The first meeting of the Bowling Club MERLION for the Russian regional systems integrators was organized in Ekaterinburg

March 17, 2011 a new format for communication of the Russian largest IT-distributor with the regional system integrator - the Bowling Club MERLION was started.

Current information about the DELL server solutions based on Intel and Microsoft and communication with the colleagues in the market, combined with exciting competition under the title to the best regional team in bowling - are the components of the interest, which attracted system integrators to the Bowling Club MERLION located in Ekaterinburg.

The official meeting of the Bowling Club was opened by Dmitry Pivovarov, the Sales Department Head in UFD, SFD and FEFD. In his presentation "MERLION - the way to success!" he highlighted the company's results in 2010 and further plans for its development as well as the prospects and possibilities of cooperation.

The Partner Relationship Manager, DELL - Sergei Savin, presented the partner program "DELL Partner Direct". In his speech he highlighted key points on the benefits of status of the program participants and the criteria for participation in the program. He spoke about a new partner portal - a single point entry to all the resources for the cooperation with DELL. The Data Storage Systems Specialist (DELL) Michael Karpekov in his presentation "DELL Products for the corporate customers", told about the advantages of Fluid Data Architecture and its significance to the customers, as well as the features and advantages of using DELL servers - a wide model range, the design, management system, energy efficiency, performance and reliability. A great attention in the speech, Michael paid to Data Storage Systems, DELL key products and solutions for the corporate segment, product cards of the laptops family Latitude and the laptops improved performance.

The reports made by the vendors’ representatives were completed by the presentation made by The Manager of Microsoft Full Range Partners relationship - Anastasia Chudnovskaya under the title "The Key features and scenarios for the Windows Server 2008 R2 sales. Microsoft OEM ROK - an effective supply of servers under the trademarks of the manufacturers, which have attracted the attention of partners: SMB Market Review, sales scripts and virtualization, licensing, and ROK and the issues of marketing support.

In the frame of the official part of the event the following site was presented to the partners - Bowling - club MERLION, worked out specially to place actual information about the bowling competition course. The organizers drew attention to the fact that the competition is held in accordance with the bowling international rules and the provisions of the competitions on bowling carried out in Russia, approved by the Russian Federation of the Bowling Sport.

The qualifying competition stages in addition to Ekaterinburg stage will be held in Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Krasnodar, Saratov, Kazan, Khabarovsk, Omsk, Orenburg, and the final competitions will be held in Moscow at the end of 2011. The competition winner according to the Super Finale results will be the team that got maximum points during two games (regional and super final stages). The team will be awarded with the cup The Bowling Club MERLION, a cash prize and the title of the most athletic team of the system integration.

Upon completion of the business part of the event, MERLION partners, representatives and vendors, dressed in a specially prepared uniform decorated with the competition symbols were divided into teams, and after creating their names, took the game tracks to start an exciting fight in the bowling competition.

After two games the results were summed up, the winners were chosen and awarded with the prizes of the first stage of All-Russian competition for the system integrators.

Our congratulations to the winners and now we look forward to new success of The Bowling Club MERLION!