Olicom directs Crosscomm to channel

Danish networking vendor Olicom is to axe Crosscomm?s policy of selling direct following its recent acquistion of the high-end ATM provider in a deal worth $90 million.

The acquisition was driven by Olicom?s desire to add Crosscomm?s high-end products of ATM routers and switches, multiprotocol routers and high-speed Ethernet switches to its existing Lan products (PC Dealer, 26 March).

The company estimated that by buying Crosscomm instead of developing the products itself, it has accelerated its growth into the high-end market by at least 18 months.

Carina Klasse, director of channels at Olicom, said the company will now follow an indirect sales strategy ? a change for Crosscomm which previously sold direct to users and systems integrators.

Nigel Machin, president of Crosscomm?s enterprise products division, said: ?This means we will get access to substantial new channels. There will be no conflict because we haven?t worked through the channel before and we only share about five major customers.

?We can now take our sales people into their accounts and they can bring theirs into ours and grow proportionately.?

Olicom?s distributors ? Azlan, Frontline, Ingram Micro and Persona ? will now gain access to all of Crosscomm?s products.

For the fiscal year, Crosscomm had a turnover of $45 million and ended the year with cash equivalents of about $44 million. Founder and CEO Tad Witkowicz will act as a consultant to the Olicom board.

The merged operation will be known as Olicom and have its UK head office in Maidenhead.