Bay under fire for neglect of Netgear

Networking Resellers claim marketing funds are inadequate.

Bay Networks has been accused of neglecting to provide adequate marketing and sales support for its subsidiary company Netgear, due to fears about conflicting products.

Bay Netgear, which specialises in low-end products for the SoHo market, was launched over a year and a half ago. But according to sources, the range impinges on Bay Networks' BayStack networking line. Both ranges include low-end hubs, switches and routers.

James Ferguson, network product marketing manager at UK reseller Global Direct Mail, said: 'The marketing effort for Netgear has been woefully inadequate, and the users we are trying to sell it to have never heard of it.'

He added: 'The whole of Bay Networks is pushing through its product ranges and yet there is only one person who has responsibility for the Bay Netgear range.'

David Parker, UK channel distribution manager at Bay, denied that the two ranges interfered with each other but conceded: 'The market is geared more towards feature-rich products and this is a reason why we haven't driven the Netgear range as far as we could.'

The vendor is in the process of signing another distributor to join Computer 2000, which has been the sole distributor for the Netgear range for over a year (PC Dealer, 19 November).

Steve Lockie, general manager of the networking division at Computer 2000, said: 'We have been told that C2000 should be selling more of the products but the users are telling us they don't know what Netgear is.'

Parker said: 'I am not going to focus on this unit until I have recruited a business manager to oversee the Netgear division.'

However, Ferguson said the vendor had been promising for the last eight months that it would recruit another company to work with it on Bay Netgear.