The Storage and Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has appointed senior sales consultant at Oracle Italy and channel manager of the Italian regional committee of SNIA, Walter Moriconi as Director of its European channel activity.

Moriconi joins the Board to help the association promote its messages and achieve its objectives, which, among others, include educating the industry across Europe in most matters related to data storage and management, and continuing to build a strong channel-focused programme.

"SNIA recognises the role that distributors, integrators, VARs and resellers play in promoting the adoption of storage technologies and standards, especially in Europe," Moriconi tells IT Europa, "so we think at the board that we need a specific focus on channel companies."

In Europe, compared to the US, the indirect sales model is pretty much the lifeblood of the industry, so it is very important to educate the channel, because it's the channel that ultimately will drive the adoption of new technologies," had explained SNIA Chairman of the Board, Bob Plumridge, in a previous interview with IT Europa.

The new channel committee will include all the channel companies' members in order to coordinate SNIA's efforts on the field. "It is fundamental for us to have in the same room storage providers/ vendors, end-users and channel companies, so we can get feedback and most of all have a common way to address the market," continues Moriconi.

In order to increase the channel presence, SNIA Europe is going to define a specific channel programme. "So the strategy is to create in the following days this new channel community, and constitute the new programme together with the other channel companies. We already have 20 companies from the channel that are member of SNIA, and we would like to increase the partnerships," he says. So SNIA Europe is looking for distributors, integrators, VARs and resellers.

The benefits for the channel members to participate in the SNIA Europe organisation are many, he explains: "There will be specific education programmes, so they could differentiate themselves by enhancing the capabilities of their workforce; they could increase their credibility on the market by staying up-to-date on the latest technologies through our membership and have access to specific technical worker forum initiatives; they could also be recognised as leaders on the market by being part of the SNIA European speakers group... And we are there to make sure that their offer includes the right technology and the new standards, this is very important for the market, as well as one of the main goals of SNIA."