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Blade Network Technologies to grow channel support staff

Vendor to use new funding from NEC, Juniper Networks and others to increase Asia-Pacific presence

Ethernet vendor, Blade Network Technology, will use money from its latest funding boost to increase its local channel support.

The company, which produces Ethernet switches for datacentres, has just closed a strategic Series B funding round.

New investment was led by NEC, along with Juniper Networks and a third, silent investor. Founding investor, Garnett & Helfrich Capital, has also upped its stake.

Blade positions itself as a direct competitor to Cisco and has strategic partnerships with HP, IBM and NEC. The company is now valued at $230 million.

Blade vice-president, Asia-Pacific, Peter Hall, said it was looking to invest the funds in recruiting local channel support staff.

“We’ll be making appointments in sales and tech support around presales,” he said. “A new sales operation in Singapore will also support the entire Asia-Pacific region.”

Hall said Blade, which formed its first distribution partnership with Dicker Data last month, is happy with how things have kicked off in the market. The vendor has decided to take a 100 per cent channel approach to its rack switching product line.

“We’re already building good prospects and customers,” he said. “We expect to triple the size of the organisation in the Asia-Pacific region in the next year with the help of this funding.”

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

More about: Blade Network Technologies, Cisco, Dicker Data, etwork, Hewlett-Packard, HP, IBM, IBM Australia, Juniper, Juniper Networks, NEC
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