Westcoast is teaming up with a b2b telecoms distie called Avenir Telecom, so that it can offer IT resellers the full mobile data shilling.

Avenir describes itself as one of the UK's biggest independent mobile distributors, with annual turnover of £50m. Its French parent company operates in seven European countries. Here, Avenir acts for the UK's five cellcos and knows stuff about tariffs and "b2b mobiles", which to us means BlackBerry.

"Many of Westcoast's resellers currently only talk to their customers about hardware or software. By offering them access to an experienced team that understands b2b mobiles and all the tariffs that are available, we are helping our resellers move into other areas of business and to increase their revenue opportunities. For the end user, the ability of a reseller to offer a fully converged, mobile data solution is a key selling point"

Avenir has a similar deal with ETC, signing the distie arm of SCH in May after a three or four month trial.