Avaya adds Nimans to disties
Firm recruits new distie as it targets SME phone market
Avaya is launching an assault on the small-business phone market and has added a new distributor after a shake-up last month.
Nimans will now distribute Avaya's IP Office phone system, alongside NV3, Westcon, MTV and Crane, into a market dominated by legacy time-division multiplexing (TDM) systems from vendors such as Panasonic and Siemens.
The move follows Avaya's split with Caltell last month and Caltell's owner Xpert Group's announcement that it is winding up its distribution unit.
Richard Pitt, channel development manager at Avaya's Small and Medium Business Solutions (SMBS) division, said the vendor is "going for aggressive growth in the sub-50-user market". He added: "Nimans has more than 3,000 resellers, many in the sub-50-user market, which is a key growth area for IP Office."
Richard Carter, marketing and operations manager at Nimans, claimed the distributor is getting a good response from VARs. "IP Office has lots to offer firms with less than 50 users. We have TDM offerings, but we want to have more of an IP offering," he said.
Carter added that shipments in the first month have doubled expectations and that Nimans has hired Alan Elston as an Avaya Technical Specialist. An operations manager will also be hired.
Nimans also distributes rival products such as Ericsson's Business Phone and MD110 systems, a contract it won from Norwood Adam and Centia. It also signed a deal with Mitel earlier this year.
Separately, Crane has split its Avaya business into two parts: SMBS and Enterprise Communications Group (ECG), to mirror Avaya's own business divisions.