Bell Micro is branching out from its storage roots by opening a security and surveillance division in the United States.
The distributor opened its U.K. security division four years ago, which is run by Duncan Hume, security division director. Hume is now relocating to the U.S. and hopes to replicate the U.K. success in the region.
"This is something we have talked about for a number of years," Hume told Channel Insider. "We want to replicate our U.K. model of signing the right vendor partners, not the ones that are already over-distributed, so our U.S. VARs can make decent margin." Bell is one of the largest security distributors in the U.K.
Hume said the first focus will be to sign vendors in the United States. Bell is currently in discussions with several of the vendors it works with in its U.K. security division to expand these relationships. Bell currently works in the U.K. with vendors such as Secure Computing, WatchGuard, RSA, ISS, Websense, and McAfee for its enterprise offering.
Click here to read about Bell's first security vendor signing.
"In the U.S. we are already focused on the enterprise so we will continue this focus within the security division, although there will be a volume element in there, too," he said.
Hume said the distributor already has a big customer base of VARs in the U.S. through its storage business. "After signing the vendors we will look to sign up VARs; they are already buying storage from us and we have to make sure they know they can also get their security from us, too. Initially there will be some evangelizing about the security division and informing VARs that they can get security and storage through one source of supply."
Hume said the division should open at the back end of the first quarter next year. "In the first year we want to have at least a dozen people across the U.S. We have got aggressive growth targets for the division," he added.
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