Juniper, Catalyst Telecom Team In Distribution Pact

The just-signed deal, now in effect, came together relatively quickly after Juniper cemented an extended partnership with telecommunications vendor Avaya earlier this year, said Buck Baker, senior vice president of merchandising at Catalyst, Greenville, S.C., a division of ScanSource, in an interview Friday morning.

Catalyst is now training its sales force and building inventory of Juniper&s enterprise routing and security products, he said.

“This helps us out with our convergence message and gives Juniper an opportunity to talk to a lot of [our] voice dealers,” Baker said.

Catalyst already distributes VoIP products from Avaya as well as networking equipment from Extreme Networks, an Avaya partner.

Some solution providers have kept their fingers crossed hoping Catalyst would pick up Juniper&s product lines. This, they said, would help them more easily source products as they build converged voice and data solutions that combine products from all three vendors and compete with the broad portfolio offered by Cisco Systems.

Jeff Hiebert, CEO of ROI Networks, San Juan Capistrano, Calif., said he has been expecting such a partnership for months.

ROI Networks has been sourcing Juniper products via Ingram Micro but plans to switch that business to Catalyst since it already sources Avaya and Extreme products there, Hiebert said.

Phil Mogavero, president and CEO of Data Systems Worldwide, said Juniper has been looking to expand its distribution reach.

“It wouldn&t shock me because Juniper has certainly indicated the need to increase their distribution capabilities,” Mogavero said.

In May, Juniper and Avaya expanded their partnership to include joint product development and sales of each other&s products and services.

In an interview with CRN following that expansion, Juniper Vice President of Worldwide Channels Tushar Kothari said the company had not yet decided whether to bring on new Avaya-focused distribution partners, such as Catalyst and Westcon&s Voda One.

It was unclear as of press time whether Juniper had inked a distribution pact with Voda One.

In addition to Santa Ana, Calif.-based Ingram Micro, Juniper&s existing North American distribution partners also include Securematics, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based security-focused distributor that handles Juniper&s NetScreen lineup.