Ingram loses place in Seagate channel

Peripherals Sources blame poor sales and lack of service for axing.

Ingram Micro has been given its marching orders by storage vendorg. Seagate, only six months after it was appointed as an authorised distributor.

According to several industry sources, poor sales and a lack of value-added services from Ingram Micro were cited as the reasons behind Seagate's decision.

One distributor said the decision had been mooted for some time: 'Ingram Micro was appointed in a blaze of glory but it had a very aggressive pricing policy which didn't benefit Seagate at all and led to complaints from other distributors. The pie didn't get bigger, it just got sliced up more.'

Ingram Micro's appointment upset other distributors when it was announced in January. A price war had been expected by other Seagate distributors, especially at the low end of the storage market.

Seamus Twohig, storage products manager at Ideal Hardware, said: 'Ingram is a market share animal and its appointment started a spate of fax wars, with prices changing almost every day. In the end, we were told (by Seagate) that we couldn't send prices by fax.'

He added that he did not think Seagate would appoint another distributor to replace Ingram Micro, claiming the latest move would 'stabilise the channel'.

Twohig also suggested the timing of the decision made sense in the run-up to the end of Seagate's financial year.

This is not the first time Ingram Micro, the world's largest distributor, has lost a big contract amid speculation of poor sales and a lack of value-added services.

In October last year, the distributor was dropped by networking giant Cisco.

Observers at the time noted that Cisco's products needed a high level of service.

Both Ingram Micro and Seagate refused to comment.