VAR snubs cloud with telco launch

LDD Group to launch telecoms arm as it moves beyond its roots in hardware resale

A Yorkshire VAR has chosen telecoms over cloud as it looks to diversify from its roots as a reseller.

Leeds-based LDD Group has spent about £10,000 on equipment to start a telecoms division, which will provide customers with the connectivity required for the hardware they already sell, according to the VAR.

The company, which employs 22 people, is a Microsoft, Cisco and VMWare partner, and its clients include Nike and NHS trusts.

Mandi Iles, group sales director, explained that the company was torn between branching into either cloud or telecoms and decided that the former was not the right fit for the business.

"Taking stock of the business back in 2011 I had to decide whether to choose a direction that encompassed cloud technologies or connectivity solutions," she said. "I felt LDD could deliver greater benefits to both existing and potential customers by building on our existing 19 years of IT experience and to concentrate on connectivity.

The company, whose 2011 turnover reached £11.6m, is set to launch the telecoms technology within the next six weeks.

Iles continued: "We started to see iPads, for example, becoming very big. Mobility was going to change the way we work and move forward. I felt that supplying hardware meant we were ignoring connections, so telecoms was a good move to do to connect them up.

"Phones, hybrids, dongles, iPads and smartphones are so popular now, and everyone has to connect these devices - you cannot just have the hardware.

"Hardware and the connections all go together and it saves our customers having to go elsewhere."