Uunet turns back on team scheme

Uunet Pipex responds to pressure to give resellers more control with traditional margin-based deal

Uunet Pipex has done a U-turn on its Team Uunet Pipex Ts&Cs and will now offer its resellers a traditional margin-based relationship alongside its referral fee scheme.

The company has been under pressure to give resellers more control of the sale of its leased line and ISDN access services after rivals Psinet and Netcom lured away key partners such as Simmons Magee.

Uunet Pipex channel manager Martin Temple told PC Dealer last week that ?hardly anyone? was interested in the referral fee scheme and that Uunet Pipex sales teams were now ?moving towards an account management role with resellers?.

?We?ve seen that few people want to take part in the referral fee scheme,? he said. ?Our resellers want to control the sale and add value to it, so we?re moving more to a situation where the reseller does all [the installation] and we pay a 12.5 per cent margin on the first year.?

Temple said that Uunet Pipex was not totally abandoning the referral fee scheme. ?We still see a place for that with regard to training companies, ad agencies and Web design companies that are doing work for clients but don?t want to get involved with the access side of things. They pass those clients on to us and we pay them referral fees ? some very good rates in fact.?

A fast-growing level of internet literacy among resellers had also helped to force the ISP to change direction. ?There are still many resellers who need a lot of support from us when they come to installation and configuration,? said Temple. ?There are a lot of [network] permutations, and not all resellers can support them.?

Uunet has launched Pipe X change, an IPX-to-IP gateway for connecting Netware servers on to the internet. The product uses a Cisco router, can support up to 20 concurrent users, and is aimed at SME and branch office environments.