Resellers will play a key role in bringing Cable & Wireless's (C&W's) new enterprise voice over IP (VoIP) service to market.

As revealed earlier this month, the networking giant is launching a channel training programme to support the product, which will be available to partners in the autumn.

The vendor has claimed VARs will be able to make greater margin from value-add services wrapped around the product.

C&W's IP Voice offering will be targeted at enterprises that are looking to make cost savings by running voice over the data network but are unwilling to replace legacy systems.

The firm has claimed resellers will also be able to offer customers a greater range of VoIP products, because the service supports all private voice protocols commonly used by businesses, meaning firms can use their existing telecoms products and re-use analogue handsets.

"Resellers will be able to migrate customer sites using IP-enabled PBXs or full IP telephony at a speed that fits with an enterprises' IT replacement strategy," said Rob Thomas, director of product marketing at C&W.

"We will have a big focus on our reseller base when taking this product to market and this will include a huge range of training.

"It is an ideal product for resellers, which will be able to make additional revenue streams from audits, design, consultancy and managed services, as well as from selling the product."

But Jess Thompson-Hughes, managing director of Aruba VoIP distributor React Technologies, had mixed feelings about the move. "Anything that allows enterprises to make savings using existing infrastructure is a good thing - but this sounds similar to least-cost routing," he said.

Thompson-Hughes added that businesses might have to make additional investments as they migrate over to an IP backbone.

Current VoIP systems can also include a proprietary element, meaning VARs find it difficult to offer a truly open IP system that uses best-of-breed technologies, Thompson-Hughes said.

"There is a massive amount of hype around VoIP, but when you get down to the bare bones you find that most IP telephony systems are proprietary," he said.

"This is locking the resellers in. Once you work with a particular network vendor it becomes difficult to sell other firms' products, because the open protocols have been changed."

daniel_thomas@vnu.co.uk