3Com/USR distributors fear chop from channel

3Com/US Robotics distributors are racing to hang on to the vendor?s products after it emerged that the company?s channel policy would be finalised in September.

The move came at the same time as 3Com/USR confirmed it would make 800 people redundant ? four per cent of the total staff ? as a result of the merger between the two firms.

One distributor said: ?It?s still early days, but as with most vendors, it is a question of the amount of available credit the distributors can handle. Very few can handle high credit limits. It?s a challenge ? distributors are stuck between a rock and a hard place.?

Another said September had been pencilled in as the deadline to finalise partners because 3Com/USR did not want to harm this quarter?s results.

?We?ve had our quotas sent in and the target is double our current run rate. I?d be surprised if the channel were shrunk with the targets so high,? he said.

It is expected that the number of distributors will be cut to eight from the existing 13.