Avnet is expanding its HealthPath practice to include an ISV ecosystem and will then look to replicate this practice into a government-focused vertical.

The distributor is extending its strategy within health care, which already includes a health care university, specific marketing and sales training, and infrastructure technology, to include ISVs.

Avnet will create bundles for solution providers, using its infrastructure technology and the ISV applications, according to Tony Vottima, vice president of vertical market solutions at Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas.

"Bringing in an ISV ecosystem was a logical expansion for HealthPath," he said. "It means VARs now have total solutions to go to market with, from the hardware to the applications."

Vottima said that many ISVs were looking to expand across the 6,000 hospitals in the United States, and needed to scale up with a sales channel to do so. "We don't have a limit to the number of ISVs we want to get on board, and can offer different relationships according to what they want," he said. He said Avnet would focus on the areas of storage, security, mobility, networking, and eventually content and document management.

Four ISVs are already onboard with the program: BridgeHead Software, which provides archiving and backup software; Compressus, which provides the MEDxConnect System helping with connectivity and interoperability; HIPAA Solutions which focuses on compliance; and Sentillio, which offers single sign-on technology.

Vottima said Avnet would ensure interoperability and help VARs to implement the technology at the end user, if they required it. "More and more VARs are getting into the health care sector; last year, partners increased sales into the sector by more than 40 percent," he said.

Avnet launched HealthPath in March 2006 and is now expanding into other verticals.

Vottima said the firm is launching GovPath in early April that it will mirror the HealthPath practice. "We will have specialty training, a university, marketing and ISV applications all focused on the government sector," Vottima said.

He said that although Avnet has a government-focused practice today, GovPath will also include education and training and solutions for federal, local and state government sectors.