Hammer signs Maxtor and drops Tandberg
Storage firm agrees distribution deal with Maxtor and drops Tandberg to focus on Quantum relationship
Storage distributor Hammer has signed a UK distribution agreement with hard drive vendor Maxtor, but has dropped Tandberg Data as part of its vendor line up.
Under the terms of the Maxtor deal, Hammer will distribute the vendor’s full range of disk storage products, such as its 15K II SCSI drive, to the enterprise, SME and industrial consumer electronics sectors, as well as associated services.
James Ward, managing director of Hammer, said: “Disk is experiencing a huge growth and partnering with Maxtor will help us to take advantage of the expanding market.”
Storage capacity growth overtook revenue growth in disk storage systems by 49.4 per cent to 457 petabytes during the second quarter of this year, according to IDC (CRN, 12 September).
Didier Trassaert, vice president of Maxtor EMEA, said: “Hammer will help us drive strong sales growth in the UK storage market. Its proactive approach to business development makes it the ideal storage partner.”
Astley Gayle, product marketing manager for UK and Ireland at rival Maxtor distributor CMS Peripherals, said he was surprised by the move.
“The million dollar question with this arrangement is whether there is enough demand in the market place. Also whether or not Maxtor is already over-or under-distributed. I’m just not sure if the demand is there,” he said.
“There could be two outcomes to this appointment; it could dilute Maxtor’s capabilities, or leave some interesting pricing dynamics.”
Ward said its partnership with Maxtor also comes at the same time as a reduction in its tape vendor collaborations.
“We have decided to no longer distribute Tandberg Data as its product range has too many similarities with Quantum, which we still distribute. We felt distributing products from both vendors was diluting our focus somewhat so we decided to focus on just one of the vendors,” he added.
Separately, Maxtor reported a $1m drop in turnover to $927m for its third quarter, compared to the same quarter last year.
The vendor also reported a $17m net loss for the third quarter ended 1 October 2005, which it said included a $4.2m payment in severance expenses following its recent Singapore workforce reduction.
Gross profit margin also dropped by 2.1 per cent to 11.1 per cent in Q3, compared to the previous quarter, however its drive shipment level for consumer electronics OEMs increased by 74,000 drives to 1,139,000 during the quarter.