Blue Apache joins the race to become the channel's fastest growing reseller. Strong sales in managed services and virtualisation have lifted Melbourne-based integrator Blue Apache to grow its sales in the past year and a chance to be listed in the CRN Fast50 awards list.

Blue Apache was the first entrant in last year's CRN Fast50 and won the award for the 19th fastest growing reseller. Back again for the second time, managing director Chris Marshall said the integrator has "experienced a lot of growth" and he was interested to see "how the rest of the industry" did.

The HP, Citrix, Cisco and Microsoft partner experienced a "contraction" in revenues from the financial services as a result of last year's downturn but was "able to capitalise on the cost savings that its solutions gave to customers".

"Particularly around outsourcing," said Marshall. "Obviously being able to reduce the client's fixed cost makes our solutions very attractive whilst trying to reduce their cost."

Marshall also benefited from the government's small business tax rebate.

"We've seen significant growth and particularly around the virtualisation aspect that tied in with the Government's investment allowance. We saw that as a really successful initiative from the Government in driving investment.

"It encouraged customers to invest in depreciable assets which IT hardware obviously falls into and provided another incentive for small and medium businesses to invest," he said.

Marshall said, surprisingly, that recently  "business confidence has fallen". "We certainly didn't see the same lead up in June 30 sales with people trying to get things over the line before the end of the financial year," said Marshall.