The channel has a lot resting on the prediction that video will be the next big thing. At the recent Cisco Partner Summit the entire conference was abuzz with talk of video conferencing solutions, and following on that Comstor (Westcon’s Cisco-dedicated business) announced today that it will be adding the entire Cisco TelePresence portfolio to its offering to partners. This offering will include all the solutions recently gained in Cisco’s Tandberg acquisition. The full product line includes: immersive systems, multipurpose room systems, personal systems, solutions platform, call control, management, conferencing, media services, peripherals and accessories, and cloud services.
The announcement should provide a platform for former Tandberg partners to quickly integrate into the Cisco channel ecosystem.
William Corbin, executive vice president, Global Vendor Relationships, Comstor, told CRN that the company is in a good position to understand the value of what the Cisco telepresence portfolio brings to the table because they use the solution in their own business.
This is good news for Cisco and Westcon partners as Comstor is rolling out the entire portfolio to it’s global partner-base. Comstor is the largest distributor of Cisco around the world.
“…it is significant that it’s a global agreement - not just the U.S. and Canada…we’re able to offer the technology to all of our partners all over the world,” Corbin said.
More companies are starting to realize the cost benefits of video conferencing and telepresence solutions as they try to reduce their travel budgets.
“We think that this is the next wave - the wave of the future - the video play,” Corbin said. “There are a couple stats out there that tell you 90 per cent of internet traffic over the next few years is going to be video. The availability of Cisco’s video platform - we see this as furthering our investment to Cisco and furthering our alignment to our partners as they build out data centres and next generation networks for their customers.”
