Dave Howden (Umbrellar)
Pax8 has expanded into the New Zealand market through acquiring Microsoft cloud specialist Umbrellar.
Pax8 CEO John Street said the acquisition was key to its growth in the New Zealand market as it continues along its Asia Pacific (APAC) expansion journey.
“Together, our technology, people and resources will enable businesses in the APAC region to modernise, digitally transform and fuel growth with cloud solutions,” Street said.
It will be ‘business as usual’ with Umbrellar CEO Dave Howden and his leadership team remaining in place with a continued focus on driving outcomes for business partners based in New Zealand.
Additionally, Howden said the acquisition created opportunities for its people, partners and mutual customers.
“As a premium Microsoft CSP [cloud solution provider] in New Zealand, and with what I consider the most talented Microsoft engineering team in the region, I’m excited we can continue to support our ecosystem of partners and customers here in NZ and now extend globally as part of the Pax8 Asia team,” Howden told Reseller News.
“We owe it to New Zealand businesses to be able to service them where they operate and where their end customers are.
“With tech being New Zealand's second largest export, our priority has always been to unlock the power of cloud for NZ.”
Armed with the opportunity to support partners in New Zealand, Australia, APAC and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Howden said its top priority for NZ is to continue building the most talent dense community of cloud experts possible to ensure it delivers on the benefits cloud has to offer.
Howden will also join the leadership team of Pax8 APAC with the view of building a professional services team which will assist all partners across the region, reporting to Pax8 Asia Pacific senior vice president Chris Sharp.
“We are excited to welcome 50 new employees from Umbrellar to the Pax8 Asia team,” Sharp said.
“The team at Umbrellar are experts in cloud-enabling businesses in New Zealand and they are the number one service provider of Microsoft cloud in the market. With a focus on infrastructure managed services, assessment, migration and optimisation, their technical expertise and professional services will prove to be a value-add for Pax8 partners.”
Speaking to Reseller News, Sharp said the two companies shared a vision to enable businesses digitally with cloud solutions locally and globally.
“We are also aligned when it comes to company culture and values. Additionally, the Umbrellar team brings a lot of talent to Pax8 Asia,” he said.
From a Pax8 perspective, Sharp added Umbrellar’s resources will enable Pax8 to better serve partners locally in all APAC markets.
“For the team at Umbrellar, the corporate resources and focus of Pax8 as being the marketplace for the world’s leading MSPs to procure and manage cloud products brings an incredible opportunity to the partners in New Zealand – especially New Zealand partners operating throughout Australia and other Asian Pacific markets,” he added.
Pax8 launched into Australia and New Zealand in April armed with a cloud commerce marketplace, a strong executive line-up and an acquisitive commitment to overhaul traditional distribution practices for managed service providers (MSPs).
Created as a born-in-the-cloud distributor in 2012, the Denver-based business is ripping up the rule book in relation to cloud provisioning, support and billing, taking direct aim at traditional supply chain incumbents in the process.
Central to such expansion efforts locally will be an executive team housing Sharp as senior vice president, James Bergl as vice president of business development and Tracy Lacewell as vice president of sales.
This is in addition to an initial vendor line-up of Acronis, Check Point (email security), Bitdefender and CyberCNS, in addition to Dropsuite, Proofpoint and SentinelOne.
“As we continue to look for new ways to broaden our geographical reach, we are thrilled to announce that MSPs in A/NZ can now sign up to be a Pax8 partner,” said Nick Heddy, CRO at Pax8. “Pax8 makes it easy for partners to cloud-enable businesses and efficiently capitalise on the growth opportunities.”
With growth to be achieved both organically and by acquisition, it was confirmed that more “best-of-breed” vendor additions are expected in the coming months, alongside market expansion beyond trans-Tasman borders into ASEAN.
