Tag: Westcoast

Westcoast creates lebensraum by merging with German counterpart

Posted on October 31, 2022 by - News

Westcoast has created some legroom for growth by merging with German counterpart KOMSA.

The Reading-based distributor said the move would hand it access to the German market and boost its prowess in the unified comms market.

Westcoast will take over the shares from KOMSA’s founders and KOMSA chairperson Kerstin Grosse said that it was “the biggest step in the company’s history”.

The merger creates an outfit with revenues of more than €5.5 billion, 2,200 employees and brings together more than 400 technology partners with 30,000 retail partners.

Westcoast partners with Asus

Posted on March 4, 2022 by - News

UK-based distributor Westcoast has expanded its devices portfolio through a new partnership with Asus.

The agreement will see Westcoast stock and promote Asus products in the UK, including Vivobook Flip, Zenbook S and ProArt Studiobook One.

Westcoast said that it will  offer finance options, marketing support and logistics services, and make Asus devices available for its 5,000 existing customers.

Westcoast client director Paul Hamilton said: “We’re extremely proud to be partnering with Asus. Their brand that we have admired for many years for their consistent record of innovation and great products brought to market. This is a significant partnership for both parties to be working in collaboration to drive incremental opportunities.”

Avast gets into bed with Westcoast

Posted on February 4, 2021 by - News

Avast is teaming up with Westcoast to distribute its full portfolio of on-premise professional antivirus software.

Westcoast is the distie for Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and other reseller partners.

The deal, signed in January 2021, is the largest regional distribution contract in Avast’s history and signals the company’s intent to help create a safe, private, modern-day workplace in our ‘new normal’ for UK businesses and their customers, it’s said.

Resellers see digital transformation as a way to cuddle up

Posted on October 11, 2019 by - News

The What UK Resellers Really Think study from Westcoast has discovered that most resellers see digital transformation as a chance to get closer to customers.

Partners identified cloud services and machine learning as areas where they could make money in the next few year with more than half saying they were ready to act in the area for the next two to three years.

Westcoast found that the gap between understanding the digital transformation opportunity and being in a position to deliver it was one that distribution could help bridge. Its research found that 92 percent of resellers admitted to being more demanding of their disties than they were two years ago and many looked to their supply partners for customer insights, marketing advice and forecasts.

Westcoast’s partners sell 250,000 UK CSP seats

Posted on October 13, 2017 by - News

depositphotos_4633360-stock-photo-lots-of-wooden-chairsWestcoast has announced that its UK partners have flogged more than a 250,000 CSP seats.

Mark Davies, Westcoast’s Cloud services director, said: “Business is absolutely booming for Westcoast and its CSP partners. We’ve come a long, long way in two short years. Despite the fact we started selling cloud services after most of our competitors, we were the first distributor to pass 100,000 seats and now we’ve accelerated away to reach another big milestone ahead of anybody else in the UK.

“Our strategy of pursuing deep engagement with selected partners that are focused on properly activating and supporting their end-customers is really paying dividends.”

Davies added: “At Westcoast we believe that when it comes to cloud service provision – service delivery is everything. We work closely with our partners to make sure they fully understand how to sell services and how we add additional value around what they do.”

Angela Evans, Office Business Group lead at Microsoft UK, said it was all a product of the digital transformation made possible by advances in cloud computing, the proliferation of apps and devices, and the ability to interpret more data to make better decisions.

“It’s great to see Westcoast break through another significant milestone, reaching 250,000 cloud seats, further testimony to the unprecedented growth we are witnessing.”

Westcoast’s cloud education initiatives have helped to invigorate CSP in the channel.Now the company plans to introduce a five-star enablement programme for its partners which will give resellers an opportunity to benefit from tailored and extended support and extra levels of engagement.

 

Microsoft carries out partner review

Posted on March 13, 2017 by - News

Stefan_Lochner_-_Last_Judgement_-_circa_1435Software King of the World, Microsoft, is auditing its partners and sorting out the sheep from the goatees.

Request for proposals (RFPs) were sent out to existing and new distributors last Friday covering much of the software Microsoft puts through distribution especially its full packaged products (FPP), OEM Windows, OEM server and electronic software delivery (ESD) products.

At the moment, Vole uses Tech Data, Ingram, Westcoast, Exertis and Entatech but now it is thought that Microsoft wants its distributors to reflect its recent move into hardware and changes to its business model.

VIP and Ci Distribution have received an invite to bid which could suggest a widening of the distribution channel, or that some big names might be culled.

Ingram and Tech Data recently lost out in a similar review Microsoft completed for its hardware accessories business, which includes mice and keyboards. In that case there were seven distributors were invited to bid for this franchise but only Exertis and Westcoast were successful.

Westcoast to be powered by HP’s cloud

Posted on October 17, 2013 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeHP said that its distributor and partner Westcoast will use its  Converged Cloud offering to woo the reseller base.

The investment is over £1 million and will mean Westcoast will offer its resellers cloud services, to manage Microsoft Lync, Exchange and SharePoint in the distributors’ IL3 data centre.

The move, said HP, means that Westcoast customers – that is to say its resellers –  will be able to use current credit lines as well as take part in a partner programme which includes training and support.

Duncan Forsyth, Westcoast’s MD said that the era of onsite IT is becoming IT in the cloud. “We want to support both,” he said. HP Converged Cloud will let his company deliver IaaS (infrastructure as a service) and SaaS (software as a service) for resellers with a minimal need for capital investment.

The system will effectively be based on HP products including Proliant Bladesystem c7000 enclosures with BL460c Gen 8 blades using Intel Xeon chips.  The system will also use SoreServ storage systems, HP tape libraries and HP 5400 Switch series.

HP exec Michael Clifford said that managing and using data centres “frighten many resellers” but using its systems will help resellers to see clearly through the mists of the cloud and offer quality cloud services.