Technology Reseller - v22

01732 759725 NEWS : DISTRIBUTORS 10 The Dubai-based Blue Ocean Group has opened a London office to make it easier for the UAE’s home-grown consumer electronics brands to enter the UK market. The master distributor of consumer electronics, domestic appliances, electrical goods, telecoms equipment and fashion accessories, and its affiliate companies, undertakes sales, distribution, warehousing, transportation, branding, advertisement, communications and marketing activities for its customers. Shahzad Ahmed, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Ocean Group, said: “This is a strategic move by the Blue Ocean Group to tap the growing opportunities in the United Kingdom, as it leaves the European Union this year. Our expansion into the UK market will help us to promote and sell the UAE’s home-grown electronic products in the United Kingdom and help boost UAE exports to and imports from the UK.” Representing some of the world’s top electrical, electronics and consumer goods, Blue Ocean Group exports and promotes products in 40 countries through a network of more than 100 distributors and more than 250 system integration partners. It has enjoyed more than 20% year-on-year growth since its inception in 2013. www.blueoceanglobal.com Dubai distributor opens UK office Yealink award for Nimans Communications and collaboration endpoint manufacturer Yealink has named Nimans as its global Distributor of the Year for Microsoft devices, in recognition of its sales success and high levels of expertise. Nimans supplies and supports a wide range of Yealink products, including the world’s first Microsoft Teams handsets and conferencing devices. Nimans was also highly commended in the Distributor of the Year award category at Atos’ annual Power-Up partner conference in Budapest. WatchGuard Technologies has signed a UK distribution agreement with Purdicom , an Oxfordshire-based distributor of mid-market networking, wireless and cloud-based solutions. WatchGuard offers a full suite of enterprise-grade security services for mid-sized organisations, including advanced services for protecting against evolving malware, ransomware and data breaches, as well as traditional intrusion prevention, gateway antivirus, application control, spam prevention and URL filtering. WatchGuard also offers multi-factor authentication, secure Wi-Fi and network intelligence products. Earlier this year, WatchGuard introduced the WatchGuardONE Partner Programme, which enables resellers to reach full WatchGuardONE status in either network security, secure Wi-Fi or multi-factor authentication. www.purdi.com The full range of Poly unified communication and collaboration solutions is now available from Exertis , including audio and video conferencing units, headsets, SIP endpoints and cloud services. Exertis has sold Poly’s headsets for more than 20 years and now, with the coming together of Plantronics and Polycom to create the Poly brand, it will be distributing the company’s much broader portfolio. Gareth Bray, Exertis Enterprise Commercial Director, said: “Companies of all sizes are demanding high quality, audio and video solutions that can be easily deployed and managed in a variety of spaces, from the board room to huddle rooms and the home office. Poly can offer a premium experience either on-premise, in the cloud or hybrid, and is a great addition to our UC portfolio.” www.exertis.co.uk Cloud distributor Zedsphere has entered into an agreement with Axcient to provide the latter’s full suite of Business Availability solutions to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in EMEA. This includes Replibit, BRC, CloudFinder, Anchor, Fusion and the Axcient Cloud. Rick Yates, Managing Director of Zedsphere, said: “Axcient brings a unique, highly anticipated suite of solutions to EMEA, and we have a pipeline of MSPs who are already trialling the products and ready to deploy their solutions. Axcient’s Business Availability suite acts as a core line of defence to keep businesses productive, IT systems running and data always accessible. We are looking forward to helping our partners grow their IT managed service offering with Axcient’s solutions.” www.axcient.com NFON UK , part of pan-European cloud PBX provider NFON AG, has signed a UK distribution agreement with Nuvola Distribution , under which Nuvola will act as Master Agent for the company’s Cloudya cloud telephone system. Founded in 2010, Nuvola provides channel partners with a total solution, including a comprehensive product range, ongoing support, 24/7/365 helpdesk and full portfolio of white-label services. Michael Lloyd, Managing Director of Nuvola Distribution, said: “Adding NFON to our portfolio of cloud solutions will add considerable value to our existing reseller partners’ offerings and open up possibilities for new resellers to offer a competitive and superior product to the legacy incumbents that are currently dominating the UK market.” https://nuvoladistribution.com In a new partnership with Spracht , Manchester and Glasgow-based distributor NB Data has added a range of conferencing, wireless speakers and headsets to its existing offering from the Silicon Valley telecoms manufacturer. Based in Palo Alto, Spracht is the acoustic division of parent company ODI, a leader in digital imaging, acoustics, LCD image display and other consumer electronics. New additions include the Conference Mate portable conference room speaker; the Aura SoHo Plus duplex conference phone; and the Aura Video Mate HD video and audio conferencing unit for huddle rooms. www.nbdata.co.uk Vivitek has strengthened its distribution network in Sweden with the appointment of Navigator Nordics as a distributor of its wireless collaboration solutions and displays, including the latest NovoDisplays and Delta LCD Videowalls. Vivitek Nordics Sales Manager Linnea Bergh said: “Vivitek’s portfolio of NovoTouch panels, ranging in size from 65 to 98 inches, combined with the NovoDisplay digital signage panels and slim bezel LCD video wall displays, are a logical extension of our portfolio as we work to provide complete and innovative solutions to our dealer base.” www.vivitek.eu Working together This month’s round-up of new distribution agreements Shahzad Ahmed, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Ocean Group (Centre) with executives from Blue Ocean Global