Novell completes UK distribution cull

Dan Veitkus: We took our eye off the ball in terms of the quality of distributors we worked with

Novell has completed its UK distribution cull after giving two more allies their marching orders.

The software vendor had already thinned its UK distribution line up by 25 per cent this year, having axed broadliner Computer 2000 and a couple of smaller outfits. Termination notifications have now been served to two more unnamed distributors, reducing Novell’s UK line-up to five.

Dan Veitkus, vice president and general manager of partners for EMEA, claimed that Novell now has the appropriate “distribution footprint” in the UK.

“Our distributors in the UK have now stabilised and we have identified who is coming and going,” he said.

Novell recently appointed Avnet and counts ETC, Magirus, DNS Arrow, Bell Micro, Interactive Ideas and CMS Peripherals among its other UK allies.

However, Veitkus said it would be unfair to reveal the identity of those given the push as they were still serving out their contracts.

“They made the decision they were not willing to invest at an appropriate level,” he said.

“Across Europe and in the UK in particular, we were over-distributed as a result of acquisitions and because we took our eye off the ball in terms of the quality of distributors we worked with. We want to focus on the quality of service for customers.”

John Toal, European president at Bell Micro, said he has not been informed of which distributors had been given the chop.

“We put together a plan on how to grow business and hopefully they liked that,” he said. “They wanted us to focus on PlateSpin because it fits with our virtualisation play around datacentres – but we will hear back later this week.”

Veitkus took the reins of Novell’s EMEA channel in February and since then the vendor has overhauled its rebate and deal registration incentive structure for partners.

Further changes will be unveiled at the start of Novell’s fiscal year on 1 November, including a move to eliminate annual fees for all resellers and granting Platinum and Gold partners access to Novell’s internal consulting resources.

“There has never been a better time to be a Novell partner or to take another look at being a partner,” said Veitkus.