De Smedt’s departure follows the successful integration of NOXS into Westcon Security, the business unit Westcon Group formed last year to serve its reseller community focused on security solutions. NOXS, which Westcon Group acquired in April of last year, was the security distribution arm of Unit 4 Agresso’s Internet and Security division.
As Chief Operating Officer of Unit 4 Agresso, De Smedt spent 14 years building and developing its NOXS security distribution arm and as chief executive officer of NOXS, he played the key role in transitioning that organization to become part of Westcon Group’s powerful multinational distribution business.
“Harry has contributed substantially to the success of Westcon Security as both NOXS and more recently as part of Westcon Group,” commented Barry Shakespeare, executive vice president, Westcon Group Europe. “His leadership abilities and experience as former CEO of NOXS played a very important role in helping Westcon to integrate this strong security distribution business—he leaves the company in a very good position to bring the greatest possible value to customers.”
“This is an exciting time in the security market and especially for Westcon Group,” De Smedt added. “Westcon Security has an enormous amount of expertise within their current staff and program infrastructure—Westcon also has exactly the right customer and vendor mix, which we worked very hard to achieve. I wish them success in future endeavors.”
Following the successful integration of NOXS into Westcon Group, Westcon has been recognized with many industry accolades including Juniper Networks’ EMEA Distributor of the Year award. NOXS will become formally known as Westcon Security on March 1st 2008.