Avnet Embedded, a division of Avnet Electronics Marketing, will team up with 13 suppliers to offer a free two-day virtual summit on the benefits of solid state drives (SSDs) next month. The SSD Virtual Summit will take place April 3rd and 4th; registration is open now at Avnet’s website.
Representatives from Adaptec by PMC, Dell OEM, Hitachi GST, Intel, LSI Corp., Kingston, Micron Technology, OCZ Technology, Rorke Data (an Avnet company), Smart Storage Technology, Seagate, STEC and Toshiba will participate in more than 25 on-demand technical courses about SSDs. Attendees can choose from courses that delve into:
- SSD tiered storage solutions;
- Data security in SSDs;
- SSDs in rugged embedded computing;
- High-performance caching;
- Calculating SSD endurance and performance;
- And more.
In addition to technical courses, the online summit will feature presentations from industry analysts Jim Handy, director of Objective Analysis, and Jim Feldham, president of Semico Research. Handy and Feldham will give an industry insider’s perspective on the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of SSDs.
The event will also feature 30-minute live chat sessions with technical experts from each supplier company.
“SSDs are quickly becoming an appealing alternative, offering our customers throughput improvement and near real-time response times for applications delivered across cloud and mobile devices,” said Chuck Kostalnick, senior vice president, Avnet Embedded. “Our SSD Summit helps engineers navigate through the nuances and complexities of SSD technology, ultimately providing the right resources to choose the right solution for each attendee’s particular product or service.”
In other industry news, Houston-based independent distributor Smith Associates announced the appointment of two new company vice presidents recently.
Fifteen-year company veteran Todd Traylor was named vice president of global trading; he will be responsible for helping manage all aspects of Smith’s global trading programs and initiatives. Since joining Smith Associates in 1997, Traylor has served in a number of capacities, including OEM sales, trading manager, general manager of Smith’s Amsterdam headquarters and managing director of Smith Europe. He was named CPU commodity manager upon returning to Houston in 2003.
Smith also announced the appointment of Leslie McIntyre to vice president of human resources. A new addition to Smith’s global team, McIntyre is responsible for leading Smiths’ human resources department and expanding its global programs and employees resources.
Awards & Honors
Some industry distributors received top honors from some of their key suppliers recently:
Avnet Electronics Marketing won the 2011 Global Distributor of the Year award from Molex Inc. The award recognizes valued partners demonstrating financial, operational and executive management excellence, according to Molex.
Heilind Electronics was named National Distributor of the Year by WAGO, designer and manufacturer of innovative interconnect solutions. The award was based on Heilind’s sales growth as well as its promotion and support of WAGO sales initiatives.
Farnell/element14 was named European Distributor of the Year for 2011 by VARTA Microbattery GmbH, global manufacturers and designers of rechargeable and primary battery systems. Farnell was recognized for its new product introduction process, as well as service offerings via its online community, element14. element14 was also awarded the ‘FY2011 ASEAN Channels Growth Award from Tektronix. The award honors the company’s continuous success in acquiring new customers, increasing revenue growth, and expanding Tektronix’ profile in the region.
New & Expanded Distribution Agreements
Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas announced a new distribution agreement with Epson Electronics America, Inc., making EEA quartz-based products available to Avnet’s customers in the Americas. Avnet EM Americas will also now offer EMC Solutions through its Avnet Embedded division; the deal is the result of an expanded distribution agreement between EMC Corp. and Avnet Technology Solutions.
Mouser Electronics is now an authorized distributor for TAIYO YUDEN, a maker of passive components and advanced materials technology.
Newark/element14 announced a new stocking distribution agreement with Atmel Corp., maker of microcontrollers, capacitive touch, advanced logic, mixed signal, non-volatile memory products and components.
RFMW, Ltd. and MAST Technologies announced a worldwide distribution agreement in which RFMW will provide the manufacturer’s broad portfolio of RF absorber material, including cavity resonance and EMI absorbing elastomers, lossy and reticulated foam absorbers, as well as conductive and absorptive caulks and coatings that reduce EMI/EMC and RFI emissions.
TTI, Inc. announced a new supply agreement with Radiant Corp. to supply interconnects, electromechanical and passive components for Radiant’s cable assembly operations in India.
Events
Don’t miss these upcoming industry events:
2012 World Capacitor/Resistor/Inductor Trade Statistics Meetings
April 10-11, 2012
Washington, D.C.
http://www.eciaonline.org/meetings/world_mtgs/apr_2012/index.html
EDS 2012
May 7-10, 2012
Las Vegas
http://www.edsconnects.com/
