Microdyne fuels networking war

Vendor?s price cuts intensify competition at low end of the market

Microdyne has become the latest vendor to enter into the cutthroat network pricing market by launching a range of hubs and Ethernet cards.

The company is making a long-term offer on its Ethermax range of an eight-port unmanaged hub for #85 and 10Base-T base adaptor for #35.

Its Fast Ethernet cards incorporate software features that link Microdyne and users by directing them to the vendor?s Web site. Microdyne previously sold its products under the Novell brand name.

Peter Mylchreest, director of European sales and operations, said: ?We?ve brought everything closer to leading edge technology. The products are cost competitive and reliable with life-time warranties aimed for the SME market. Microdyne is here and here alone.?

But Allied Telesyn, which claims it cannot be beaten on price, is offering as part of its Var recruitment programme a bundle of three eight-port unmanaged hubs for #110 until the end of June as the intense price competition takes hold of the networking market (PC Dealer, 7 May).

With 3Com, Intel, Bay Networks, Microdyne and Allied Telesyn all battling for low-end market share, resellers that do not keep up with price changes could lose out on deals as their competitors undercut them.

Chris Underhill, network manager at Frontline, said: ?Price wars are never good news for the channel. It means added workload and cost as we have to deliver marketing support and recommunicate the changes to resellers. It?s not good news for resellers if they can?t keep pace with changes. It confuses them in terms of understanding what?s best for their customers,? he said.

The price war started when 3Com and Bay slashed prices on low-end products in the face of the growing threat from Taiwanese manufacturers, which are able to shift kit in large volumes to European distributors. Various vendors have announced temporary prices cuts on hubs and routers in an attempt to keep sales up during the summer lull.