Interlink And Interwork: Two Disties To Watch

As noted in last month, finding the real jazz in the staid world of distribution is no easy feat. In our 2006 VARBusiness State of Distribution report in September, we ran down a list of top 25 distributors that most VARs can recite by heart.

Aside from a little scrapping for position, the relative place of the market leaders such as Ingram Micro and Tech Data remains fairly constant, as does their value proposition, their list of services and even their vendor bill of fare.

But as we've been discovering, there can be gems hidden below the State of Distribution radar. The upstarts often provide innovative solutions, cutting-edge services and access to emerging technologies. Last month, we saw how Coast Solutions Group is making a name for itself in a services niche, providing VARs with presales and technical support, service-development training and project-management assistance. The company has another 1,100 IT service providers as part of its extended network.

We also looked at Eastern Data, the smaller distribution arm of a larger solution provider by the same name, which is working bigger than its single warehouse and 45 employees would suggest by upping its online sales and the number of shipments sent directly to end users.

In this, the second part of our three-part series on Distributors To Watch, we look at Interwork Technologies and Interlink Communication Systems. While they may sound alike, their models couldn't be more different. The one thing they do have in common, however, is their climb in the VARBusiness distribution rankings, which clearly puts them among the distributors VARs should get to know.

Interwork of Ottawa, Ontario, made its bones in the especially hot niche area of security and has jumped with both feet into serving VARs in the equally torrid IP-telephony space.

In addition to its solid stable of Trend Micro, Attachmate and BorderWare products, the Canadian distributor is counting on growth from its Hummingbird and Marshal offerings.

Also playing a role in the positive outlook for 2007 at Interwork is a growing presence in storage, e-business applications and branded services, according to company officials.

"Interwork being one of the value-added distributors to watch in 2007 comes at a remarkable time," says Ken Lewis, vice president of sales for Interwork. "The new year is ushering in a multitude of exciting growth and change for us--including an expanded staff of dedicated territory managers; and a broadened security portfolio including newly acquired partnerships with CRYPTOCard, experts in two-factor authentication, and GuardianEdge Technologies, a leading provider of mobile data-protection software solutions.

"We've also been named the exclusive North American distributor for Marshal, a world leader in e-mail and Internet security," Lewis says. "And we've partnered with seven new VoIP vendors to address the advent and future of IP integration. Overall, we have no doubt that the reseller community will be very impressed with Interwork and the solutions we have to offer in 2007."

Another distributor VARs would be wise to watch is networking specialist Interlink Communication Systems. This Clearwater, Fla.-based specialty distributor moved up one spot in the VARBusiness State of Distribution rankings, with its laser focus on internetworking and access products from the likes of broadband-access vendor Verilink, Visual Networks, Adtran and MRV.

In fact, Interlink was named last month as the master distributor for Verso's line of next-gen networking gear.

Another big change for Interlink this year was a jump in the amount of shipments delivered directly to end users, which rose from 15 percent to more than 45 percent.