The event was well attended with channel partners eager to learn more about Lync; the market opportunity and how they can increase revenue with the conferencing and collaboration tool that has experienced (and is continuing to do so) phenomenal growth of 140% in the last calendar year.
Dawn Fenton, Sales Director, Unified Communications, Westcon Convergence commented “It is vital that partners recognise the Lync opportunity and incorporate it into their portfolio; if they don’t then they will miss on out on revenue to the competition. Some channel partners are wary of the solution because it requires multiple hardware products to be deployed and integrated across a network to deliver the true UC experience of the solution. This is where Westcon comes into play as the Lync hardware distribution partner of choice who simplifies the design, implementation and support of a multivendor Lync deployment.
Westcon has the largest portfolio of Microsoft Lync-complimentary Vendors in the industry, and partners should see them as an extension of their team with its solution architects, dedicated UC sales team, and marketing and product management.”
The packed agenda of the day included presentations from Microsoft, Westcon and the eco-system vendors including Active Communications who presented its ACS portfolio that radically simplifies the deployment and management of Lync platform, and Extreme Networks who stated the importance of a robust and reliant network to support Lync. After lunch the channel partners could attend complementary Lync Vendor speed meetings which again were very well attended.
“It has been a very interesting day meeting all the different eco-system partners. Westcon has brought together the ‘best of breed’ vendors to work with and now with Lync we can offer our customers a broader UC solution - extend our target market and ultimately make more money!” said Emily Shimell, Marketing and Communications Manager, VideoCentric.