Cellnet targets government business

With Rudd administration’s ambitious plans for the education market alongside expanding opportunities in Canberra, Cellnet has become the latest channel player to target the government dollars.

Aidan Fitzgerald, general manager of IT sales at Cellnet, said the opportunity in government business is huge.

“The business is not just in Canberra, we are seeing it in schools across the country. There was the money Kevin Rudd released for schools in June and we have been working closely with our resellers on school projects, particularity in South Australia. We will also see increased spending in September during the next round of government funding,” he said.

Fitzgerald said that government spending is going to be increasingly important for the economy and even in times of economical slowdown governments keep on spending.

“We didn’t have anybody in Canberra for a long time and we now have Michael Ninness as business development manager there. It is a fairly compact market [in Canberra], but there is an awful lot of opportunity,” said Fitzgerald. “We also hope to expand our Canberra team in the next six months.”

Fitzgerald said iCellnet's reseller base is also keen to expand in government business, with partners across Australia landing government deals.

Cellnet has witnessed a number of changes in its vendor stable in recent years, including ceasing to work with Epson in March and HP last year. However, Fitzgerald said the distributor will be boosting its portfolio soon.

“We have been doing well with several of our vendors. Not all of them, but we are picking it up and looking at several new vendors to sign. We will be looking to fill the gaps in our portfolio and the vendors we sign will be complimentary our existing vendors,” he added.