Cabletron pulls plug on 'partner' Hyperchannel

Cabletron has hit out at Hyperchannel after being forced to cancel a seminar in which the networking distributor posed as an appointed partner.

According to Dana Lariviere, operations director at Cabletron, the seminar - aimed at users - was due to be held at the vendor's offices on 11 June on condition that Hyperchannel acted as a value added reseller.

Lariviere stated: 'When we saw a copy of the brochure, Hyperchannel said it was a distributor, with resellers named as the audience.' He added: 'We told Hyperchannel we would not support it as a distributor and could not go ahead with it.'

Lariviere denied the vendor had buckled under pressure from other distributors including Ilion, Azlan - which was appointed at the beginning of this month - and Anixter, its most recently signed partner.

Despite this assertion, a source claimed a couple of the vendor's distributors had threatened to withdraw stocking orders before cancellation of the seminar emerged, although this was fervently denied by Lariviere.

However, an industry source stated: 'Concern was expressed and pressure applied by distributors. Hyperchannel was positioning itself as a partner.

It is not.'

Nick Gosshawk, Cabletron UK marketing manager, said: 'The reason the seminar was cancelled was it was too advanced, but we are looking at some relationship with Hyperchannel as a specialist operation.' He added: 'We have to confirm with Hyperchannel how it operates.'

Nick Kandola, director at Hyperchannel, refused to comment on the matter.

Meanwhile, Hyperchannel has been appointed as a distributor for Hewlett Packard's range of networking products. The distributor joins Ilion, which recently more than quadrupled its HP sales team to a total of 16, making it the largest team in the company (PC Dealer, 6 May).