Liebert Sees Traction In Power Managed Services Offering
Tom Karabinos, director of Liebert's partner channel, said the Columbus, Ohio, company is entering 2007 with brisk acceptance of its Liebert Power Assurance Package -- which includes a Liebert UPS in the 1KvA to 10kVA range, on-site system startup, preventive maintenance, parts and on-site coverage within four hours. It is available through solution providers.
"This is a way to allow [solution providers] to make very nice, incremental margin on a very comprehensive, preventive maintenance offering and coverage for five years," Karabinos said. "It's a complete package."
Liebert is a subsidiary of Emerson Electric, a $17.3 billion global technology vendor. The company competes against rivals including American Power Conversion, which is in the midst of completing its acquisition by France-based Schneider Electric. Liebert executives declined to discuss whether the Schneider-APC deal would provide any opportunities for the company in the channel. But the move toward bundling solutions with products is the beginning of a strategic move by Liebert and its channel partners as the new year begins.
"We think this is going to get larger and larger," said Stan Lichenstein, president of Global Technologies, a Melville, N.Y.-based solution provider and longtime Liebert channel partner. The solution is particularly helpful with enterprises that are rolling out and beefing up the use of IP telephony, he said.
"There has been, in the past five years or so, a huge switch to IP Telephony," Lichenstein said. "The end users have compliance issues. If someone is on the phone, and there is a cut in the power to the switch, Liebert has provided the end user -- our customer -- a simple but sophisticated solution to keeping those phones up and running for 90 minutes and beyond. Since this is a huge growth area, it's where we want to be."
Global Technologies has sold 300 of the Power Assurance Package solutions since Liebert launched the offering in the fall, executives said.