I am proud to announce that Timico today gained it’s Nortel SMB certification. Okay okay so what? The point is that Communications Providers and System Integrators selling a manufacturer’s product into traditional Enterprise markets will have a list of certifications as long as your arm. However none of these businesses will particularly be interested in selling into the SMB market (sorry – small and medium sized businesses).

When you have to pay expensive engineering resources to be around to install kit the money in the deal has to be there to make it worth the effort and traditionally this means selling to bigger customers.

The poor old small business, whose market segment incidentally represents the vast majority of the market, has had to exist on an adhoc basis relying on a variety of local small engineering shops to satisfy their miscellaneous technical needs.

It is unusal for a CP to hang its hat on the small business because of the cost of reaching this customer. However the traditional Enterprise equipment vendors are beginning to wake up to the opportunities in this market and I have already commented on the Cisco play via the “Linksys by Cisco” brand.

Clearly Nortel also see the merits of selling to the SMB and this latest award to Timico is a reflection of the understanding that both companies have that a professional approach to these customers is essential. The SMB is now able to source its communications and networking products from a known and trusted entitity that is called Timico.