I don't normally write about every press release that Mitel issues (this is, after all, my blog, not theirs), but now and then there is certainly one that bears mentioning. This announcement yesterday of a distribution agreement with Tech Data is definitely one to mention. What's so exciting, you ask, about announcing a "distribution agreement"? I mean... yyyyaaaaawwwwwnnnnnn... this is resellers and sales channels and all that other borrrrrring stuff, you say.

The thing is that Tech Data is not just any distributor/sales channel... it is one of the leading distributors of IT products (company info here) and most importantly is pretty much entirely focused on data versus telephony. Its VARs are "data VARs" versus "phone VARs". And this is a key fact in the adoption of VoIP. In the past, phone systems were sold typically by VARs who were focused almost entirely on phones. Traditional (ie TDM) telephone systems, PBXs, etc. do have their own language, their own standards, their own needs... and their own network. Installing phone systems did not need to involve anyone in IT and was pretty straightforward.

Those days are, of course, gone. The last two letters in "VoIP" pretty much mandate that as a VAR you are, in fact, talking to the IT department. Your nice new shiny phone system is now using their data network and potentially impacting their network performance, security, etc. And I think corporate structure is showing this with increasingly "Corporate Communications" (aka the phone guys/gals) departments being dissolved or merged into IT departments (aka the data guys/gals). The data guys have won. (And being a pretty hard-core "data guy", I have to confess that I'm okay with that win.)

Like pretty much every other vendor in the space, we have seen this change reflected in our own resellers over the past years as we have shifted our own products to be almost entirely focused on VoIP.  The resellers who are successful selling VoIP are those that also have data expertise (either already had it or built that expertise up) and are at home talking about TCP/IP networks - and with corporate IT departments.  Those VARs can be and are being amazingly successful.  And while we have a great number of those VARs ourselves, as a vendor you are of course looking for other "data-savvy" channels through which your product can be distributed.  It has a dual value of: 1) allowing existing VARs another channel through which to buy (and many already have relationships with Tech Data for data products); and 2) allowing many more VARs the ability to sell Mitel VoIP systems.  (Previously, my understanding from a Tech Data VAR was that their only option for telephony through Tech Data was to purchase Cisco VoIP systems.  If true, now at least they have a choice.)

In the end, it's a great win for Mitel and Tech Data and their associated VARs... but I also think in the bigger picture it is a great win for corporate adoption of VoIP. A major provider to the folks providing IT to the corporate world is now enabling them to include VoIP phone systems as well.  Very cool.  Kudos to whomever it was within Mitel and Tech Data who made this deal happen.

Tags: mitel, tech data, techdata, voip