Preferred Image Technologies to Sell IBM i HA Software

February 7, 2011 Alex Woodie

There’s a new IBM i high availability (HA) software player in town. Preferred Image Technologies has signed up to resell the Quick-EDD HA software developed by the French company Trader’s. Preferred Image plans to start selling the software to IBM i shops in the Phoenix area and eventually widen its delivery area to include the entire country.

Preferred Image Tech was founded by Jim Chenoweth, a long-time RPG programmer and businessman who was looking to expand into a line of business that didn’t involve, as he puts it, “writing code all day.” Chenoweth was contacted by iSamBlue, the master distributor of Quick-EDD for North America, and he quickly seized upon the opportunity to join the growing reseller network.

“It really piqued my interest,” Chenoweth tells IT Jungle. “As I understand it, the Quick-EDD product matches up with other high availability products quite competitively, in performance and pricing.”

Preferred Image Tech, which is based in Peoria, Arizona, isn’t the only reseller that has an agreement in place with iSam Blue, the Mapleton, Utah, company that has been working with Trader’s for about two years. There are roughly 10 other companies representing the Quick-EDD product. In the last two years, almost 40 companies have licensed Quick-EDD through iSam Blue or one of its resellers, according to an iSamBlue spokesperson.

But Chenoweth’s business model differs from the other Quick-EDD representatives in one important way. “I believe I’m the only one who has formed a company for the sole purpose of marketing this product,” he says. “I have two salespeople whose job is to do nothing but sell and market this product.”

In addition to marketing and selling Quick-EDD, Preferred Image Tech will implement and support the product. The first line of technical support will come from Peoria, while iSam Blue will provide second-level support. If the two partners can’t address a customer’s situation, the issue will be escalated to Trader’s headquarters in Paris.

But Chenoweth doesn’t expect to be placing many support calls to Paris. While he is still building his IBM i HA skills, Chenoweth is quite confident in the HA knowledge and experience possessed by Robert Seal, the CEO of iSam Blue, and a former developer with iTera and its Echo2 HA product. Seal left iTera around the time it was acquired by Vision Solutions, and now is competing against former colleagues who are selling a product he helped to develop.

“He’s well aware of the competition, which has given me more confidence that, teaming up with him, we can go in and make a huge dent in the market,” Chenoweth says. “The experience that Robert, specifically, and his team have in the industry, the knowledge of the competitive products–that really has allowed me to feel confident that we can make a go of this.”

Chenoweth will also rely heavily on comparisons between Quick-EDD and other IBM i HA products in the market–especially in product replacement scenarios, which he expects to be a big portion of his business. Besides a different pricing structure (Quick-EDD prices are based on processor group levels, not CPW ratings of servers), Chenoweth maintains that the architecture of Quick-EDD itself is superior to that of others, because it doesn’t use remote journaling.

“The switchover is much easier with the Quick-EDD product because of the lower bandwidth requirement. There’s less information being sent, because it’s not using remote journaling,” Chenoweth claims. “That keeps the target machine in synch quicker than the competition.”

As far as pricing goes, Chenoweth expects entry level licenses for source and target machines to start at a number just north of $10,000. For more information, see the company’s Web site at www.preferredimagetech.com.