APC, MGE face local competitors in UPS market

THE TRADITIONAL brand-name UPS offerings at Expo Comm Argentina - APC and MGE - faced some competition this year, with attractive offerings from a local UPS firm, Deasa.

Behemoth UPS racks from APC and MGE have featured heavily at Expo Comm the last few years, but the booths always seemed to target the high-end power protection market, rarely the SOHO / Medium Sized Business, much less the end user.

APC and MGE often had a couple of small UPS units somewhere, but that wasn't what the vendors hoped to sell at this exhibition. For instance, APC distributor Powersa promoted its Symmetra LX line.

APC and MGE, the "classics" when it comes to UPS offerings at Expo Comm.

This year the international heavyweights had some competition from a local firm, which brought some very attractive offerings to the show floor, starting with the low-end range and going up all the way to a modular rackmount system, dubbed Power+ and capable of hot-swapping 10 kVA battery modules and sporting a SNMP controlling module.

The firm's entry-level Blitz models, which are a single-conversion UPS, start at 500VA and go up to 2kVA, feature remote software management, and start at $80. Really a price unheard of for local factories and very competitive.

The firm also showcased the very interesting mid-range "MARS" product line, a dual-conversion UPS, available in vertical or rack-mount versions, with power ranges starting at 1kVA and going up to 3kVA. Prices for EASA's mid-range UPSs start at $400 and go up to $1,200.

Deasa's "MARS" dual-conversion UPS line

The firm boasts about having six major local banks, one airline, two telcos, Siemens, Visa, Lucent, HP, and several hospitals among its customers. On the downside, this firm follows the local tradition of hiding prices very well on its web site.

It's always good to see a local firm giving the multi-national heavyweights some competition. µ