Hammer eyes Ireland as gateway to Europe

Storage distie to open office in Dublin.

UK storage distributor Hammer is to open offices in Dublin by the end of August and is hoping to move into Europe within the next 12 months, said Paul Sangster, the firm's managing director.

The company is planning to house sales and marketing in the Irish office, while all support and specialists will be based in the UK at first.

All products Hammer currently distributes in the UK will be available to resellers in Ireland.

"We already have some Irish resellers, and we are looking to establish more Irish storage partners. Nothing can beat actually having a physical presence there," Sangster said.

He added that many vendor partners have encouraged the company to move into Ireland and are continuing to encourage the firm further into Europe.

"Going into Ireland gives us distinct advantages. Products in Ireland are not all sold by authorised distributors, so resellers are having to purchase from the UK. It is a wonderful test site for Hammer moving into Europe," he said.

Philip Neylon, purchasing manager at Irish reseller Raidtec, said he believed relationships will be improved because the distributor will now be face-to-face with its resellers.

"It will be good to actually sit down and discuss products and product road maps. The disk drive industry, for example, changes so quickly, and to have demonstrations on how things work, rather than just listening over the phone or reading an email, would be much better," he said.

"It also makes economic sense to have support nearby."

Sangster added that Hammer is also looking at potentially distributing branded server solutions.

"We may start conversations with people like Fujitsu or Compaq, but that's all they would be at the moment, just conversations," he said.