Father-son Greer duo eye growth for new distie Actual Virtual

Desktop virtualisation distributor is hoping to double its turnover in the next 12 months

Father-and-son duo Simon and Roy Greer (pictured centre and right) are hoping for rapid expansion of their new distribution venture, Actual Virtual, which has been funded on the back of the sale of 2001 Electronic Components at the end of 2013.

The fledgling distie, which specialises in virtual desktops and related products, is being run by Simon Greer and became operational on 1 January 2014 following the acquisition of the pair's previous distribution company by Solid State for about £2.4m.

Speaking to CRN, Simon Greer, managing director at Actual Virtual, said the firm is "well financed" because of the sale of his father's components distributor 2001 Electronic Components. Roy Greer has taken on the role of financial director at the new firm.

Simon Greer said he is hoping his new company will double its turnover in the next 12 months.

"We are hoping to do £1.5m in turnover for the financial year ending on 31 December, and we want to double that next year," Greer said.

The Letchworth-based distributor formed a partnership with LG earlier this year and is also partnered with vendors NComputing, Atrust and Userful.

According to Greer the firm is in talks with three other software vendors and is "confident" it will sign them up by the end of this year, which would bring its total to seven.

"We want to make sure we find vendors who complement each other, and our stance is to try to provide resellers with a set of tools to deal with desktop virtualisation issues and solve the different kinds of problems they have," he added. "As we move into the next year we will actively look to take it to 10 vendors if the right vendors come along."

Greer said he felt his firm offered an opportunity for resellers in this field.

"There are a lot of resellers around who have customers who are well suited for this type of technology, but perhaps don't have the expertise of how to offer these types of solutions, so it's our intention to provide the missing services and products they need to deliver those kind of solutions to their customers," he explained.

"The market is moving more towards this type of technology, and filling in the gaps that resellers are missing is going to be a vital service for people, especially as they move away from these typical PC-based environments into these more centralised environments. We are also putting together a set of cloud solutions for resellers to manage and host desktop-as-a-service or infrastructure-as-a-service."