VARs hang on for Hyporium again

Resellers signed up to the Hyporium trading hub Hyperchannel were kept waiting again last week, after the launch date for the service slipped from 1 March to the end of the month.

Resellers signed up to the Hyporium trading hub Hyperchannel were kept waiting again last week, after the launch date for the service slipped from 1 March to the end of the month.

After six months of delays, Hyporium finally began issuing access passwords to 1,000 pre-registered resellers last week.

Simon Aldous, UK managing director of Hyporium, confirmed the system - which should eventually allow VARs to order products, spread credit and check pricing from one source - is still in its pilot phase. He claimed that the need for "lots of hand-holding" to allows resellers to set up an account and understand the full benefits of the system, had accounted for most of the delays.

Aldous also revealed that only 100 resellers at a time would be given access to the system during March and no reseller would be able to access Hyperchannel independently until the end of the month.

He added: "We're not going to let 1,000 users crash onto the system at once. Instead we are going to walk them through it and make sure they take advantage of everything Hyperchannel offers."

Aldous also confirmed that Hyporium is still in talks with several distributors, including Ingram Micro Europe, Actevis and Landis, to gain their support for the hub. "We are now going back to the distributors and restating our message. We are letting them know that we can act as a complementary offering, but that we do not want to replace their ecommerce plans," Aldous said.

Graeme Watt, managing director of Computer 2000, which recently pulled out of Hyperchannel, said: "When we looked at the balance of worth from signing up with Hyperchannel, we decided that it was not balanced enough. Strategically, I think Computer 2000 was worth more to Hyperchannel than the value it would have brought to us."