NPI boosts Acal?s role to crack SME market

Networking vendor makes bid for greater market share by catering for small and medium businesses

US-based manufacturer Network Peripherals (NPI) has promoted Acal Electronics to master distributor in the UK to improve its SME market share.

Previous distributors TDS and Span will have to source kit from Acal, which will handle the networking vendor?s products, including Fast Ethernet switching hubs and network adaptor cards.

NPI launched its attempt to gain 10 per cent of the UK market after reporting a net loss of $8.3 million for the quarter ended 30 June.

According to Arnold Pijpers, VP of European and African operations at NPI, the company was not trying to take on big Ethernet vendors such as Cisco, Bay and 3Com, but would stay within the SME market.

Pijpers claimed there was a niche for NPI in the networking space: ?It is a challenging market. We have the technology and the prices to be a great alternative to the big three.?

The move follows the announcement two weeks ago that former NPI distributor Unity ? a division of networking distributor Datatec, will be the first UK distributor for Extreme Networks.

Extreme is a startup formed as a splinter group of former NPI employees who believe the company needed to aim for a higher market space.

Unity, which pulled out of distributing NPI, cast doubts over the company?s chances of competing in the Ethernet market against larger vendors such as 3Com.

Murad Vassib, account manager at Unity said: ?With 3Com adaptor cards there is no room for them. If a lower end company like NPI follows 3Com into the card market, it hasn?t got a hope in hell because people will go for the brand name.?