Doing deals: the biggest vendor-distributor match-ups of 2017

The most significant distie deals of 2017

It's been an interesting year in distribution, with events including Tech Data completing its Avnet acquisition, Nextgen hitting its second year of profit, Ingram Micro building up its cloud marketplace and numerous new deals for Synnex.

While there's been too many deals done to cover in a single slideshow, we've handpicked our top distribution deals for 2017.

Nextgen signs Micro Focus

You'd be forgiven if you hadn't heard of Micro Focus before it bought HPE Software for US$8.6 billion this year, but the British enterprise software vendor is no small fry.

Australian-owned Nextgen Distribution has also flown somewhat under the radar since being established by channel veteran John Walters in 2011. It has also enjoyed recent success, however, posting its first profit on $68 million in revenue in 2016 before following it up this year and surpassing the $100 million mark across its Australian and New Zealand business.

The deal brings about an enterprise software trifecta for Nextgen, with the distributor now representing three of those top six software players in the local market: Oracle, SAP and Micro Focus.

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Continuum enters Australian market through Bluechip Infotech

In August, Continuum, the US-based remote monitoring and management vendor, announced it had appointed its first distribution partner for any country, Bluechip Infotech. It’s a big win in the distie’s bid to get more traction with the MSP market.

Bluechip managing director Johnson Hsiung said Continuum was well suited to mid-sized MSPs, and that his company’s partnership with the vendor was a knock at opportunity’s door. “This comes at a very good time,” he said. “For the past 18 months we’ve been focused on signing up more MSP partners, especially in the medium and small range. I believe there would be roughly 3000 MSPs in this market, depending on who you talk to.”

Continuum APAC senior channel development manager Frank Bauer said: “We’re sitting at about 130 partners across ANZ specifically and we’re onboarding at a very good pace.”

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BlueJeans strikes deal with Ingram to expand in APAC

In May, Ingram Micro became the new Asia-Pacific distributor for cloud-based video communications vendor BlueJeans. The vendor expects Ingram's significant presence in the region will give it the coverage it needs to go mainstream.

Ingram Micro Australia will offer a suite of BlueJeans' video solutions, including Primetime, onVideo, onSocial and the recently launched Huddle Rooms. Each video solution is compatible with desktop, mobile and a video-enabled room.

Ingram Plus Division Australia general manager Andrew Upshon said at the time: "Ingram Micro is investing heavily in the unified communications market this year and the BlueJeans product is integral to both our market push and our solutions building capability."

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Cisco ends Dicker Data, Ingram partnerships in New Zealand

In August, Cisco ended its partnership with Ingram Micro and Dicker Data in New Zealand.

Cisco said it was ending its distribution agreements with both disties to go for a single distie model with Westcon-Comstor.

A Cisco spokesperson said the decision came after a six-month internal review in order to optimise its channel and focus more on cloud, security, software and IoT.

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Dicker wins Dell EMC enterprise storage

In May, Dicker Data expanded its partnership with Dell EMC to include the vendor's full storage range, as part of a concerted push into that market.

David Dicker, the distributor's chief executive, said: "Our reseller partners responded positively to the addition of the Dell range to our business and since announcing the partnership in 2016 we have grown to represent a sizeable portion of Dell EMC’s portfolio of client, server and networking products in the Australian market."

The deal came among other storage wins for the distie, having picked up Nimble in 2015, Pure Storage in May and Hitachi Data Systems in July.

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Tech Data expands VMware partnership to include training

In August, Tech Data expanded its partnership with VMware to offer a suite of technical courses and certifications in Australia.

As an authorised distributor of VMware Education Services, Tech Data will offer technical training courses aimed at skilling customers in order to maximise the value of their existing investment in VMware solutions.

The courses cover technical skills for VMware solutions including data centre virtualisation infrastructure, network virtualisation and security, virtualisation and cloud management platform and desktop, application virtualisation and mobility.

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Aussie PC maker taps Dicker as its first distie

In October, Australian-owned PC vendor Venom Computers appointed Dicker Data as its first distributor, hoping to ramp up its position in the channel.

Venom manufactures laptops, desktops and all-in-one PCs, as well as peripherals including keyboards and RAM. The company ships across Australia as well as internationally.

The new deal will see Dicker distribute Venom’s main product line, the Venom Blackbook, which is available as a business and productivity ultraportable known as the Blackbook Zero or as a high-spec configuration for gamers and creators.

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Ingram Micro adds Cisco Spark to cloud marketplace

Also in October, Ingram Micro added Cisco’s enterprise communications suite, Spark, to its cloud marketplace.

“The availability of Cisco Spark is a major step forward for resellers,” said Lee Welch, general manager for Ingram Micro’s cloud services. “The modular nature and easy deployment of Cisco Spark opens up opportunities for partners to drive recurring revenues and enhance profits.”

Welch added that Cisco Spark’s open application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs) would allow independent software vendors to bring more of their services to the platform.

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Synnex signs exclusive agreement with Avast

In May, Synnex added Avast to its security portfolio in an exclusive agreement that had the distributor offer the entire AVG security software portfolio by Avast to its channel partners in Australia and New Zealand.

Partners are now able to offer AVG’s managed workplace, RMM and antivirus protection software solutions

Synnex had been in discussions with the security vendor for more than 12 months leading up to the exclusive agreement.

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Dicker Data signs IoT startup CCP

In November, ASX-listed start-up CCP Technologies signed a deal with Dicker Data to sell its IoT-enabled monitoring products to the distie's network of 5000 resellers.

CCP's products are marketed for food safety, and use sensors to record temperature and log data in controlled refrigeration environments to provide real-time alerts on any potential issues.

The company closed a $500,000 round of investment earlier this year with the help of Vocus founder James Spenceley and Amcom founder Tony Grist, who both now work in the finance space. In October, Vodafone selected CCP as one of two companies to trial its narrowband IoT network.

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Rhipe lands cloud security deal with Symantec

Also in November, Rhipe partnered with security software vendor Symantec to distribute its Endpoint Protection Cloud solution.

The security-as-a-service (SaaS) offering aims to protect small and medium businesses from targeted attacks and ransomware through a single cloud-based console for endpoint protection, management, mobility and encryption.

Rhipe chief strategy officer Chris Sharp said the solution would soon be available in all 18 markets across Asia-Pacific, initially focusing on Australia and New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

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Juniper names Dicker Data as third Australian distributor

In early December, Juniper Networks appointed Dicker Data as its third Australian distributor.

The distributor now carries all Juniper Networks product portfolios, including networking, security, applications and software-defined solutions.

Dicker Data joins Tech Data and Westcon-Comstor as the vendor's local disties.

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