Peribit sheds tier-one distributor

Vendor parts company with Centia

Bandwidth optimisation vendor Peribit and distributor Centia have parted after just 16 months citing "disappointing" sales.

The news leaves Peribit with only one distributor in the UK, Norwood Adam, and a number of system integrators that deal directly with the firm.

"We have had a good relationship with both Centia and Norwood Adam over the past year or so," said Shane Buckley, president of Peribit EMEA.

"Centia is obviously a successful tier-one distributor in the UK. We haven't necessarily had the same level of success with Centia as with other companies."

Peribit signed Centia last year to offer its WAN optimisation products.

Yuri Pasea, managing director of Centia, said: "We distributed both Peribit and Packeteer products. The technologies are quite different, but both increase the available bandwidth between two sites. They are just too similar."

However, Buckley said: "We see Packeteer in only 10 per cent of the customers we deal with. At most, we compete for deals 25 per cent of the time."

Centia has meanwhile signed with mobile application firm AppSwing and recruited 20 resellers. One of these has since secured a deal with Vodafone.

Separately, Rob Mustarde, northern Europe general manager for Peribit, has left the firm to become vice-president of Europe for WAN optimisation vendor Riverbed. Henrik Kjellin, founder of K-Net, takes his place.

[email protected]