Wyse adds disties to meet NC needs

Wyse Technology will sign up Metrologie and Logitek to provide additional channels for its network computers (NCs) in January, after stating it will sell 70,000 Winterm units within four months.

The vendor has an installed base of 20,000 and claimed it will hit its target by the end of March 1997, its fiscal year end.

Wyse already sells its monitors through Metrologie and Logitek, but for the past year has restricted the distribution of its network computer products to specialists G-Tech and Kerridge Networking Systems.

John Cummins, European marketing director at Wyse, said the channel model had changed with the development of the product.

'When we launched NCs a year ago, we wanted to go through value-add distributors for about 18 months, until the market needed less handholding,' he said.

'Some distributors are good at creating markets and others are geared towards fulfilment. We have reached the stage where we need the latter.

Last week, a primary school in Cheltenham became the first school in the UK to install thin client/NC technology by buying Wyse Winterm terminals for Windows applications and Internet access.

Brian Somerville, contract support manager at vendor Compusys, which acted as reseller for the primary school deal, agreed the market was opening up.

'We have been an OEM for Wyse monitors for years, but the NCs were a new thing for us,' he said.

'They passed on the lead and worked with us on it, but now the concept has been grasped we can do further deals by ourselves.'

Cummins said: 'The NC will not be all things to all men. Wyse has three distinct families of network computers - intranet terminals, Windows terminals and enhanced network computers.'