Australian niche security distributor, Whitegold Solutions, has expanded its product portfolio with the addition of ShoreTel’s range of IP Unified Communications (UC) hardware and software.

In an interview with CRN, Dominic Whitehand, managing director at WhiteGold, said the company will now offer ShoreTel’s UC solutions and services to its national base of VARs. Whitehand claimed that partners will now have access to a UC solution that will enable office and mobile workers at SMBs and enterprises to become more collaborative.

“We were looking for a company that could deliver a ‘Pure IP’ UC solution – both in hardware and software – to add to our portfolio,” said Whitehand. ““ShoreTel has a great reputation as a strong UC vendor and we were impressed with its market leadership in customer satisfaction. The vendor heard about WhiteGold from resellers in the channel.”

According to Whitehand, the new distribution agreement takes WhiteGold away from being a pure security distributor. “We see tremendous opportunity in this area for our resellers. Depending on where a reseller sits, the margins will be appropriately high and can start from 25 percent. Once the resellers go though accredited training, margins will increase,” he said.

Whitehand claimed that many of the distributor’s customers were talking about unified communications and the massive growth in opportunities in the video conferencing market. “There’s massive cross pollination opportunities in introducing UC solution to our resellers. We match UC products with our current line-up of firewalls, switches and acceleration products.”

In terms of growth in vendor products and revenue for WhiteGold and its resellers, the new distribution deal is a dream come true, added Whitehand.