Auckland, 21 November 2017 – Unified communications (UC) specialist Pyrios has bought a 30 per cent stake in Microsoft integrator UC Logiq as part of an alliance offering Microsoft Skype for Business services to clients on both sides of the Tasman.
Pyrios chief executive officer Robyn O’Reilly said the alliance would further build Pyrios’ skills in Microsoft services and integration to support the growing number of businesses using Microsoft Skype for Business as their principal communications platform.
The alliance delivers benefits of scale to both organisations, with Pyrios gaining direct access to UC Logiq principals – Microsoft architects Nick Erikson and Scott Maynard – and UC Logiq able to leverage Pyrios’ project delivery services and network operations as a springboard for growth, she said. Under terms of the agreement, Pyrios takes a 30 per cent shareholding in UC Logiq on 21 November. The UC services provider continues to trade under its own brand, and next month will relocate to offices within Pyrios’ headquarters in Albany, Auckland.
O’Reilly said Pyrios required a deeper set of skills with Microsoft as clients progressed from piloting Microsoft UC to enterprise wide deployments that integrated on-premise technologies and cloud services.
“UC Logiq’s experience in architecting and delivering UC strategies to large customers complements our existing capabilities, and will be marketed to our clients,” she said. The skills of Erikson and Maynard were as “rare as hen’s teeth” and helped round out Pyrios’ Microsoft UC practice, said O’Reilly. Both men have a long list of Microsoft and related vendor certifications. As UC Logiq they have completed Skype for Business work for blue chip clients including Fonterra, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Bank of Queensland, and Queensland Alumina. And as a Microsoft Consulting Services partner, UC Logiq is authorised to conduct pre-sales consulting work on Microsoft’s behalf.
UC Logiq director Nick Erikson said the trans-Tasman footprints of both companies coupled with Pyrios’ project management and network operations team would accelerate his firm’s growth.
“We’ve had to turn down projects because we didn’t have the bandwidth to do the job. Joining forces with Pyrios gives us a bigger engine and establishes the region’s foremost UC consulting and project services firm,” said Erikson. “We’re poised to bring innovative offerings to the A/NZ market which will combine the strengths of both organisations. We’re extremely bullish about the potential of this alliance.”
With 80 employees across offices in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and Perth, Pyrios had built one the largest specialist UC consultancies in the A/NZ region.