Less room at top for Novell dealers

Novell has cut the number of top Novell dealers from 45 to 29 under the stiffer accreditation terms for the vendor?s Platinum system houses.

Sixty dealers, not necessarily system houses, are understood to have applied for the status.

Newbury-based reseller Dataway, which went into receivership last Tuesday, was among those failing to survive the cull.

Computacenter, Stream, Xenon, Lantec, and Fraser Associates were among those which retained top status.

One platinum dealer said: ?Loads of those that were system houses chose not to go for it. We were not sure whether to go through with it, but Novell was keen to help us and our Novell sales have gone up dramatically as a result.?

Under platinum status, dealers are required to have one master CNE, two CNEs, one Groupwise certification, and four CNSs, compared with just two CNEs and one master CNE under the old programme.

Keith Jones, Xenon sales director, claimed it was a tough programme. ?It would be nice to see Novell rewarding those who?ve gone through the pain and tell corporates where they should get Novell product from,? he said.

Andrew Sadler-Smith, UK sales director for Novell, said: ?We?ve set a target which is something really worthwhile to take to the market.?