Ingram ups IPT ante
Convergence vendor signs second distribution deal in four months
Ingram Micro UK and Avaya have finally completed a deal that will see the broadline distributor sell the vendor's full portfolio of convergence products.
"From the start [of Ingram Micro Network Services] last year, we focused on IP telephony, security, enterprise software and mobility," said Kevin Vine, managing director of Ingram Micro Networking Services. "We will sell into existing resellers, but we are also looking to recruit."
The distribution agreement, first reported in CRN in the summer last year, has taken at least four months to negotiate.
Also announced last summer was rival distributor Westcon's full distribution agreement with Avaya, which was signed in November.
"Most of the market will see this as a natural progression," said Clive Sawkins, vice president of Avaya UK and Eire. "With the channel segmentation we now have, I think we're at the right level."
Sawkins said he was expecting to sell more of Avaya's data networking products as a result of the deal but that he "was not naive enough to think there will be single vendor installs".
Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at EuroLan Research, said the move corrected flaws in Avaya's channel strategy.
"Avaya's main flaw in the past 18 months has been that it hasn't recruited enough data resellers. With Westcon and Ingram in the picture, things will hopefully change."
Resellers seemed unaffected by the news, claiming existing relationships, with distributors such as Caltel, Crane, MTV and NV3, remain strong.
"We had an inkling this would happen last year," said Malcolm Cade, operations director at telecoms VAR NEG. "We have such a strong relationship with Crane I don't think this will damage it.
"Apart from one or two customers, we've not really seen much of a demand for voice over IP [VoIP] as yet. We feel we are good at selling the customer what is right for them, but we've limited our activities to voice.
"Things will move towards VoIP eventually, but the arrival of VoIP and hybrid systems has not happened as quickly as we thought it would."