Westcon slams Mitel with shortage claims
Distributor blasts former supplier with claims that it had run out of handset stock
Distributor Westcon has hit back at former supplier Mitel by claiming the IP telephony vendor approached it last week because it had run out of stock.
Mitel dramatically ditched its five UK distributors last month after opting to move to a one-tier channel strategy (CRN, 7 May).
However, Jon Pritchard, vice president UK and Ireland at Westcon – which will stock Mitel products until later in the summer – claimed the vendor had “fallen at the first hurdle”.
“We had a call from Mitel saying it had run out of its 5340 handsets and could it buy some from us,” he said.
“Running out of handsets is like Tesco running out of milk. If we weren’t working out our notice there would be a lot of dissatisfied resellers out there.”
Westcon’s claims come after former Mitel distributor Nimans announced it would not be selling its backlog of Mitel products, citing concerns over Mitel’s support capabilities.
John Howard, UK channel sales director at rival vendor Avaya, claimed: “We’ve heard all of Mitel’s former distributors are being approached for inventory, which signals that Mitel is having supply problems.
“If you take away the logistics engines of three or four of the UK’s largest distributors and try to build it yourself, that’s a big ask.”
However, Scott Dobson, managing director at IP telephony distributor VComm, said: “Mitel’s strategy may be followed by the other traditional telecoms vendors. Telecoms distributors don’t have any skills to add value to their solu tions.”
Mitel refused to comment, but insisted at the time of its channel u-turn that it could match its distributors’ logistics capabilities.