Randall rounds up Novell resellers

Techex Communications is in talks to secure 70 of Novell's top Vars after chairman and CEO David Randall was allowed to once more operate the firm as a distributor.

An Azlan contract clause forbidding Randall to operate as a distributor ran out in the summer, since when Techex has continued to resell messaging, Internet and intranet services as a Var, while signing dealers.

Randall said the firm planned to do 70 per cent to 80 per cent of business through resellers by the end of the year, but will eventually be a full distributor.

'Those Vars that were our top five competitors a year ago, are now our top five customers,' he said. 'Dealers seem keen to deal with us, even giving up direct vendor relationships, because we have the direct relationship with BT and can offer resellers whole solutions using BT as demand creation.'

Techex has also been signed as the first distributor to handle BT's X400 messaging services. It packages BT's PSTN, ISDN, kilostream, megastream and X400 services with hardware and software from vendors such as Novell, Isocor and Einex.