NetBox Blue sets up shop in Taipei

The opening follows the signing of a master distribution agreement with Canon Japan for email filtering appliances in Japan.

NetBox Blue has its sights set on new markets, particularly in Asia, having spent the last 2 years directing its efforts at expanding its international business.

John Fison, chairman at NetBox Blue, told CRN that the new office is designed to provide local support for customers and partners.

“We felt we needed a base in Asia and a local speaking individual,” he said.

Ben Yu, regional partner manager for Asia, will head up the office. Ben recently left the Queensland Trade and Investment Office in Taipei. Fison said Yu's fluency in Japanese and traditional and simplified Chinese will be an asset to the company in the region.

"Ben Yu is a great person to lead our operations in the region. We are delighted to have him on board," he said.

The new office will act as a base to enable further expansion into China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Fison hinted at further expansions into Europe, India and the United States.

NetBox Blue will be looking for an exclusive distributor with adequate scale in each country or territory to manage the channel, he added.

"We're not looking at having one sole distributor here in Australia because we don't feel they can offer the value that they can provide to our channel that we can provide directly," he said.

"Internationally we obviously can't afford to put a big team of people into each country so we have to move to the other model."

He added that NetBox is also looking for international OEM partners with product synergies such as anti-virus companies with whom they can integrate various software engines into their unified threat management solutions.