ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

You read in the newspapers about the retail store closings, the staff cuts, and the elimination of frills. Yet most newspapers don’t report on the fact that, despite trimming the budgets, retailers still need to take action to make themselves significant to their customers.

The goal of most retailers is to go customer-centric and you can’t budget-cut or turtle-neck your way into the hearts of end users. The recession is a battle for the trade of fewer customers so retailers must devise customer programs, try various promotions, and adopt new marketing tactics to win the battle.

For an example of the type of initiative that still goes forward, Micro Anvika becomes the latest retailer to add a web TV channel, a product-specific video database that will appeal to the YouTube generation of buyers that hit their web site looking for product.

“UK’s largest independent retailer of computers”, Micro Anvika began trading in 1984 on London’s Tottenham Court Road, the UK’s premier computing and electronics shopping street, at the beginning of the personal computer revolution.

Rather than distract themselves from their core business, Micro Anvika didn’t try to product build a web channel in-house; instead they turned to an online content partner, Flixmedia.tv. Flixmedia offers the production of online product videos (QuikClips) to manufacturers of consumer goods (including HP, Philips, Symantec, Dyson, Panasonic and Toshiba) and distributes the manufacturer content to a network comprised of publishers and retailers reaching out to their consumer audiences.

“This was a really easy decision for us, as it’s fully managed by Flixmedia,” says Nick Gatt at Micro Anvika. “It promises to be highly effective for our needs, as our customers respond well to varied content that talks their language.”

Dinesh Chand, Mobile Product Marketing Manager in UK for Samsung (another one of the vendors featured by Flixmedia), adds, “The TV channel is the natural next step for a retailer like Micro Anvika – bringing its many site visitors a continuous communications flow of product video clips, as well as the vendor-produced content that Flixmedia provides for the relevant product pages.”

Go Micro Anvika’s Video in Action

Go Flixmedia, Content Supplier to Retailer & Vendors

Go Micro Anvika, Consumer Point of View

Mobility Software is a Goose

Maybe you saw this Goose wandering around Planet Reseller at CeBIT? The wandering Goose was from the Hikanoos stand. They sell software and a drive under this bird brand.

The point of the wandering goose at CeBIT was to emphasize Goose lets you work safely anywhere, anytime on any computer. Goose enables mobility with security “as airtight as a goose”.

The Goose software turns any USB key into a secure and mobile portable computer device. You get a complete suite of software with email, browsing, writing, multimedia, chat and call and security.

By security, we mean no-trace technology, no-script protection, anti-virus protection, digital shredder, password memory and more.

The advantage is as clear and pointed as the beak on a goose’s face: instead of lugging a laptop or netbook around, you can carry your USB key—plug it into any chosen computer and the high level of security means when you leave, you leave nothing behind on that chosen computer.

Maybe you prefer a portable computer device, so Goose has loaded their software on a drive. The drive is small enough to be carried on a keychain, yet carries the full Goose software suite. It secures your email communication, phone calls, web visits, and financial transactions.

Retailers and distributors can see Goose highlighted at the upcoming RETAILVISION EUROPE in Berlin.

Hikanoos calls Goose “your digital guardian”. That’s just another way to say: This Goose protects the flock.

Go Goose

What does it take these days to break in the external storage market?

On one hand in external drives, you have the large traditional suppliers who have brand as their biggest asset. On the other hand, you have companies entering the market based on design because storage is now a business of fashion. And thirdly, you have other companies who enter the market based on including an extra feature, typically added security benefits.

Rocstor, based near Los Angeles, has cracked the US market by combining both design and security. Rocsecure (division of Rocstor) is an industry leader in Secure Encrypted digital data content storage. Between their Rocbit and Rocsafe product lines, Rocsecure is able to offer secure Real-Time hardware data encryption AES 256‐Bit and up to 192‐Bit Triple DES encryption with multiple interfaces and cross‐platform compatibility in both external and notebook‐centered solutions.

Rocstor made their first foray into CeBIT this year, showing 10 new product lines and announcing another ten will come before June 2009. Rocstor makes desktop and rack-mounted RAID storage, but we looked at their pocket drives at CeBIT. Drives like their new AIRHAWK H series. As with their other Rocstor products, these drives are both bus‐powered and bootable, says Anthony Rink, VP of Sales (shown in photo at his CeBIT stand).

The new AIRHAWK Pocket Drives contain a fast, high capacity 2.5” SATA drive mechanism, with up to 800 MB/sec transfer speeds and multiple interfaces in a very stylish case (but one designed for thermal efficiency and silent operation). The bootable feature allows the user to boot, access and operate all programs and data via any another computer under the same OS environments with this hard drive.

IBM Shows Cloud Computing Concept

Watch as IBM Conceptualizes Cloud Computing for 2009 CeBIT-goers in Hannover...

Go IBM Looks Up to the Clouds