Ethan expands, three integration businesses formed

Fledgling Australian integrator Ethan SI has launched three subsidiary businesses as part of its national expansion plan launched in June this year.

Andrew Rayment, company managing director, announced a plan mid-year to poach salespeople from established channel companies to form subsidiaries with unlimited credit.

So far, the integrator has attracted former Data #3 and Fujitsu staffer Bart Crowther for a subsidiary business dubbed Indata Solutions; 15-year IT veteran Carl Barnard who is heading up Empower IT and Paul Statham for a subsidiary dubbed Stated.

Indata provides specialist software licensing and services to medium and large companies. Indata's Crowther was formerly national software licensing manager at Fujitsu.

Stated is providing IT services to SMEs that would be the equal of the top companies across the world, Ethan claimed.

Empower's Barnard said his subsidiary is providing desktop, network, server, storage and mobile infrastructure and procurement services. He is hoping to add up to four staff to his roster by Christmas next year.

Barnard said that the Ethan model works, because 'starting a business from scratch is costly, risky and difficult for most people'.

'This opportunity with Ethan is the best way I've found to get the best of both worlds. We've started our business with infrastructure and support [already] in place,' he said, adding that it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to setup this type of infrastructure from scratch.

'You need a certain amount of support in place -- if you haven't got that in place you can talk about solutions but delivering them is another thing altogether,' he said.

Ethan's Rayment said all three founders stand to make significantly more income under the Ethan model without most of the normal pressures of running a business. Under the model, Ethan retains 51 percent of each subsidiary company but offers the proprietors credit lines, systems and sales engineers, vendor accreditations, accounting, warehousing and inventory management tools.

He said two more subsidiaries companies are on the way (each with two people from the outset) and 'we are talking to nine other people about joining over the next few months', which would add another 13 staff to its roster of 14 today.