itX buys Dovetail Distribution

itX Group has acquired nine-year-old specialist security distributor Dovetail Distribution for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition gives itX — formerly known as Alstom IT — agencies with security vendors SonicWALL, SnapGear and Secure Computing (Sidewinder G2 Firewalls).

Dovetail general manager Max Fredericks, told CRN that Dovetail was SonicWALL’s top distributor doing more than $1 million per annum in sales with the vendor and healthy sales with SnapGear and Secure but "it was not enough".

"For the investment and the opportunity, you need to be bigger," he said, adding that it was difficult to grow organically.

Four Dovetail staff are moving across to itX. Fredericks would not join the company and has instead opted to relaunch Dovetail Distribution as Dovetail Services, a managed services outfit.

The Dovetail Distribution name would no longer exist and distribution arrangements with Talaria X, CipherTrust, Dynalink, Coyote Point, eiQ Networks, NetBox Blue, Zone Labs and AscenLink (AscenVision) are being wound down, Fredericks said.

More acquisitions are on itX’s radar. itX boss Laurie Sellers said in a statement that he’s still hunting. "We’re still looking for more distributors."

Greg Newham, general manager at itX said that the distributor was particularly interested in talking to specialist distributors who may be struggling despite good sales from a group of core vendors.

"Dovetail stood out as an ideal growth opportunity for us. They’ve been trading profitably for nine years and have built up a strong security practice, but have found it difficult to drive organic growth and take their business to the next level," he said.

Dovetail has a current revenue run rate of around $6 million per annum.