Meeting customer demand, ensuring the best experience, and minimizing support, all while achieving a high-profit margin can be a juggling act. Software companies often face a dilemma between wanting to stay strictly a software company, thereby allowing someone else to determine the best-fit hardware to maximize the performance and predictability of their solution or to deliver their solution as an appliance with controlled performance and manageability. There's another attractive option, to offer the opportunity to do both through a virtual OEM partnership.
A virtual OEM partnership offers all the benefits of a purpose-built appliance while meeting market demand for channel ready, optimized solutions. The marketing and sales aspects still exist, but you benefit from a solution provider and fulfillment partner to address an alternate route to market. This program works best with an established channel and a driving need for tested and validated solutions from industry-leading technology providers. Add in a comprehensive, solution level support program and you have a very appealing offering that allows for maximum software performance.
Now let’s get back to the basics with the proven benefits of delivering your solution as a purpose-built appliance.
Faster to market
Developing software for a huge number of hardware solutions available is a very time-intensive process. With an appliance as the delivery vehicle, developers only need to produce code that works with a set hardware platform, a single operating system, a specific set of supporting applications, and a single selection of middleware for the management interface. Less time can be spent working through dependencies and interoperability issues, as well as testing and verification, and more time on building new revenue-generating features.
Improved application performance
Software engineers, working with a single set of accompanying technologies can write and tune their applications for maximum performance with those particular elements. Instead of “dumbing down” their applications to work with the broad range of possible components, developers can focus on squeezing the greatest amount of performance possible out of the defined and controlled set of technologies. Better performance directly correlates to increased customer satisfaction.
Reduced support costs
Delivering your solution as a purpose-built appliance can dramatically lower the costs of support. Support teams can focus on the shortlist of technologies specified in their appliance, which enables them to identify and solve technical problems faster and with fewer resources, dramatically reducing support costs. Not only does this significantly reduce costs, it ensures easy installation and increases customer satisfaction.
A renewed focus on core competencies
Just like our traditional OEM programs, with a virtual OEM program, UNICOM Engineering manages the hardware development in tandem with a software provider. Through a comprehensive suite of OEM services, we ensure that workflows are managed and deliverables are achieved on-time. Managing BOMs, testing, supply chain, and locking down critical elements of that solution, while you get to focus on delivering innovation and capturing market share.
Flexibility throughout the engagement
Choosing UNICOM Engineering as your solution provider and fulfillment partner enables you to benefit from our decades of experience, broad technology partner network, and comprehensive set of OEM services designed to cover everything from concept to delivery. UNICOM Engineering would begin by providing design and engineering services to scope a portfolio of appliance servers solutions that maximize performance and cost goals at every level. Once defined, these certified and tested solutions would be made available to you, your VARs, and end-users to order directly. UNICOM Engineering delivers a fully integrated solution and handles the licensing of the software in whichever manner makes sense to your business. All the while, UNICOM Engineering is handling the supply chain, inventory, logistics, and can even extend credit to your VARs and end customers.
Want to learn more?
If this program aligns with your go-to-market strategies and you want to learn more, contact UNICOM Engineering at 800-977-1010 or www.unicomengineering.com.