Datech and Frontline scramble for vendors

Frontline's new look was officially unveiled last week as it bagged the rights to Hewlett Packard's Netserver range.

The deal, won jointly with Datech, marked the end of a vendor purge at the UK's biggest distributor. Frontline said it is confident of winning back distribution rights to Cisco's enterprise products after meeting sales targets for the low-end Cisco Pro range.

Frontline has also regained a 3Com Systems contract and has added Keytronic keyboards, Acer Open components and IBM printers to its franchises.

The distributor still covets from 10 to 15 franchises, including Seagate hard drives, Siemens Nixdorf PCs, Toshiba and Sony monitors.

Graham Hilton, formerly marketing director at Hawke Systems, will join Datech's client/server arm as Digital business manager from 1 October. He will work with sales manager Phil Robins.

Product marketing at the distributor has been split, with director David Clark retaining responsibility for software, peripherals, supplies, Apple and marcoms. The company is recruiting for another product marketing director to cover networking, PCs, PC components and technical services.

From 1 October, Frontline joint MDs Allan Mack and Graeme Watt become Datech MD and Frontline MD respectively. Both retain joint responsibility for Computer 2000's UK business.

Watt predicted that C2000's UK server business will grow fourfold after the HP deal as it is chasing similar contracts with Compaq and IBM. 'We want all brand-leading products in all areas,' he said, 'and we are changing to become a reseller-focused organisation.'