APRO teams with ProSaleTech and PST to accelerate European expansion

The collaboration with ProSaleTech and PST is central to APRO’s strategy for fundamentally accelerating its European sales growth. It will enable APRO to draw on the combination of ProSaleTech’s extensive experience in pan-European sales, business development and channel management within the solid state device (SSD) market and PST’s associated pan-European logistics and technical support capabilities. The collaboration will also enable APRO to focus on its core expertise in the design and manufacture of industrial/military-grade Flash memory products and provide a fast-track technology customisation capability designed to meet the specific requirements of individual European customers.

“Building a strong presence and quality image in Europe is an important part of our ongoing business development strategy,” said Tanja Hsu, CEO of APRO Co., Ltd. “However, we realise that, in order to be successful, we must understand and cater for the idiosyncrasies of the European market. Teaming with ProSaleTech and PST will allow us to short-circuit the initial learning process by leveraging their pan-European market knowledge and channel connections. Our decision to team up with them is based on their demonstrable track record with other large, pioneering Flash solutions manufacturers going back over 15 years.”

Since its formation in 2004, APRO has developed into Taiwan’s leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage products serving a broad range of industrial markets and applications from embedded computing, industrial automation and entertainment systems through to medial equipment, military and aerospace systems, telecommunications and networking. The company has gained an enviable reputation for its commitment to R&D resulting in the delivery of high quality products through technology innovation and manufacturing excellence as well as the ability to quickly customise products to meet customers’ specific needs.

“Unlike the consumer Flash storage market, the requirement for industrial applications is very different. Standard products will not necessarily suffice,” said Erez Lev, Managing Director of ProSaleTech. “Success in Europe depends on several factors. A knowledgeable local presence that enables manufacturers’ to work closely in partnership with their European customers in order to understand and solve their storage design issues is essential. The ability to differentiate a value proposition through immediacy of service and the ability, where necessary, to tailor products to meet customers’ specific requirements are also important.”

ProSaleTech provides comprehensive sales, business development and channel management services to companies wishing to target the European market. Working in partnership with its customers, ProSaleTech’s approach is designed to leverage its extensive market knowledge to achieve rapid results at minimum cost and with minimum risk. Co-founded by Erez Lev, who spent 15 years at M-Systems and SanDisk, most recently as European General Manager of their embedded business, ProSaleTech draws on his extensive experience of the solid state storage market. Working in association with ProSaleTech, PST has over 15 years experience in providing pan-European logistics and technical support services in relation to Flash memory devices and systems in both commercial and military markets.

In March, APRO will be exhibiting at Embedded World 2010 in Nürnberg, Germany (Hall 9, Stand 326) where it will showcase its complete range of industrial-grade NAND Flash storage devices and solutions. It will also announce the further expansion of its fast-growing product portfolio with the launch of a new family of high capacity, high performance and high reliability 2.5 inch Serial ATA (SATA) SSDs and a new family of high reliability 2.5 inch Parallel ATA (PATA) SSDs.