Synnex OK'd To Sell Avaya VoIP

"We've been working on this one for a while," said Paget. "This is the same category [of importance] as when we picked up HP enterprise storage authorization. This is going to be significant business for us."

Synnex becomes the fourth Avaya distributor in the United States, joining Catalyst Telecom, Voda One and Jenne Distributors. The Fremont, Calif.-based distributor will carry Avaya's IP Office, Merlin Magix and Avaya Partner product lines, Paget said.

VoIP is an area of significant interest to Synnex, Paget said. The distributor also carries Nortel Networks, 3Com and Altigen products in the space.

"Avaya was interested in how fast our business was growing. We have a specialized sales force in this area run by John Horner," Paget said. "It's a market gaining some traction -- more so than in the past when it really required an event to purchase VoIP. That's not true anymore. [Today], there is a little more margin and it takes a little more services and consulting type of mentality, which is what we're working towards, too."

Synnex plans to leverage other product lines, such as Hewlett-Packard servers, to help solution providers design more complete VoIP solutions, Paget said.

"Avaya has a partnership with HP and we've got a highly technical sales force. We find [Avaya] real channel friendly and they're really focused on solutions building," he said.