Burgeoning market for managed WAN optimisation

Expand Networks, a leader in optimising WANs for branch office consolidation and virtualisation, has appointed Comztek as its latest distribution partner in South Africa. Combining Comztek’s end-to-end networking portfolio with Expand Networks’ Accelerators, the partnership will address the burgeoning market opportunity for managed WAN optimisation and as-a-service solutions and enable resellers to capitalise on the upward trends for virtualisation, VDI and server consolidation in South Africa.

According to Dave Caygill, business unit director at Comztek, Expand Networks’ WAN Optimisation solutions – in physical, virtual and mobile form factors – are set to play a significant role in the company’s Networks division. He comments, “Expand is wholly complementary to our existing networking portfolio. As strategic IT initiatives such as VDI, virtualisation and server consolidation rise across every industry, WAN optimisation has become a key part of enterprise network strategies today. As an enabler for these initiatives, Expand will prove extremely compelling for our resellers as they strive to differentiate their enterprise services to win market share.”

In particular, Caygill believes Expand’s focus on virtualised traffic and distributed environments will become a highly relevant technology in 2011. “The Virtual and Mobile Accelerators offer something new to the South African marketplace and we are certain the relevance of these appliances will create strong demand amongst our customer-base moving forward. In addition, the partnership uniquely enables us to provide our resellers with the many opportunities surrounding WAN Optimisation as a Service through one of the leading experts in this field.”

Brandon Rochet, Expand Networks’ sales director, Sub-Saharan Africa: “Demand for our product range is booming in South Africa, especially in the retail and government sectors. This partnership puts us in the perfect position to bolster our distribution channel. With its strong technical expertise and extensive reseller-base, Comztek’s value-added approach is wholly complementary to our wider channel strategy.”