Ideal dissolves original executive team

Ideal Hardware disbands operational board during major overhaul

Ideal Hardware's operational board has been disbanded less than nine months since its inception after 'complacency' and 'lack of focus' prompted a major overhaul.

Ronan McDonald, head of the now defunct board, departed from the distributor last week. Kevin Harper, co-founder of Ideal, has resigned from the InterX board, working in a consultative role. InterX refused to comment on the future of the other board members.

There will also be significant redundancies among Ideal's 390 employees and a cull of inefficient vendors and resellers.

Ian French, head of the five-strong executive board - which replaced the operational board - accused some members of 'twiddling their fingers while Rome burned', citing a lack of communication as a main failing.

He also apportioned blame to the sales force, which was bringing in low-margin business instead of selling high-end systems.

French now intends to move Ideal away from the traditional model of distribution.

'Distribution will not die, but in its current form is effectively over,' said French. 'Pure commodity product that a user can buy without any possibility of added value will find a different route to market.'

Ideal will now focus on a more services-oriented model rather than box-shifting. A closer working relationship between Ideal and other InterX units, Unisolve and IT Network, will also be implemented.