Kodak adds Northamber for SME sector success
Vendor claims that distributor will give it access to a much wider range of resellers
Kodak has appointed Northamber as its third UK distributor for its scanner range to help it reach a broader catch of SME-focused VARs.
The deal involves Kodak’s workgroup and departmental scanners. Northamber will join Kodak’s existing distributors, Headway and Dicom.
David Whitton, Kodak’s national sales manager, said: “For many years we have had distribution routes in place to reach specialist document-management resellers through Headway and Dicom. Today, the growth in the market is with the departmental and workgroup scanners. We feel there is a far wider IT reseller base to sell to in this area, hence the appointment of Northamber.”
According to analyst InfoSource, the market for departmental and workgroup scanners grew by 34 per cent last year. It is forecast to maintain a compound annual growth rate of seven per cent between 2007 and 2011.
“We have been chasing Northamber for some time and believe it will give us access to a wider range of resellers,” Whitton said. “Headway and Dicom sell to a base of 600 imaging VARs, whereas Northamber has a base of more than 5,000 general IT resellers. We have products in the £400 to £500 price range, which combined with appropriate software, means an entry-level document-management offering for SMEs.”
Northamber said the addition of Kodak’s products would complement the existing scanner ranges it carries from Ricoh and Fujitsu.
Henry Matthews, managing director of Northamber, told CRN: “We have sold scanning solutions for more than three years. With the predicted growth, we needed to provide a wider choice of scanners for our VARs. We welcome the opportunity to work with Kodak and view this as a great expansion opportunity for Northamber.”
Jason Harcourt, research analyst at Context, said: “It makes sense for Kodak to appoint a broadliner such as Northamber because sticking to just niche distributors isn’t the best way forward with the convergence we are seeing in the market.”