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26 Jun 2006
The comms channel suffered a blow last week as Spot Distribution appointed an insolvency firm to place the distributor into liquidation.
Helen Whitehouse, senior manager at the liquidators DS Insolvencies Services, said: “Spot has instructed us to help the directors put the company into liquidation. This will happen early next month.”
CRN understands that Mike Harris, one of Spot’s main investers, has become managing director of a new voice and managed services firm called Voice Comms Warehouse. Harris is also managing director at VAR TNS. Despite Voice Comms being based out of Spot’s Shropshire office, the firm claimed it has no links to Spot.
David Galton-Fenzi, group sales director at networking storage distributor Zycko, said: “We understood that Spot was selling a lot of low-grade, low-value products and there was no margin in it.
“Harris might have looked at Spot, decided to close that down and invested in this new business,” he said.
Galton-Fenzi added that Harris has a proven track record for building businesses.
Scott Dobson, managing director of distributor Vcomm, said: “It looks like a phoenix. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Spot’s vendor relationships appear elsewhere.”
Grahame Smee, managing director of distributor equIP, said: “This type of activity is not uncommon in our industry and it can lead to some bad feeling from the creditors.”
Paul Howard, chief executive of vendor AYC Telecom, which partnered with Spot before the relationship ended in October (CRN, 3 October), said: “Spot was great to deal with, but its model was not indicative for voice over IP products.”
Vaughn Armstrong, marketing director at Spot vendor partner Westell, said: “Spot did a good job for us and enabled our business to grow.”
Armstrong said that the liquidation will have no effect on Westell’s business because Spot will be replaced with a new UK distributor.
Mike Harris was unavailable for comment as CRN went to press.
trevor_treharne@vnu.co.uk
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