Computerworld

SonicWall ditches ITW

IT Wholesale has been given the axe as a SonicWall distributor - seven months after it was appointed.
  • Jonathan Roe (Unknown Publication)
  • 21 December, 2003 22:00

IT Wholesale has been given the axe as a SonicWall distributor – seven months after it was appointed.

The security vendor’s move leaves Renaissance as the only New Zealand distributor; a position it was upset to lose in May and threatened to stop selling the product.

ITW’s dumping is part of SonicWall’s worldwide channel clean up, in which only distributors and resellers that provide technical support will be either retained or appointed.

Renaissance has two certified SonicWall engineers, one of which is full time on the brand. ITW had none.

In Australia, Tech Pacific, which was appointed at the same time as ITW, has been given the flick, and retained are Dovetail and Lan 1 (a separate company to Lan 1 here.)

ITW sales manager Tracey Condie says the company had known about SonicWall's intention for about three months.

“We’re not unhappy. This has been mutually agreed.”

Yet Condie says the resignation of three SonicWall sales and marketing staff, including Sydney-based channel manager Randy Prado in July, resulted in less “support”.

But SonicWall’s Singapore-based sales director for Asia Pacific, Antony Chapman, says staff changes “had no impact” on ITW’s axing.

“IT Wholesale does not fit the model we’re looking at.”

That model, which involves “value added” resellers, could see SonicWall having 50 New Zealand resellers of various certifications by this time next year.

But Chapman admits SonicWall made a mistake when in May it appointed a second distributor.

“We haven’t put enough emphasis on the reseller channel. It’s the fault of a lot of vendors to appoint more distributors and think the job is done.”

Other sources say the need to meet sales targets was the reason SonicWall appointed ITW and Tech Pacific (in Australia).

Meanwhile, Renaissance brands manager Mark Dasent says “it’s exciting” to be sole distributor again because his company cut advertising and road shows when ITW came on board.

“There’s no focus when there’s two of you. [ITW] didn’t make any in-roads with SonicWall but we didn’t grow it all over that period.”

This is the second agency ITW has lost this year in quick succession. In June, Acer canned its PDA contract with the North Shore, Auckland distributor less than a week after Acer confirmed ITW was on board.

Condie says the company, which has also taken on six agencies this year, does not have too many brands nor a habit of losing them.

The two companies are sorting out stock but would not say when they expect to dissolve their contract.

SonicWall is in the process of appointing a new Sydney-based channel manager.