SYNAXON and VNC cooperate in professional services and commercial Open Source software

Bielefeld/Zug, December 10, 2009: SYNAXON AG, Europe's largest IT retail group, and Virtual Network Consult (VNC), Value Added Distributor for Commercial Open Source software habe entered into a strategic partnership which enables VNC to provide professional services for all SYNAXON brand partners. VNC's services include pre-sales services, implementation and installation support, application development as well as maintenance and customer support. In addition, SYNAXON partners can acquire commercial Open Source software such as Zimbra Collaboration Suite from VNC, and can receive trainings and certifications as Zimbra Sales Partner, VAR partner or HSP (Hosting Service Provider) partner for Zimbra. Zimbra Collaboration Suite is an Ajax-based web collaboration solution by Zimbra Inc., a Yahoo! company
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Project Support


The aim of the new partnership is to support SYNAXON partners with professional services in the context of customer projects. VNC can provide highly qualified personnel for SYNAXON partners at very attractive rates, making them more flexible even with complex project requirements.


Zimbra


SYNAXON and VNC are starting immediately with marketing Zimbra Collaboration Suite to SYNAXON partners, using the respective expertise in the target markets. The web collaboration solution integrates email, contacts, calendar and VoIP, and allows the creation of online documents. Zimbra supports all standard APIs (IMAP, POP, iCAL, CalDAV, MAPI and iSync), and can be seamlessly integrated with many other clients, including Microsoft Outlook, Apple desktop applications and Mozilla Thunderbird. The Yahoo! company Zimbra is the leading provider of open source, next generation messaging and collaboration, serving more than 60.000 customers and 50 million paid mailboxes worldwide. 
"The cooperation with VNC provides our partners with new opportunities in project business", says Jan Schwarzenberger, Purchasing Manager at SYNAXON AG . "This agreement expands our portfolio in the rapidly growing business of commercial open source software." Andrea Woerrlein, Managing Director of VNC, comments: "We are delighted at being able to offer the Zimbra Collaboration Suite to SYNAXON partners and their customers. We are convinced that Zimbra is the perfect web collaboration solution for small and medium enterprises, and will experience a tremendous growth in the near future." 

About SYNAXON


SYNAXON AG is a publicly listed company with more than 2,700 partners and an external sales volume of 3 billion Euros. It is Europe's largest IT retail group. The company, based in Bielefeld, Germany, was founded in 1991 as PC-SPEZIALIST Franchise AG, and is listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since that year. SYNAXON partners are independent IT retailers or system vendors which are members of the co-operatives AKCENT Computerpartner Deutschland AG, iTeam Systemhauskooperation, MICROTREND or the IT franchise system PC-SPEZIALIST. SYNAXON thus covers the entire IT market in the B2X segment (MICROTREND and PC-SPEZIALIST) as well as the B2B segment (AKCENT and iTeam). Currently, SYNAXON employs about 110 people based in Bielefeld, Schweinfurt and Lilienthal. The latest news about SYNAXON can be found at www.SYNAXON.de in the SYNAXON blog or in the press section. 

About VNC


VNC is an innovative Value Added Distributor. VNC's portfolio includes marketing and public relations, channel development and partner management, training and professional services for IT vendors and their partners. VNC Professional Services include pre-sales, implementation, customization and rollout, as well as maintenance and support. VNC has a broad experience of more than 10 years with numerous projects for leading companies, such as Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions, Deutsche Telekom AG and Intergraph Corp, as well as small and medium-sited innovative software vendors from all over the world. For more information about VNC, please visit the VNC web site at www.vnc.biz.