Westcon Group Joins Global Technology Distribution Council

Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Westcon, a privately held distributor that generates more than $2 billion in revenue annually, becomes the GTDC's 13th member and the council's ninth member based in North America.

"They were our No. 1 missing hole, especially in the networking and security space," said GTDC CEO Tim Curran. "We are delighted by their commitment to the group. It's exciting that we have another member to have a common voice on common issues."

Westcon Group, which has talked to the GTDC for several years about membership, aims to leverage the group's lobbying power -- especially in Europe, where new asset-disposal laws are expected to impact the channel, said Westcon Group Chairman and CEO Tom Dolan.

"This organization can address issues to help the whole channel," Dolan said.

Westcon Group includes the Comstor, Voda One and Westcon business units, which focus on Cisco Systems, Avaya and Nortel Networks platforms. In addition, Westcon Group has teams focused on converged communications and security solutions. About 40 percent of Westcon Group's revenue is in Europe, according to Dolan.

Westcon Group also believes the GTDC can help introduce the distributor to new vendors, Dolan added.

"Joining GTDC is more to present ourselves to a new set of friends. We hope to establish new relationships. We're very interested in new vendors, particularly in video. We've seen quite a bit of interest in physical security as that moves to an IP platform," he said.

Other GTDC members include Access Distribution, Agilysys, Arrow Electronics, Avnet, Bell Microproducts, Ingram Micro, Synnex and Tech Data in North America; Actebis, Magirus and Scribona in Europe; and ECS Holdings in Asia.