Telstra acquires Brisbane's Bridge Point

Telstra has acquired Brisbane security and networking provider Bridge Point, the latest in a series of resellers to be snapped up by the telco.

Bridge Point managing director and owner Rob Siganto said: "Bridge Point has been a Telstra partner since we started in 2000, so when the opportunity came up to become part of the group we could easily appreciate the potential we could offer to our people, our clients, our business partners and Telstra."

Bridge Point's "information security, network integration and management and data management solutions" capabilities will be rolled into the telco's Network Applications and Services portfolio, which provides managed network and security in addition to cloud and communications.

"We have watched and worked closely with Telstra in their move into ICT services through their NAS group and we were keen to become part of it," said Siganto.

The value of the deal was not disclosed.

Telstra has made no secret of its aggressive expansion plans for the NAS division. The unit grew by 27.8 percent in the 2014 financial year, totalling $1.9 billion in revenue.

The acquisition is just the latest example of Telstra pouncing on one a channel partners to expand its presence in enterprise IT. In August 2013, Telstra bought NSC Communications, in January 2014 it bought O2 Networks, and now it has snapped up Bridge Point – which worked closely with the telco to provide security consultancy on projects.

"This complements our acquisition of O2 Networks earlier this year. Both companies share complementary skills in advanced network and emerging technologies," said Michelle Bendschneider, Telstra's executive director of Global Enterprise and Services.

Bridge Point has been a prominent player in the Australian channel, having appeared on the 2012 CRN Fast50.

CRN understands that Siganto had been mulling a sale for some time, and the company has seen a number of staff depart in recent times.

In June 2013, director Tim Smith departed after nearly nine years with Bridge Point. 

Principal consultant Neil Cameron also left in June this year, and has since taken a position on the client side with National Australia Bank.

Bridge Point's sales business development manager, Andrew McHenry, had already exited the reseller in April this year. He has since moved to a vendor role as channel manager for Cyberoam, part of Sophos.

In June 2014, at least two more Bridge Point employees – technical account manager Mike Hawley and account manager Chris Carter-Jones – left the company and took roles at O2 Networks, the data centre integrator acquired by Telstra in January 2014.

Bridge Point is a Cisco gold partner and also lists NetApp, CommVault, Riverbed, Check Point, Bluecoat and F5 amongst its vendors. US vendor Palo Alto Networks last month honoured the company with an Excellence in Services award. 

The solutions provider has 75 employees working out of two offices in Brisbane and North Sydney.

Story updated 27 October to clarify that Tim Smith departed in June 2013, and the other departures were in 2014.