As a result of the acquisition, the business has attained Platinum Partner status from ShoreTel. RDC is a ShoreTel Circle of Excellence Gold Partner, in addition to recently receiving a special recognition award from ShoreTel for Cloud Business Excellence 2016.
Coupled with Solar – ShoreTel’s largest partner outside of North America - the combined businesses are set to deliver improved, additional technical and commercial expertise through the scale of their enlarged offering.
As a Silver Peak partner in EMEA, RDC will enhance the enlarged Solar portfolio with the addition of software defined (SD)-WAN platform, enabling the business to capitalise on a market forecast to be worth $20 billion by 2020. Partnerships with Pure Storage, Rubrik, Nimble Storage, Balabit and Palo Alto further align with Solar’s stated ambition to be the Cloud and Managed Service Provider (MSP) of choice for the small to medium enterprise business community.
As part of the acquisition, RDC Managing Director Jason Evans and the employees will remain with the organisation.
John Whitty CEO of Solar Communications said, “RDC is an extremely capable and exciting business with a very talented team. Its combination with Solar will provide added depth to the innovative and business-enhancing services provided to both sets of customers.
“Following our acquisition of Armstrong Telecommunications in 2013, Solar has established the platform, people and services for growing the business organically. Over the last 12 months the business has transitioned from its place as a leading telephone system reseller in the UK, into a fully managed service provider being at the heart of all ICT operations for its customers.
“This transformation has been enabled by the development of our managed services portfolio coupled with the strategic acquisitions, as well as the procurement and development of new technical services and product sets.
“We very much look forward to welcoming Jason and the team to the Solar Group and furthering the growth and development of the last 12 months.”
Jason Evans, former owner and Managing Director of RDC said, “Following 20 years of growing our business into a successful and multi award-winning organisation, the time was right to take the next step, and allow our customers to benefit from the significant joint business with outstanding capability, experience and financial strength.
“The introduction of Solar’s telecommunications, WAN, cloud and managed services will allow us to provide a more comprehensive offering. Personally, I very much look forward to being part of the Solar team and further helping the Group to develop and deliver our incredibly exciting joint portfolio of solutions and services. Key to the decision to join forces with Solar was that the values and culture of the business were extremely close to those already present within RDC.”