The ANZ chapter of this global group was established three years ago and is an association of vendors, channel partners and end users interested in promoting storage and storage networking within the local IT community. Representatives from Acer, CA, Commvault, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, Sun and Symantec sit on the board.However chairman Jacob van der Eyk – CA solution architect – insists the group is vendor neutral. “When we have a meeting you have to leave your ego and the company you work for at the door. Within ANZ SNIA wants to be the mechanism for driving business change by working closely with members,” he says.  Van der Eyk admits SNIA needs to prove its worth in New Zealand, in the first instance by adding value to local members. Currently SNIA has two levels of membership – voting and non-voting – but Van der Eyk is aware the group needs to address the reseller and system integrator market.“With this in mind we’re in the process of establishing an additional level of membership – individual – and are currently looking at the value proposition.” He notes that convergence over the last few years has seen storage move from less-than-exciting hardware to the introduction of information management concepts. “Potentially that brings a whole new audience to the party and moves it to a business discussion rather than operational.”Because of this shift Van der Eyk says a new niche market has developed for smaller practitioners. “It’s a chance for SIs to pick up some consulting revenue because end users want an independent opinion and the channel is well placed to do that.”