January delivered an interesting distraction to my normal day to day existence. I found myself suddenly knee deep in conversations and discussions with a whole host of Percussion folk that I had got to know over the years.

It transpired that Percussion were taking a very different stance in the UK, and as a result I found a wealth of experience on my door step; sales experience, account management experience, consulting experience, training experience ….

Never one to overlook a fantastic opportunity I rolled up my sleeves and leapt into the fray with enthusiasm.

When every news channel is belching out economic doom and gloom, you may wonder why I get so enthusiastic about expanding, even when others are battening down the hatches?

That little story started nearly two years ago ….

You see, in the early years of Ixxus’ existence we followed the well trodden path of other system integrators; the client selects the technology, you integrate the technology of choice, repeat at will … However, we found this to be incredibly inefficient when the software company had their own strong presence and professional services capability in the UK.

Think of it like this; if you had decided that the Bee Gee’s were the band for you, and you were looking to book some entertainment for your forthcoming wedding, would you book a Bee Gee’s tribute band when for a marginal increase in expenditure you could book the actual Bee Gee’s????

Exactly!

Not exactly the most dazzling analogy I grant you, but it is all I could think up, and hopefully you get my point.

So Ixxus decided to stop competing with ‘the real thing’, and sought a niche that meant we could be the masters of our space. Therefore we struck a deal with an open source de-coupled java content management system, and became their full professional services capability in the UK. This proved to be a far more harmonious relationship for us. They concentrated on developing the software, and we covered the rest; sales, proof of concepts, consulting, full solution delivery, training, marketing, and first line support. It proved to be a successful formula and we proceeded to win and deliver over 20 new projects in 2008.

What has this got to do with Percussion?

Well, as soon as I heard the news about Percussions change in direction, I knew instantly that this was an opportunity for Ixxus to put in place exactly the same kind of relationship, and leverage all of our experience in having already perfected this kind of partner model.

To stretch my pathetic analogy a little further, I could hire the Bee Gee’s, and then offer a complete event service – the planning, design, management, performance, and all ancillary services, whilst still providing ‘the real thing’.

Hence my enthusiasm and that is exactly what we did!

So now we can provide a full service offering around the leading proprietary de-coupled Java content management system and the leading open source de-coupled Java content management system.

How cool is that????

*wanders off quietly humming “ … nightttt fever …night feverrrrrrrrr…….”*