VAR Minx Technology is on target to become the first Cisco Gold Partner to be appointed in almost a year.

The Cisco-focused reseller was awarded Silver status at the beginning of the year (CRN, 26 January), but set its sights on becoming a Gold partner by recruiting the additional technical staff needed for Gold accreditation (CRN, 20 February).

Cisco currently has 30 Gold partners in the UK. Its most recent addition was Cisilion in October 2005.

John Pepper, managing director of Minx, told CRN: “We have a Gold partner audit next week, and we are on track to go Gold. We hope to announce this soon after the audit.”

Pepper said since Minx’s Silver accreditation it has managed to increase its turnover and profit, taken on six engineers and set up a 24-hour helpdesk in March.

“The Gold status will give us additional price support, access to larger accounts and the prestige our staff deserve. We will be one of the only privately owned Gold Cisco partners.”

Pepper claimed Minx has moved closer to Gold accreditation because of its focus on Cisco products, enthusiastic team and reputation for customer services.

“We now have 15 internal and external account managers,” he said. “It is a great time to become a Cisco Gold partner.”

Pepper added that Cisco’s changes to its partner programme (CRN, 13 March), which involved partners being required to train in different ‘advanced technologies’, has helped Minx’s progress towards Gold partner status.

“The change to Cisco’s partner programme has enabled us to focus more money into training in the specialisations,” Pepper said.

Paul Renucci, managing director of Cisco Gold partner Damovo, said: “There are already 30 Cisco Gold partners in the UK. I’m not worried about the appointment of another one.”

Renucci added that the advantage of the Cisco Gold status is the level of new business it opens up, because some firms will work only with Cisco’s Gold accred ited partners.

trevor_treharne@vnu.co.uk