Channel weighs in on Commander deal

Communications integrator Commander’s competitors have weighed into the integrator’s pending acquisition of Volante saying it would have a large impact on the voice and data market.

Commander currently owns 54.9 percent of Volante and extended its takeover bid to 19 April.

Craig Neil, managing director at integrator NSC, said the merger would have an impact on his organisation. “Commander isn’t a competitor; it focuses more on the SME market. However, if it joins with Volante then it will move into our territory,” he said.

Neil said he will not lose any sleep over the potential merger, but it does make him think about the changes this would create in NSC’s domain.

Gerard Florian, chief technology officer at competitor Dimension Data, said with any acquisition, the fit of the organisations needs to be closely examined.

“Combining voice telephony and desktop servers took us a while. We have done that work [and it's] not simple; it will be interesting to see if Commander can pull it off. I think in any organisation that’s a publicly-listed company, when you do something like this, there are hopes for a merger to net bigger results than expected,” he said.

“The more it can gain the better and that’s what Commander’s looking for and that is what it’s going to be judged on,” he added.

John Grant, managing director at national integrator Data#3, agreed that Commander has a lot to do.

“Commander's challenge is to make a struggling business [Volante] go well. It affects a lot of people and there will probably be a lot of fallout and some very significant changes,” he said.

IDC analyst Tim Sheedy said Commander's acquisition of Volante would allow it to combine data and voice services and anyone in the hardware reselling game knows combining voice and data is what needs to be done to make them chunks of money.

“That’s something none of its [Commander's] competitors can’t do and that’s what has them worried. Competitors can see their margin shrinking with the marriage of IT and voice services,” he said.