Mitel's Polycom takeover creates 'genuine market opportunity' for partners - vice president

$1.96bn acquisition is set to be completed in Q3 this year

Bringing together Mitel and Polycom presents a "genuine market opportunity" for partners of both vendors, according to Mitel vice president of sales, Simon Skellon.

Earlier this year Mitel announced a $1.96bn (£1.38bn) takeover deal for Polycom that is expected to be completed in Q3 this year.

Skellon told CRN that the overlap between the vendors' partners is "not as much as you'd have thought", which can only be good for partners.

"There's a genuine market opportunity for both Polycom channels and Mitel channels in that space," he said.

"With regards to integrating the partner community, there would be an appetite to integrate that community and come up with one partner programme, but that would take time and it's a little premature to make any determinations around that point.

"Certainly we would look to come together as one partner programme and ultimately together as one Mitel organisation."

Richard Dendel, managing director of Mitel partner Britannic Technologies, expects the acquisition to benefit both Mitel and its partners but said that work will have to be done to integrate Polycom's resellers.

"With Mitel's footprint they will be able to lever the investment they're making with Polycom," he told CRN.

"A lot of cross-training needs to be done - especially for the Polycom partners to be able to provide voice solutions.

"I would have thought the other way around would be much easier because it's just an application that is integrated within the Mitel platform itself."

Skellon also told CRN that the channel can expect Mitel to continue its long run of acquisitions following a number of high-profile takeovers in recent years, including Astra, Mavenir, Tiger TMS and Oasis.

"We are a very acquisitive company so we're very much going to continue down the acquisition path," Skellon said.

As well as the acquisitions, he told CRN that Mitel is looking to move into sectors that traditionally it has not had a presence in.

"We very much do see the big parts of the IT market that we don't serve today so we are looking to target and on-board other IT companies and channels that we wouldn't traditionally have targeted, such as SaaS businesses and desktop-as-a-service companies," said Skellon.

Britanic's Dendel said he expects a number of companies to follow Microsoft with this move.

"Most companies are looking to have provisions in that way: a subscription service with monthly recurring revenue," he said. "That's what cloud is all about.

"Any large company that is providing software and services - I can understand that model completely."