Westcon plays host to budding ASPs

Westcon is to offer managed network services for resale by the channel and server hosting facilities for resellers wanting to become application service providers.

Westcon is to offer managed network services for resale by the channel and server hosting facilities for resellers wanting to become application service providers (ASPs).

John Chapman, business development director at Westcon, said over the last year most major networking tenders have started to ask for managed network services, which means resellers have been losing deals to service providers.

"This service gives resellers the chance to change their business model without making a massive investment," said Chapman.

Derek Allen, managing director of networking systems integrator Comtech, said: "We're very interested. It is a fabulous opportunity to complete the circle by adding ASP and managed services to our network infrastructure business, and take on companies like Uunet."

But Duncan Crook, managing director of distributor and managed service provider Equinox, said: "There's no real difference between what Westcon is doing and simply reselling bandwidth from any service provider."

Crook added that by leaving the reseller responsible for assessing the customer need, and doing no more than supplying a network, Westcon is potentially leaving resellers liable for contracts which the customer had cancelled. Chapman countered that resellers want to add value themselves and need only the network from Westcon.

Prices negotiated with Telewest would allow resellers to under-cut managed services pricing from companies such as BT and Cable & Wireless, said Chapman.

The network marketed by Westcon is owned by Network i, which was previously known as the ISPConsortium. Datatec bought Network i nine months ago, and the investment was used to build a network operations centre and hosting facility.

Resellers will be given full online access to this network operations centre, to control their own service-level agreements, and offered hosting facilities with four 155Mb feeds, high security and high availability, said Chapman.

He said Westcon's vendors - Lucent, Nortel, 3Com and Motorola - have agreed to sponsor resellers who sign up to the programme.

The options available include FrameConnect, which guarantees a 100 per cent committed information rate across the private virtual circuit, InterConnect, Frame Relay Internet access and Dial Connect using 0845 numbers.