Avistar Looks For Boost With Reseller Program

Avistar Communications, a desktop videoconferencing software vendor recently threatened with delisting from the Nasdaq, on Thursday announced its jump into the channel, unveiling plans for a worldwide reseller program the company hopes will reinvigorate sales and help it hit markets outside of financial services.

Simon Moss, president and soon-to-be CEO of San Mateo, Calif.-based Avistar, said there were three key drivers to launching the reseller program: the direct sales model had hit a plateau; the company wanted to better position itself against other unified communications vendors; and it wanted to diversify its client base, which has been focused solely on the financial services market.

Avistar, Moss said, also wants to gain traction in new global territories that have remained untapped. Avistar already has an installed base in North America and Europe, but also wants to hit new targets in Asia and others.

Avistar's Channel Partner Program covers customer-premise and hosted products, Moss said. It will focus on VARs that deliver communications solutions to Fortune 5000 companies. These companies include meeting room conferencing VARs that want to extend video to the desktop, PBX and VoIP VARs looking to maximize the value proposition of moving voice onto IP networks, and the new breed of unified communications VARs wanting to extend the capabilities of systems from IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Office Communications Server to include managed videoconferencing at the desktop.

So far, Avistar has completed agreements with three U.S. resellers -- Veloci, of Houston, Texas; Westerville, Ohio-based Communications III; and Manist, of New Orleans, which focus on verticals like energy, legal, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, retail, government and education. In Asia, Avistar has partnered with Japanese VAR Media Plus, which specializes in video conferencing.

The channel program comes after a tumultuous time for Avistar in which its revenue dropped dramatically and CEO Gerald Burnett announced he would resign at years' end, but maintain his seat on the board. Moss will replace Burnett as CEO.

In November the Nasdaq Stock Market threatened to delist Avistar due to lack of compliance. According to the notice, Avistar does not comply with the continued listing requirement set forth in Marketplace Rule 4310 (c)(3), which requires a company have a minimum of $2.5 million on stockholders' equity or $35 million in market value of listed securities or $500,000 of net income from continuing operations for the most recently completed fiscal year or two of the three most recently completed fiscal years. Avistar has until December 17 to get their market cap above $35 million to regain compliance. If compliance is not met, an appeals process can begin.

NEXT: VAR Joins Avistar Reseller Program