The consolidation bandwagon rolled on last week with distributors Fresh Egg and Voice Comms Warehouse (VCW) emerging as the latest players expected to join forces.

CRN understands that networking firm VCW is in the process of acquiring security specialist Fresh Egg and it is believed that the deal will be concluded by the end of the month at the earliest.

VCW first emerged on the channel scene last year, and earlier this year director Mike Harris said he was looking to grow turnover 10-fold to £3m-£4m and would focus on security, telephony and packaged services. He said at the time that he would be “open to acquisitions of technology distribution businesses”.

Fresh Egg was established in 2002 with an emphasis on unified threat management (UTM) and managed services. It supports a range of vendors including Fortinet and Astaro.

Industry players agreed the move would be a beneficial. Nick Sonigra, sales director at VAR Metropolitan Networks, said: “I think this is a good thing. Joining the two together will give resellers a strong combined focus. We have worked with both firms and they are equally as good as each other. We are happy with the move.”

Another reseller, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “This means that Fortinet’s distribution will be cut from three down to two. But it is a sensible move on Fresh Egg’s part.”

Grahame Smee, managing director of distributor Cohort Technology, said: “It seems like a good fit. The two companies operate in a similar space and have a couple of vendors in common. If they combine both the buying power and customer bases they are onto a good thing.”

Dave Ellis, director of e-security at distributor Computerlinks, said: “I wouldn’t say we come up against either of them that much because they are both Fortinet distributors. It would cut Fortinet’s distribution down to two, which would be an interesting situation.”

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of Wick Hill Group, said: “I do think the UTM market has been quite competitive and I can see it makes good sense for VCW to acquire Fresh Egg. I assume it was also a good deal for Fresh Egg.”

Fresh Egg and VCW declined to comment as CRN went to press.

VCW can Spot the difference