Wick Hill appointed to grow Xirrus' partner base

VAD will join e92plus in Xirrus' distribution line up

Wireless LAN vendor Xirrus is hoping to expand its base of resellers with the appointment of VAD Wick Hill, after claiming it has saturated the reseller base of current distributor e92plus.

The vendor, which switched to a sole-distributor model last summer when it parted company with VCW, said Wick Hill will be complementary to e92plus.

Xirrus claimed the new partnership, which takes effect from today, will help it attract new VARs in its key verticals of education, healthcare and large public venues.

The vendor's technology, which is deployed across end users such as the Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool and the University of Bath, consists of a high-density wireless network designed to provide both the reliability and security of a wired network, claimed Xirrus.

Ian Kilpatrick, Wick Hill's chairman, said Xirrus satisfied a gap in the VAD's portfolio.

He said: "[Wireless] is a high-growth area. From a channel perspective, we know it is having an impact because as more people use it, they require a seamless experience.

"With Xirrus, you do not have to ‘rip and replace' which means you lower costs because you do not have to re-cable all the time."

Steve Armstrong, Xirrus' international channel manager, said the decision to appoint Wick Hill was driven by the distributor's experience within the channel.

Analyst GSMA predicts that by 2020 there will be 50 billion internet-connected devices.

"We are seeing the market shift towards Xirrus, because even in the enterprise [sector], capacity is a big driver due to the BYOD onslaught," said Armstrong.