NextiraOne in European VMS deal
VAR signs agreement with service provider
VAR NextiraOne has signed an agreement with managed network service provider Vanguard Managed Solutions (VMS) to expand its offering across Europe.
VMS's products and services will be merged into NextiraOne?s UK operation. NextiraOne hopes the deal will help it to become the leading IP communications service provider in Europe.
The firm, which was formerly the direct-sales arm of networking vendor Alcatel, already manages 400,000 sites in Europe with products from vendors such as Cisco, Genesys and Nortel, as well as Alcatel.
"Our existing strengths managing multi-vendor and multi-national networks, combined with VMS's capabilities, offer clear advantages to firms looking to outsource mission-critical data networks," claimed Simon Gibbs, UK managing director of NextiraOne in a statement.
"VMS's existing customers now benefit from access to our wide portfolio of managed services, as well as being guaranteed the highest levels of service from our combined infrastructure."
Recent research from analyst IDC has shown the managed network market is growing as corporates outsource. It predicted that the European infrastructure services market will grow from $60.1bn in 2001 to $110.7bn in 2006. IDC also said the ability to offer pan-European services is increasingly important to customers.
Chris Knowles, practice leader for networking and security at Computacenter, said managed networking is a growing market driven by WANs.
"Very few firms buy their own WAN; it is more convenient to buy a managed service," he said.