Distribution giant ALSO launches in UK

Swiss distributor recruiting staff to support local roll out of cloud commerce marketplace

Pan-European distribution giant ALSO has launched a greenfield UK operation as it continues to expand across the continent.

ALSO plans to initially recruit around eight UK staff to support the local roll out of its cloud commerce marketplace, the €12.4bn-revenue Swiss firm confirmed to CRN.

‘ALSO Cloud UK' will officially go live tomorrow.

Operating in 28 European countries, ALSO has recently expanded into both Italy and Portugal via acquisition. It also made a Hungarian purchase last year.

ALSO claims UK partners can use its cloud marketplace for provisioning, account management, license renewals, billing, analytics, as well as white label solutions with their own branding, giving them full control and offering their customers subscription-based self-serviced access to the ALSO portfolio.

The new UK team will be led by Mark Appleton out of Amersham.

"During the successful launch of our latest cloud greenfield ops in Spain our opinion has proven true that as virtual as the actual service may be, cloud still is very much a ‘people business'," the distributor told us.

ALSO's expansion comes as UK counterparts such as Westcoast, Exertis and Midwich continue to expand in mainland Europe and the US. The former leapt into Germany in October via a merger with local outfit KOMSA.

"An increasing number of customers have been asking us to get access to the full ALSO service and vendor portfolio," ALSO CEO Gustavo Möller-Hergt said.

"This is why we have decided to enter the market with a local presence. It will enable UK resellers to provide their customers with access to workplace-, business-, and cybersecurity-applications as well as cloud infrastructure of global vendors. Value-add resellers and ISVs can also offer and charge for their own services and applications through the platform."