Ingram Micro has been appointed the exclusive distributor for Microsoft's Surface for the commercial market, with three commercial resellers also announced.

Cyclone, New Era and Telco Technology Services (TTS) have all been authorised as device resellers for Surface RT and Surface Pro as part of Microsoft's business-channel expansion.

Synnex remains the consumer distributor for the tablet.

The software giant was widely panned for cutting the channel from its distribution model when Surface first went on sale.

The initial model saw Surface sold only through Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi, and even the addition of the higher end Pro model, Microsoft didn't change its distribution, though Noel Leeming was added to the mix.

Corporate customers were forced to place orders through retailers' commercial sales managers, something Microsoft told The Channel it didn't advocate as it could be complex with no support model for the commercial customers other than returning to the retailer.

The new players are part of the Microsoft Devices Program, which establishes a newly designated group of device-authorised commercial resellers.

In addition to offering Microsoft's extended warranty and accidental damage, the resellers 'bring a variety of value-added services to the Surface family such as asset tagging, custom imaging, kitting, onsite service and support, device recycling and data protection.

“The addition of these authorised resellers is a continuation of Microsoft’s devices-and-services strategy, and extends our Surface family of devices, enabled by cloud services, to more organisations,” said Brent Kendrick, Microsoft New Zealand director of Small and Mid-size Business and Partner Group.

“We look forward to working closely with these partners to better serve their commercial customers. As we move quickly into future phases of this program, we will activate more partners to sell Surface devices.”