Ingram Micro to Push SAP Mobility Solutions to SMB Channel Partners

Distributor Ingram Micro’s (NYSE: IM) channel partners will gain access to enterprise application software maker SAP’s (NYSE: SAP) mobility portfolio in a collaboration the two have blueprinted to extend the developer’s reach to SMBs.

Starting next week, SAP will open its mobility folder—including the SAP Afaria mobile device management solution and some 300 mobile apps on the iOS, Android, Windows and BlackBerry platforms—to Ingram VARs in a deal from which both parties expect significant benefits. SAP gains access to Ingram’s large distribution ecosystem that will position the developer’s apps as available on demand to VARs, a model that both companies believe will benefit SMB customers with greater access to mobile software applications. Ingram, in turn, gains another big vendor marker for its mobility offering to tout to channel partners.

“We expect the mobile revolution will benefit our joint customers and resellers, while also allowing thousands of small development firms and individual developers to innovate on top of SAP’s industry-leading mobile platform and solutions,” said Sanjay Poonen, SAP technology solutions president and mobile division head.

To augment the SAP partnership, Ingram said intends to leverage the mobile device lifecycle management services it acquired through its BrightPoint purchase last July. As part of the agreement, the distributor is tasked with educating its channel partners on building mobility business with the SAP mobile platform.

“We expect this relationship will greatly benefit both companies,” said Bashar Nejdawi, Ingram Mobility president. “SAP can further leverage its extensive mobile product portfolio through Ingram Micro to more cost-effectively reach small and midtier companies that are looking for better ways to mobilize their business. We have the strongest track record in developing viable go-to-market strategies across multiple technology practices and no other mobile channel player can provide as broad of a connection with the VAR community as Ingram Micro.”

SAP’s channel organization, headed by Kevin Gilroy, the company’s Global Channels senior vice president, has posted some impressive growth numbers in the past year, generating more than $1 billion in partner-driven sales in 2012, an 86 percent year-over-year growth rate.