Westcon Group Announces Acquisition of Datastor, New Zealand-based Distributor

Acquisition Will Strengthen Westcon’s Offerings in Data Center, Virtualization and Storage Technologies, While Expanding Its Overall Presence in Asia-Pacific .

Sydney, Australia– Westcon Group Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of Westcon Group, Inc., announces the acquisition of Datastor (NZ) Limited, a leading New Zealand distributor of Storage, Virtualisation and Data Center solutions. The transaction further strengthens Westcon Group’s footprint in the Asia Pacific market.

New Zealand-based Datastor will continue to operate as a standalone business and the existing management team, led by Dave Rosenberg, will remain unchanged. Mr. Rosenberg will report to Wendy O’Keeffe, Executive Vice President Asia, Westcon Group.

Dean Douglas, president and CEO of Westcon Group, commented: “The Asia Pacific market continues to offer significant opportunity and prospects for Westcon Group. This acquisition allows us to accelerate our growth plan and will help us scale faster in this region, geographically and technologically. Most importantly, the acquisition will help provide an increased breadth of channel partners for our vendor community to leverage. It also strengthens our offerings in IP networking and security, which are both very important parts of our overall business strategy.”

Wendy O’Keeffe, executive vice president, Asia Pacific, Westcon Group, added: “Over the past decade, we have experienced solid growth in the Asia Pacific market, particularly in Australia. We intend to continue on an aggressive growth trajectory in this region, and our acquisition of Datastor not only brings us an expanded footprint into New Zealand—a very important emerging market to us—but also strengthens our portfolio in Data Center, virtualization and storage technologies.”

“This acquisition is a positive development for our vendors, staff and resellers,” commented Dave Rosenberg, CEO of Datastor. “Westcon Group’s reputation is outstanding, and we are confident that this transaction will result in significant business and opportunity growth. After the acquisition, it will be ‘business as usual.’ We do not anticipate any organizational changes to the business, and we will work very closely with Westcon to ensure a smooth transition.”

David Henderson, General Manager, Partner and Alliances Australia / New Zealand added: “This is a good result for EMC and our partners in New Zealand. It confirms Westcon Group's position as a leader in Australia & New Zealand distribution and establishes their credentials in the Data Center and virtualisation space.”

"IBM welcomes the acquisition of Datastor NZ by Westcon Group and the opportunity this acquisition brings resellers through greater access to our range of IBM solutions,” said Raymond Skoglund, channel manger of IBM New Zealand. “We look forward to building a successful partnership with Westcon and continued collaboration with the Datastor team."

About Westcon Group - Westcon Group, Inc. is the leading specialty distributor in networking, security, mobility and convergence for leading technology vendors, including Cisco, Nortel and Avaya, Inc. Through its Westcon, Comstor and Voda One business practices, Westcon Group sells products and services to resellers, systems integrators and service providers. Westcon Group has particular expertise in the convergence of voice, data and video applications and technologies, including voice-over Internet protocol, or VoIP, security for networking and communications systems, remote access, Internet and e-business, virtual private networks, videoconferencing and wireless connectivity. [http://www.westcongroup.com]