Bell bullish despite RSA setback

Business as usual: Bell claims it will "refocus the resources we had on RSA on another vendor"

Despite losing its distribution deal with security vendor RSA, Bell Micro is remaining upbeat and plans to add staff, customers and vendor partners over the coming months.

RSA completed its distribution review earlier this month and will maintain relationships with Sphinx and Computerlinks. Avnet, Magirus and DNS Arrow were considered as new additions, but they all missed out.

Ed Callacher, Bell’s divisional manager for networking and security, expressed his disappointment but stressed it was “business as usual”.

“We provided good growth to RSA,” he added. “But, for them, it made sense to retreat back to specialist distribution. Personally, I think it will limit their rate of growth for new products.”

Callacher revealed that Bell would look to fill the gap left by RSA.

In the meantime, the decision allows the distributor to “refocus the resources we had on RSA on another vendor”, he said.

Bell’s security wing will continue to increase headcount, Callacher asserted.

“And if there is a new or emerging technology, we will look at new vendors,” he said.

Dave Ellis, director of e-security at Computerlinks, claimed he was “very pleased” by RSA’s decision.

“The new data leakage protection products require a more specialist channel,” he added.

Simon Aron, joint managing director of RSA reseller Eurodata, said the move would have no impact on his business because he bought from Sphinx. “As long as RSA has two distributors, I am happy,” he said.