Ilion angers C2000 with staff poaching

Computer 2000 has crossed swords with Ilion after three of its staff defected to the Chessington-based distributor to set up a rival video conferencing division.

Alison Phillips, sales executive, Mike Cherry, technical pre-sales executive, and administration-based Nicole Dinnadge left C2000 on 1 April. They made up three of the seven in the distributor's video conferencing division.

C2000 has already lost Nigel Dunn, general manager of video conferencing, who left for a second time on 31 March to join vendor Eyretel (PC Dealer, 4 March).

Allan Mack, UK managing director at Ilion, confirmed that all three would start work on 4 May, and said: 'It made perfect sense to start a video conferencing division here. All we needed was the expertise to execute it.'

Graeme Watt, C2000 managing director, said he was disappointed with Mack since they had a verbal agreement that neither would poach the other's staff.

Neil Martin, technical director at C2000, said: 'We did not anticipate this but it is something that happens in modern business.'

Commenting on the staff's swift exit, Martin said: 'Because all three are going into a competitor, we decided we should not have people working in this environment.'

Mack claimed Ilion had secured agreements with three suppliers, but refused to say which. Martin said: 'C2000 already has PictureTel and is aware of the situation. We also have resellers in this area.'