Distribution giant DNS Arrow has set its sights on the lucrative virtualisation space and is considering future acquisitions to get a foothold.
This is according to Johnny Ellis, the recently appointed business development director at the distributor, who joined from rival Bell Micro.
“We are consolidating our current customer base and are looking to bring on a new breed of reseller, predominantly in storage and security,” said Ellis. “We have a real services mentality at DNS Arrow and we want to service our resellers the best we can and bring new products to them.”
The distributor is also looking to sign VARs that specialise in vertical markets, such as finance and retail, but a key driver will be virtualisation, Ellis stressed.
“We have virtualisation offerings in Europe, but getting a virtualisation strategy started in the UK is a big play for me, whether we do that organically or through acquisition,” he said, adding that the distributor was “constantly looking at acquisitions”.
“The idea of being niche as a distributor is great in theory, but very difficult in practice,” he said. “It is easier to be a big player.”
Ellis said DNS Arrow will continue to invest in key areas, such as marketing, lead generation and pre-and post-sales support.
Simon Welch, marketing director at rival distributor Horizon UK, said DNS Arrow’s virtualisation push was “inevitable”.
“Two years ago virtualisation started to appear in the press, but in reality the end-user community was not really ready for the technology,” said Welch.
“However, over the past couple of years there has been a fundamental shift and virtualisation has moved from being early adopter technology to more mainstream. It is ripe for distribution and ripe for the channel. It is also a services-rich area, which is good news for VARs that have seen margins decline on hardware.”
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