Enterprise distributor Magirus has unveiled a new support portal as it begins to use the proceeds of its European IBM and HP sell-off to bolster its services business.

Set to go live in December, Magirus’ WebSupport portal will offer resellers in EMC, security and virtualisation environments a chain of communication to the distributor’s support team aimed at speeding up enquires.

The distributor boosted its potential acquisition war chest in July through the sale of its enterprise infrastructure division to rival Avnet .

However, Niall McGrane, director of UK security and virtualisation division at Magirus, said the new support portal signalled the distributor’s priority to focus on organic growth.

“The IBM and HP accounts took up a lot of Magirus’ time, therefore it plans to divert the money made and invest it in its services and solutions library,” he said.

“Partners and end users can log in to obtain updates at any time and

it is secure in terms of partner access. Customisable options are available around all of the services offered because partners have different requirements.”

Antony Young, director for services and security division at distributor Bell Micro, said: “Bell Micro launched something similar last year, which was our security portal, to help improve the communication between our partners.

“A company needs a combination of both acquisitions and investing in its services, but it is what works best for each business and investing in your partners is always wise. It is not a surprise that Magirus has launched a support portal and we wish it luck.”

McGrane continued to say how Magirus is focusing on working with its partners around the topic of virtualisation.

“There is a lot more to virtualisation than putting VMware somewhere in a data centre. What you do with it and how you work with the partner is the clever bit,” he said.