HP 3PAR (amongst other technologies) by bringing together all the components required such as professional artwork and copy. Steve Barry, Managing Director at business partner DTP explained, “Working with Avnet and having access to campaignWorks has certainly helped DTP go to market with new technologies quickly and effectively in the past. We look forward to continuing to work with the team at Avnet to maximise on the opportunity HP 3PAR presents in the ever growing storage market.”

In addition, Avnet is running a series of bespoke partner workshops in the coming months to further enable business partners’ sales and technical teams.

Scott Murphy continued, “HP 3PAR has a reputation of delivering enterprises and cloud computing service providers with the ability to do more with less. Avnet’s aim is to build on this and help our business partners to respond to the demand for agile and efficient storage solutions to benefit the growth of their end-user customers, whatever their size, and in doing so support our business partners accelerate their own growth. Our close relationship with HP sales teams and our proven pedigree within pre-sales means we typically win two out of three of the deals we engage in. Our aim is to drive this closure rate even higher so that everyone wins.”

Avnet sent several of its HP team on training recently as part of its ongoing commitment to provide highly skilled and experienced sales and technical professionals to the HP channel. An Avnet workshop in February will train over 100 internal sales people with an emphasis on the business benefits of HP 3PAR products. These benefits address today’s most pressing data issues including: scalability, complexity, performance and availability whilst reducing storage total cost of ownership (TCO), expenditure and energy footprint.

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About Avnet Technology Solutions
As a global solutions distributor, Avnet Technology Solutions collaborates with its customers and suppliers to create and deliver effective solutions that address the business challenges of their end-user customers locally and around the world. For fiscal year 2010, the group served customers in more than 30 countries and generated US $ 8.19 billion in annual revenue. Avnet Technology Solutions is an operating group of Avnet, Inc. Visit: www.ts.avnet.com/emea/

About Avnet
Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT), a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology serving customers in more than 70 countries worldwide. Avnet accelerates its partners' success by connecting the world's leading technology suppliers with a broad base of more than 100,000 customers by providing cost-effective, value-added services and solutions. For the fiscal year ended July 3, 2010, Avnet generated revenue of $19.16 billion. For more information, visit www.avnet.com (AVT_IR)

For more information please contact:

Avnet Technology Solutions
Linda Patterson, Marketing Director
T: +44 (0)1344 662091
E: Linda.patterson@avnet.com