Building on its long-standing relationship with Microsoft, Westcon-Comztek has been appointed as one of a handful of Services Provider Licence Agreement (SPLA) partners in the region.
SPLA licensing is typically used by organisations and resellers looking to provide hosted software and services to end customers. These solutions can include Web hosting, hosted applications, messaging, collaboration and platform infrastructure offerings.
“The real benefits for end user customers tapping into the power of SPLA is that they can instantly offer a customised service with a flexible cost structure, that has no start-up costs, comes with no monthly sales minimums and doesn’t require a term of commitment,” says David Caygill, software solutions director at Westcon-Comztek.
“This is an ideal opportunity for Microsoft partners who want to build a hosting platform for their customers. Customers who don’t want to host their own onsite solutions can call on a SPLA partner and tap into hosted infrastructure as a service (IaaS) or software as a service (SaaS), that have been developed and that are now hosted by the partner.”
According to Caygill, SPLA partners can use their volume license to provision software and provide services to customers and third-parties outside of their own business, via a hosted solutions model.
“As an SPLA partner, a reseller can portion off sections of services and sell only the services or software a client requires,” he says. “As an end-user you don’t have to own what you buy as your reseller can host your software for you, but you are now assured that what you do purchase within this programme is fully licensed with Microsoft.”
As an SPLA distributor, Comztek enables its customers to purchase SPLA licensing from the company and then begin rolling out provisioned services to clients with immediate effect. Partners can also tap into the value-added services of Westcon-Comztek, pre and post sales skills, as well as technical and business support expertise.