Bridgehead and Avnet to Deliver Storage Solutions

BridgeHead Software and Avnet Technology Solutions announced a worldwide distribution agreement to be implemented initially in the U.S. Under this agreement, BridgeHead’s Archiving and Backup Software products will now be available through Avnet’s channel partners, with an initial emphasis on the healthcare market.

“Opportunities for technology resellers are growing in all vertical markets that are subject to regulatory and corporate compliance oversight,” said Ryan Witt, senior vice president, sales & marketing, BridgeHead Software. “This is particularly true in the healthcare market where there are rapidly growing needs for secure management and protection of electronic patient medical records and high resolution medical imaging. Disaster recovery data protection and data security are key requirements for any healthcare institution and are called out specifically by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).”

“BridgeHead Software has experienced rapid growth in the North American healthcare market, largely as a result of its long-established relationship with MEDITECH and the integration of its software offering with MEDITECH’s Healthcare Information System and ISB/IDR requirement (Integrated Serverless Backup/Integrated Disaster Recovery). Our new relationship with Avnet will allow us to build on that market success and to expand into other verticals. Avnet and its channel partners will now be able to resell market-proven data management solutions that can be deployed out-of-the-box, on virtually any storage hardware platform, as part of a complete healthcare technology solution,” said Witt.

“The need for data protection and disaster recovery solutions is growing at a tremendous pace, particularly in healthcare,” said Tony Vottima, vice president of vertical market solutions at Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas. “Healthcare is a highly specialized market that requires a deep level of expertise and knowledge which can take years to acquire. To address the needs of Avnet’s channel partners, we launched our HealthPath practice in March 2006. Avnet HealthPath provides in-depth pre- and post-sales support, along with comprehensive sales training and market-specific technology solutions such as BridgeHead’s Enterprise Data Archiving and Information Lifecycle Management products. These resources combine to help our channel partners provide the solutions that their healthcare customers urgently need.”

Avnet HealthPath provides the expertise, resources and solutions that Avnet’s channel partners need to accelerate the delivery of solutions for the healthcare market. The practice includes: HealthPath University – an intense three-day educational seminar, assessment tools to identify the IT needs of customers, industry-leading data management solutions like those from BridgeHead Software, medical-certified integration and design facilities, expert training, and a broad range of sales and marketing offerings to help solution providers understand the needs of healthcare providers and go to market faster and at a lower cost.

BridgeHead Software is storage hardware agnostic. Having established relationships with the major storage hardware platforms, including EMC, IBM, HP, Plasmon, and Sun, Avnet VARs and systems integrators can create and deliver custom technology solutions that are market-tested and proven to deliver value to healthcare, finance, government, education, and other vertical markets and customers.