Cisco Australia appoints distributor Bluechip Infotech for SMB range

Cisco has signed an agreement with Bluechip Infotech to distribute the vendor’s Start IT solutions for midmarket customers.

Bluechip said it had been in discussions with the networking giant since last year, and officially came on board as a distributor last month.

Cisco Start offers a suite of SMB-ready IT solutions including servers, desk phones and telepresence units.

“We are very excited to work with Cisco as we expand further into the midmarket enterprise space,” Bluechip Infotech solution manager Willy Harsono told CRN.

He explains that its arrangement with Cisco as a low touch partner is at a rung below the vendor’s agreements with Dicker Data, Ingram Micro and Westcon-Comstor. Similar to the distributors, Bluechip would supply Cisco Start products to resellers and MSPs.

Cisco’s low-touch model (LTM) can allow specialised partners like Bluechip to avail support directly from the networking vendor.

"Bluechip Infotech is an authorised Cisco master reseller who can procure Cisco products from our authorised distribution channel, to sell to the SMB sector," Cisco ANZ director of partner organisation Tara Ridley told CRN.

“We are very excited to be part of Cisco LTM family, There are good synergy between Cisco and Bluechip," Bluechip managing director Johnson Hsiung told CRN.

"The Cisco Start portfolio provides an enterprise range Cisco offering to the mid-market and it sits well with what Bluechip is offering to our SMB to mid-market partners.”

Bluechip's current vendor arrangements include Acer, HP, Sophos, Webroot, ConnectWise, among others.

Earlier this month, Cisco launched its Start online sales store in Australia, offering SMBs the ability to buy directly from its website, with orders to be fulfilled by channel partners.

The networking vendor last year consolidated its distribution in New Zealand with Westcon-Comstor, dropping its arrangements with Dicker Data NZ and Ingram Micro in August.

Updated 17 May 2:54pm with clarifications from Cisco and Bluechip Infotech.