Tandberg tapes up deal with C2000

Storage Distributors dismiss threat of price war in partnership.

Computer 2000 has added storage product manufacturer Tandberg Data UK to its list of suppliers as part of its expansion across Europe.

The Hertford manufacturer signed up C2000 as its first pan-European distributor after the pre-release of Tandberg's 12Gb and 24Gb SLR6 drives and 10Gb and 20Gb NS20 drives, to be formally released in the first week of August.

Andy Shepperd, C2000 channel manager for storage, said the drives are an addition to the distributor's portfolio of storage products, which includes Hewlett Packard, Computer Associates, Yamaha, Sony and Trax Data.

He claimed there was minimal product overlap.

Steve Smith, Tandberg sales and marketing director, said the deal was spurred on by an upturn in the market, which enabled the expansion of its multi-track linear recording and scalable linear recording products.

C2000 joins Tandberg's other distributors - CMS Peripherals, Summit Peripherals and Ideal Hardware.

Smith said: 'Demand is increasing and with this latest venture we have a good, even spread of distributors to cater for it.' He added that talks between Tandberg and C2000 had been going on for some time before a deal finally came to fruition last week.

Werner Neudecker, Summit Peripherals managing director, was unconcerned by the addition of an extra distributor. He said as long as percentage margins did not fall, the deal would not cause problems. 'Computer 2000 doesn't have a storage focus like us. Also, Tandberg will benefit from the exposure a broadliner will bring and that in turn will benefit ourselves as the market becomes more aware of the Tandberg name,' he said.

Tandberg, which originated in the 1930s as a pioneer company of television and reel-to-reel tapes, introduced its own reseller accreditation programme at the start of the year. Smith said the scheme was necessary to create demand for the distribution base and develop reseller and customer awareness of Tandberg products.

Tandberg recorded approximately #800 million turnover for the year ended December 31 1997.