Westcon and Avaya Help Resellers Target Mid-Market Opportunities in IP Telephony

Market Wire, July, 2008

Westcon Group, Inc ., the leading specialty distributor in networking, convergence, security and mobility, announced that resellers who take advantage of its onboarding and training financing capabilities -- in combination with recent changes to Avaya's BusinessPartner authorization policies -- stand a lot to gain in the small and midsize IP telephony space.

IDC forecasts that the small and medium-sized business (SMB) enterprise applications market will grow to $80.3 billion by the end of 2012, representing a 10.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2008-2012 period. Additionally, IDC finds that there will be increased spending by small and midsize businesses across the entire spectrum of enterprise application segments over the forecast period.*

Steve Bernard, vice president and general manager of Westcon's Voda One business practice, commented: "We have been working closely with Avaya to help smaller resellers capture larger deals -- mainly enterprise opportunities at small and mid-size companies. In a challenging economic environment such as this, our relationship to the reseller becomes more valuable when we can ease the onboarding process and present attractive financing options like flooring and lockbox."

Westcon Group has developed powerful onboarding capabilities -- accessible via its ConvergencePoint program -- that help resellers efficiently navigate the product certification process. A new online tool, which includes step-by-step video-based training modules, makes the training process easier and more accessible to resellers. This tool, when used in combination with Westcon's classroom style training events, can reduce overall time to revenue.

Donny Ward, vice president, North America Channel Sales, Avaya, commented, "We have simplified our partner authorization process specifically to help smaller resellers compete more effectively in mid-markets -- an area that represents the greatest profit potential and market growth. These changes -- along with Westcon's consultative approach in helping resellers win and support deals -- are good for the channel and represent a tremendous opportunity."

Some of the key solutions in Westcon's mid-market IP telephony portfolio include the Avaya S8500 and S8300 Media Servers, which allow for a distributed enterprise over an IP infrastructure -- ideal for mid-size businesses. By combining IP telephony products with solutions in Westcon's Open Source portfolio, including VoIP Gateways from Audiocodes and Digium/Asterisk-based call center solutions from Aheeva, resellers can realize significant additional margin opportunities.

"As smaller enterprises demand large enterprise-caliber solutions, we are often under pressure to compete with resellers much larger than ourselves," commented Sandee Ebbott, president of Minneapolis, MN-based Group 10 Technology. "Westcon and Avaya are helping us scale to meet this challenge and uncover revenue in places we couldn't even compete in before -- such as professional services. This is not only helping us win new deals, but is also enabling us to cultivate important long-term relationships with a lucrative end-user customer base."

*IDC: "Small and Medium-Sized Business Enterprise Applications Market to Grow to $80.3 Billion by 2012, IDC Finds," Doc # prUS21278308, June 2008

About Westcon Group

Westcon Group, Inc. is the leading specialty distributor in networking, security, mobility and convergence for leading technology vendors, including Cisco, Nortel, Avaya and Polycom. Through its Westcon, Comstor and Voda One business practices, Westcon Group sells products and services to resellers, systems integrators and service providers. Westcon Group has particular expertise in the convergence of voice, data and video applications and technologies, including voice-over Internet protocol, or VoIP, security for networking and communications systems, remote access, Internet and e-business, virtual private networks, videoconferencing and wireless connectivity. For more information, visit www.westcongroup.com .

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Contact: Jeffrey Touzeau Westcon Group, Inc. (914) 829-7388 Email Contact