Small Mackay reseller Easy Internet Services has been named National Business Partner of the Year by local box-builder Optima.
Michael Calculli, channel sales manager for Sydney-based Optima Technology Solutions, said Easy Internet Services' six Queensland-based staff had managed to sell more Optima products in the last financial year than any other Optima business partner.
"Easy Internet Services has delivered an impressive performance, especially considering its size and location, and has set the standard for what Optima business partners can achieve," Calculli said.
Business partners were critical to Optima's success in the Australian market. Resellers enabled Optima to supply, service and sell nationwide, he said.
Deon Attard, proprietor of Easy Internet Services, said it felt great to be number one.
"It's a real achievement for a dealer in a regional town that doesn't always have access to the same resources and markets as metropolitan dealers," Attard said. "I'm only 25 years old so there's lots of time to expand yet!"
The Mackay-based dealer sells computers, internet products and related services to consumers and businesses, Optima said in a statement.
Easy Internet Services is the expanded version of a reseller called Star Computers Mackay founded nearly 10 years ago by Attard, who was 16 and still at school at the time, the company said.
"Some of Attard's first customers were his classmates and teachers," the company said.
Easy Internet Services had been an Optima business partner for about three years. It is the sole Optima reseller in the Mackay area, the company said.
The reseller was also one of only seven ISPs in Australia approved under the Government's Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS).
HiBIS aims to provide registered ISPs with financial incentives to supply higher bandwidth services in regional, rural and remote areas at prices on a par with urban packages.