Under the terms of the deal, Bell will supply its reseller base with ISS' full suite of products and services. ISS was snapped up by IBM for $1.3bn last year (CRN, 23 August 2006) and has operated as a business unit within IBM Global Services' Security organisation ever since.

Andrew Lawton, director of northern Europe for ISS, said: 'Moving into the IBM channel with our products and services is key for us. Our distribution channel was not strong enough in that area and was more focused on specialist VARs.

'After having discussions with the IBM channel team, we decided we needed a strong distributor that can help us to increase our market in new areas without upsetting our existing market. Bell came out as the best company for the job.'

Duncan Hume, director of the security division at Bell Micro, said: 'From our perspective this extends our existing relationship with IBM for resellers selling the p-series of products, and allows them to offer an IBM security solution that they have not been able to do before. It is very early days, but we have already made sales to the market.'

Lawton added ISS will officially be known as 'ISS a division of IBM' from next month and as a result will be tweaking its channel strategy to be more in line with IBM.'

All our partners are being made aware of the changes,' he said. 'The channel programme will be very similar to what was there before, but it will make it easier for resellers that are [ISS]-accredited to sell IBM products.'

ISS also works with Computerlinks and Noxs, a division of Westcon, as UK distribution partners. However, Lawton denied the appointment of Bell would affect its existing distributors, saying the firms operate in 'completely different market sectors' .

Kay Eggleston, managing director of Noxs, agreed. 'I don't see Bell's appointment as a problem,' she said. 'We are a specialist security distributor, Bell Micro is not. Any chance of a clash would be minimal – our resellers are all in the security space rather than the IBM space, so I am not concerned.'