Westcon Adds F5 Networks To Line Card

Westcon Group announced Tuesday that it will be adding all of F5 Networks' products to its own line card, including the vendor's flagship BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager application networking intelligence product.

F5 will also participate in Westcon's SecurityPoint program, which provides resellers with product information, market analysis, sales tools and lead-generation capabilities. F5 is the distributor's fifteenth vendor in the space.

"We actually have been in conversation with F5 for some time, and there were a lot of synergies that we uncovered overall. We are both very solutions-oriented," said Laurie Usewicz, vice president and general manager of Westcon's security practice. "They added a great complement to our portfolio because of their focus today on applications."

The Tarrytown, N.Y.-based distributor plans to market the F5 products to its voice resellers.

"We're having a lot of traction in educating our voice customers on security; when you look at security applications and making them faster, F5 becomes a perfect complement to a customer who is doing voice over IP," Usewicz said.

From F5's perspective, the deal fills a void it had in its go-to-market strategy.

"I think when I look at my overall distribution strategy, it was a perfect storm. I've been really impressed with Westcon over the course of the last year," said Dean Darwin, vice president of North America channels for Seattle-based F5. "It just got to a point where we were looking at our strategy, and with Avnet buying GE Access, we really needed to add another distributor."

After evaluating distributors across North America, F5 decided to go with Westcon because of the distributor's solutions-based sales strategy, said Darwin.

"We're trying to educate partners on application delivery networking, and with Westcon they have a pretty unique ability to help us drive that," he said. "They have a unique way of engaging with their VAR community to help VARs understand what we do in the ADN space. That really resonates with me, and that's something I've not really seen from the big-box distributors."

Niccolo Alicandri, vice president of sales of Ciphertechs, a New York City-based networking solution provider, said he hopes Westcon's addition of F5 will help his company close more deals.

"F5 has its foot forward in terms of things like application delivery. The product that they're going to be able to help us sell now is something we've seen our biggest customers jump on out of the gate," said Alicandri. "This is a huge acquisition for them. Finally they're going to have the opportunity to help us at the application level."

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