Confessions of an entrepreneur

While the volume is still in key phone systems, the dollars are in the PBX "which is where Panasonic wants us to position them," says Denton.

The gradual growth of IP telephony also means resellers need to have a different range of skills, on the sales as well as technical side.

"When you go to IP telephony you're pretty much selling software and the telephone is a platform that makes the business more efficient and more productive.

"IP telephony is no longer a standard product, it plugs into the data network. So the skills are far greater than just selling a key system, you do need system integration skills. And the sales process is more complex."

Denton says he has watched the convergence in IP telephony with interest - Nortel, 3Com and Tandberg have recently fallen to Avaya, HP and Cisco respectively. However, he says that "not too many vendors truly get it". "You can read their data sheets but when you start to integrate it, it doesn't work. There are very few vendors that truly understand application software sitting on an IP platform and can make it work with an existing data network.  understand IP telephony and how it fits into a customer's business.

"When you try to integrate it, it doesn't work. That's why IPL has more engineers than sales people. We spend more time integrating than selling.

"Although many people think they can there aren't that many that can," says Denton.

As Denton closes one door behind him to walk through another, he says he still loves running a sizeable distributor in the Australian IT channel.

"I'm not that far from 60 but I love this; sometimes I think I'd pay to come into work. Truly you don't get too many opportunities to sell a business and take a new one on, both of substantial size and quality, in a lifetime. And they both happened on the first of December."