Ipanema on hunt for UK VARs

Networking vendor wants resellers to provides services

Network optimisation vendor Ipanema is assembling a UK channel dedicated to providing additional services.

The French-based firm, which aims to improve the performance of business applications on the network, claimed the network optimisation market will rocket in 2006, with the majority of end-users requiring continued support.

IDC research, commissioned by Ipanema, found 54 per cent of European firms are unable to guarantee the performance of their applications while 88 per cent are expecting WAN traffic to increase.

Mike Bailey, UK country manager of Ipanema, said: "We are keen to build our channel in the UK and we want four or five resellers, system integrators and network integrators."

Bailey said as convergence gathers pace complexity in the network is rising and the efficient management of application traffic can help firms shift towards convergence.

"Forty-seven per cent of firms were looking to take WAN optimisation as a managed service which is good for the channel. This percentage will only grow as awareness rises and the category gets more profile," added Bailey.

Vargha Moayed, executive vice president of Ipanema, said: "The channel is becoming integrator-focused and looking to make money on services, which can be achieved round our system to gain continued revenue.

"We believe this is a $3bn market with $8bn from the services, which is six per cent of the total WAN worldwide market," added Moayed.

Mark Lewis, marketing director EMEA at WAN optimisation vendor Riverbed, said: "WAN optimisation is a market in growth that has been attracting attention and any new competition will raise awareness."

Lewis added in the past firms looked to consolidate networks, but were held back by the limitations of their WAN, but now end-users can increase speed and bandwidth to improve consolidation.