The recent acquisition of Axon by Integral will see more opportunities opening up for companies specialising in servicing New Zealand's SMBs.

Maclean Computing CEO, Chris Maclean, has said that now was the right time for the merger, while many of the bigger players are still recovering from the effects of the economic downturn.

"It's hard to take two reasonably sizeable companies and weld them together into a coherent whole, it doesn't happen overnight, and inevitably there's a degree of culture clash as the two organisations come together,” he said. “But they're both strong, quality organisations, and I think the combination of the two, with their respective areas of expertise, will create a company with the scale to be able to compete strongly against the likes of Datacom and Gen-I."

Maclean also sees the emergence of a new player in the "enterprise end of town" opening up increased opportunities for companies specialising in servicing New Zealand's small to medium enterprise market.

He continued, “I've always believed there's a 1:5 rule of thumb ratio for service organisations; that is, services companies are well matched to customers that are 1 to 5 times larger than they are. So if you are a company of 100 people, you’re well suited to serving companies of 100-500 people.

“It’s a ratio that just seems to work in terms of matching the abilities of the service company to the needs and focuses of its customers. As service organisations get bigger, they invariably find that while it becomes easier to support the needs of their bigger clients, it becomes increasingly hard to provide the personal attention and types of services that are demanded by their smaller customers.”

You can read our full coverage of the acquisition of Axon by Integral here.

Pictured left to right: Ray Noonan, Integral Managing Director; John Quirk, Axon Chairman; Scott Green, Axon CEO; David Sutherland, Integral Executive Chairman