European deal sees Azlan come to Fore

ATM specialist Fore Systems has signed Azlan as its first distributor in a pan-European deal expected to be tied up this week.

Sources close to both parties said last week that the deal was near completion.

One named 1 October as the signing date.

A source close to Fore said the deal was agreed and going through the contract stage.

'The initial agreement will cover the UK and Germany,' he said. 'Fore does not want to bite off an elephant and this will give it an initial period to get people trained and iron out any problems, before rolling out to the rest of the continent.'

Fore wants to strike several such deals across Europe as part of its move towards a split one and two-tier channel. But it has said its first signing would be with a pan-European value-add networking distributor (PC Dealer, 14 August).

Fore Systems worldwide field marketing director Chris Unsworth said a distributor deal was imminent, but refused to confirm that it was with Azlan.

The firm began an accreditation and reseller recruitment drive in August.

It plans to recruit about 120 dealers by August 1997.

Cisco has named Azlan its 1996 European distributor of the year. Azlan has won similar awards from Bay Networks, IBM and Olicom.