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SoftGen hires new chief

New general manager says expanding the software distributor's portfolio is a key objective

Broadening out into new technology areas is at the top of the list for the new general manager of software distributor, SoftGen.

Guy Coles was most recently sales manager at education provider, Excom Education, and has spent 14 years in the IT industry. His resume includes channel-oriented roles with CA and Altiris as well as stints with Network Monitoring Solutions and software integrator, Insight (formerly Software Spectrum).

He started with SoftGen on June 2 and replaces former CEO, Bruce Allan, who left SoftGen late last year to pursue opportunities with Base IT, which assists vendors to establish a presence in the A/NZ market. Base IT was recently appointed a distributor for Crescendo Networks' products locally.

Coles said he had known SoftGen founder and director, James Bradshaw, for many years and was brought on to help take the business in a new direction.

He said his first point of focus was to seek out new "groundbreaking" technologies to expand the company's products portfolio.

"While SoftGen has been firmly entrenched in the development space, I believe there is a few new and emerging technologies that aren't being taken to market as successfully as they could be," Coles said.

A distributor for software vendors including CodeGear, SoftGen has been increasing its focus on the mobility space over the past couple of years and is a distributor of mobile application tools from Australian vendor, Bright Software.

Coles said he would continue this push into the mobility and communications space, as well as other areas that weren't necessarily in SoftGen's comfort zone.

Catering to corporate users and providing value around products was a key objective, he said.

"We will continue to be a traditional distributor as we have always been, but adding value at a corporate level," Coles said. "We have got the infrastructure in place to cope with a significantly enhanced product set and will add people as we need to."

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: Altiris, Bright Software, CA Technologies, CodeGear, Excom, SoftGen, SoftGen Australia, Software Spectrum
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