Westcon Group Rolls Out ``Safe Schools'' Road Show, Highlighting Security Opportunities in the Education Market; Nationwide In-Person Training Series to Cover Product Solutions Suites, Sales Tactics and Opportunity Sourcing.

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. -- Westcon Group, Inc. announced that it is in the process of rolling out "Safe Schools", a classroom style training series designed to help solution providers advance their success in the IT education sector.

Safe Schools focuses on three primary principles: securing the network, securing inventory and securing school populations. Currently, training dates are planned for Houston and Minneapolis, and the series is expected to continue through the end of the year.

Ron Sheps, vertical markets manager of Westcon Group North America, commented: "The security challenges schools face are truly multi-faceted and clearly not just limited to protecting physical assets. In an age of widely publicized security breaches among education institutions of all sizes and types, we want to help our customers provide state of the art security, regardless of the threat."

The purpose of the training series is to educate solution providers on how Westcon Group's affinity solutions can make a total network solution more appealing. For example, video surveillance solutions from eWatch could complement an existing network infrastructure and provide a deterrent to vandalism on school grounds. Another example is how Check Point's solutions enable universities to quarantine networks to prevent infected student computers from spreading threats to the university networks.

Despite rapid advances in VoIP technology and accompanying software applications, Westcon maintains that it is as important now as ever before to maintain the integrity and security of the network. The company provides best of breed solutions by manufacturers such as eWatch, RSA, Aladdin, Blue Coat and Check Point Software Technologies.

"As a sponsor of the Safe Schools series, Check Point is working with Westcon to help solution providers achieve success in the IT education sector," said William Lavelle, vice president Americas sales, Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. "Westcon's strength isn't simply in stocking and deploying the necessary targeted solutions, it is in their ability to help customers understand where the opportunities are and how to best position these solutions."

Vic Levinson, president of Skokie, IL-based Prime Telecom, Inc., added, "We look forward to attending Westcon's SafeSchools seminar next month. These education-focused training programs help us engage customers at a higher level, encouraging realistic dialog on how to protect schools more effectively. Westcon's programs also shed light on specific federal funding mechanisms that are available in the areas of school surveillance and safety."

About Westcon Group

Westcon Group, Inc. is a multi-national specialty distributor of networking and communications equipment for leading technology vendors, including Cisco Systems, Inc., Nortel Networks Corporation and Avaya, Inc. Through its Westcon, Comstor and Voda One divisions, Westcon Group sells products and services to resellers, systems integrators and service providers. Westcon Group has particular expertise in the convergence of voice, data and video applications and technologies, including voice-over Internet protocol, or VoIP, security for networking and communications systems, remote access, Internet and e-business, virtual private networks, videoconferencing and wireless connectivity. For more information, visit www.westcongroup.com.