Emerson signs Westcon as local disty

Extends relationship to other side of Tasman

By Amanda Sachtleben, Auckland | Thursday, 27 March 2008
Emerson Network Power has added Westcon Group (formerly Lan Systems) to its local distributor base, an extension of what it says is an excellent relationship across the Tasman.

“They’re going to take us into more market segments,” says Emerson’s Sydney-based marketing and communications director Peter Spiteri, adding the move also gives Emerson better geographic reach.
Both the company’s existing local distributors Dove and Betacom are based in Christchurch with offices in Auckland.

Westcon has been an Emerson distributor in Australia since 2006 and sales manager Leigh Howard says the company began the relationship to complement convergence plays with other vendors it represents like Cisco, Nortel and 3Com.

“If you’re selling IP PBX switches they have to have back-up because they’re mission critical.

“Taking on a range of technology from Emerson is absolutely complementary to that convergence space and the same is true in New Zealand.”

Howard says Emerson will also benefit from distribution by partners of mission-critical applications other than Nortel.

Lan Systems officially adopted the Westcon name this month.

Meanwhile, Emerson is to introduce its Fast Track partner certification programme here, which has tiers for resellers, network solution providers and corporate partners.

“We’ve been informally training and teaching our partners to sell, but this is a proper certification,” says Spiteri, adding the programme includes technical and sales streams.

Emerson has talked about the programme with key local partners, but hasn’t yet launched it officially here. The company introduced the scheme into Australia in February.