Dynabook looking to reengage with channel and core markets

Dynabook is looking to reengage with some key markets and partners as it looks to gain more market share in the mobile market. 

The firm is keen to build up its presence in verticals, including education and health, and acknowledges that will include working closely with partners operating in those areas. 

It has been a year since the firm was sold by Toshiba and picked up by Sharp and with a number of products on the brink of hitting the market the hardware player is bullish about its prospects. 

Nick Offin, head of sales, marketing and operations at Dynabook Europe, said that it wanted to return some of the concentration to areas it had been strong in the past but might have lost some focus in the last couple of years. 

"The plans are to really dramatically grow our business and that is to get back into some of the core markets,” he added “we used to have a massive business in schools education here in the UK and we're going back into that market.” 

“We have never left it, But we didn't prioritise it as a core focus. We're now moving back into that. Then we're moving back into other markets we haven't been seen in a while such as SMB,” he said. 

He added that it was not just a question of bringing products to market that would appeal to those markets, for instance the mobile zero client that allows GPs to view patient data securely, but also working with partners that had established relationships with those customers. 

"One of the first things we're doing is reaching out to a lot of partners that we used to have four or five years ago, and sort of enlarging our partner programme,” he said. 

“We want to we want to reach out with our channel programme,” he added "We think the product portfolios, we've got coming, will gain that focus and traction. And there's new opportunities as well, with some of these new applications we're talking about.”     

Offin said that the firm owned its own factories and BIOS and as a result was able to bring innovation to the market that other rivals could not offer: "We want to regain a bit of sort of engineering and technological advancement leadership.” 

As well as looking at the products and partner base Offin said that it was also developing its device as a service proposition and was looking at creating offerings that resellers could take out to SME customers or to enterprise users. 

“The whole concept of buying your solution on a monthly billing basis could be appealing to some companies,” he said. 

Offin said that customers were continuing to make the move towards Windows 10, upgrading from older hardware running former Microsoft operating systems, and that had helped create opportunities in the commercial PC market. 

He added that on the mobile front the changes in working patterns were also feeding into a rise of interest in ultra-thin products and devices that users could use outside of an office environment.