Landis lashes out as Shiva appears to renege on deal fgh

Network MD claims supply contract agreed two weeks ago.

Landis has accused Shiva of back-tracking on a verbal arrangement to sign the distributor in the UK, despite having met certain conditions laid out by the vendor.

According to Landis, it was due to be appointed as a Shiva distributor provided it was able to secure a local agreement with a major networking vendor. The war of words broke out after it emerged that Landis had finally secured a local distribution agreement with Bay Networks (PC Dealer, 13 May).

Roger Paul, Landis UK MD, said he had held a number of meetings with Jan Bruggink, Shiva director of distribution EMEA, and former Shiva UK MD Rob Downey, to confirm the commitment. Paul stated: 'As recently as two weeks ago, this arrangement was confirmed again.'

Phil Crocker, director of European marketing at Shiva, said: 'We informed Landis that the decision would be based on performance.' But he conceded that the distributor was required to sign up with a major manufacturer first.

'Landis was told it would not be authorised before it was signed by a big player because it would become a big player itself, but we were told it had been signed by a major vendor weeks before it actually happened,' Cocker admitted.

Two weeks ago, Landis CEO Paul Kuiken claimed Shiva had agreed to sign the distributor in the UK. This was denied by Shiva.

It is also understood that on 15 May, Paul received a fax from Bruggink which stated that no move would be made to give Landis local authorisation in the UK until the end of the second quarter.

Crocker said: 'Landis has to prove it can produce, but if it had been performing brilliantly it would have been signed by now.'

But Paul hit back, claiming: 'As far as I was concerned, there were numerous verbal commitments from Shiva.'

Meanwhile, Crocker confirmed that UK MD Rob Downey left Shiva two weeks ago for personal reasons and will be replaced by Mark Weeks, who previously headed up the vendor's Nortel business.