Cross Channel: Kyocera Acquires Annodata And Cloud24x7 Hunts For UK Security Partners

Welcome to Cross Channel, a weekly round up of the most pertinent stories from our sister site ChannelBiz, where you can find out all the latest developments, views and strategies from the world of the channel.

SimpliVity Adds Huawei To Vendor Line-Up

Already partnering with Cisco, Lenovo and Dell, SimpliVity will now ship its OmniStack technology on Huawei’s FusionServer.

“Our announcement with Huawei presents the channel with a tremendous opportunity,” said  George Hope, SimpliVity’s VP of global channels. “Huawei is a company seeing explosive growth, with its worldwide server shipments growing 21.8 percent year-over-year while most of the server market is in decline.”

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Kyocera Acquires Managed Print Firm Annodata

Kyocera Document Solutions UK acquired one of the UK’s largest manged print providers, Annodata, marking a shift into ICT services.

Annodata will remain a separate business entity to Kyocera, with its own independent strategy and management team, led by co-founders Andrew and Tim Harman. Hironao Katsukura, managing director of Kyocera Document Solutions UK described Annodata as “an influential national player with similar business ideals to our own, as well as having important vendors, technologies and a very strong value-adding culture in common.”

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Cloud24x7 On Hunt For UK Security Partners

Managed Security Services company Cloud24X7 announced an ambitious channel recruitment campaign to sign up 50 partners by the end of 2017.

The Florida-based firm  claims it has identified a gap in the network security service market, saying there are currently few options available to channel partners that want to offer managed security services and is also on the lookout for “value-add and committed” UK distributors.

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OKI Targets IT Channel With Tech Data Signing

Following the launch of its new smart colour portfolio, OKI Systems UK signed a distribution agreement with Tech Data as it looks to expand into the IT channel.

“As the business world changes with increasing digitisation, so the printer market is evolving,” said John Thompson, professional services manager, OKI Systems UK. We already have a large number of opportunities in industries such as healthcare, graphic arts, retail and professional services. However, with Tech Data’s extended market presence, we now have access to a broader range of customer opportunities.”

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