Westcon Acquires Review Video

Westcon Continues Spending Spree

It looks like consolidation isn’t just for IP based phone system vendors, it is happing in the voice and video space as well. Westcon, a multi-national specialty distributor of networking technology products servicing the solution provider, integrator and value-added reseller community, announced today that it has purchased Review Video, a major Polycom video solutions distributor for $25 Million in cash.

According to Anthony Daley, executive vice president and general manager of the Americas, Westcon Group, “Enterprise and midtier companies are realizing new efficiencies and cost savings through the use of IP videoconferencing and other collaborative applications — these are no longer ‘early adopter’ communication media. Through this acquisition and our strengthened position with Polycom, we intend to help both new and existing resellers build on their success in this emerging market.”

It certainly does interest me to see a roll-up in the VoIP/video product distribution space, since it certainly hits closer to home than most mergers and acquisitions that I typically see. The distribution business is tough these days; with more resellers, service providers, and integrators going to the web to source product, distributors are often times fighting tooth and nail with online retailers (whom source product directly from them) for these customers.

Could the VoIP reseller/integrator space be the next sector to see consolidation?