European VAR Integralis will spend 2008 focused on expanding its U.S. business, to enable the firm to be truly international.

Currently the VAR operates only 15 per cent of its business through the United States and has offices in Connecticut, New York, California and Kansas. Graham Jones, chief operations officer of Integralis, said of all the operations the company runs, that in the United States should be the largest. "This is why we intend to focus 50 to 60 percent of our efforts in the market this year," Jones said.

Jones said vendors in the United States tend to operate a more mixed-channel strategy, and therefore it's likely that Integralis will look to new technology vendors and proving that as a VAR his company adds value.

"We want to go international and be able to deliver quotes globally, but we have to be able to maintain our local touch," he said. "We will focus a lot more this year on partnering with ISPs and telcos, and on our managed services portfolio," he added.

The company currently offers managed services around security, such as patch management and updates. However, Jones said he wants to move the company further into the management reporting arena. "We can give better value on intelligence and compliance technology and consulting, and bringing the entire solution together, which makes it more valuable for the end user and higher up their priority list," he said.

Jones said that rather than invest in 300 people in 30 states, Integralis intends to launch quickly into partnerships and managed services, and then take this model into the Far East. He said the company hopes to take the model into the Far East by the end of the first quarter.