VAR contracts up for grabs

Reseller puts order book up for sale after entering administration

Channel players are already looking to divide the spoils and secure the unfulfilled contracts that were left following the demise of audiovisual (AV) VAR Bullet Point, as revealed by CRN last week (CRN, 12 June).

The Leeds-based VAR was one of distributor Steljes’s core Smart interactive whiteboard resellers. Rival distributor Maverick also recently appointed Bullet Point as its second Thunder reseller.

Chris Deeley, managing director of Bullet Point, told CRN that there was an order book for sale, but he declined to reveal how much it was worth.

Jon Sidwick, managing director of Maverick, told CRN: “It’s a shame that a strong education AV reseller has found it hard to survive in the current marketplace. Bullet Point was well respected, and was probably one of the top five education resellers in the UK.”

Sidwick said the VAR’s business had grown quickly, as a result of a government funded interactive whiteboard initiative, but it had struggled when that came to an end.

“Bullet Point has been a strong partner of Maverick’s over the past five years,” he said. “However, there are a number of Thunder contract opportunities it was dealing with that we are now passing on to our other channel partners.”

Phil Waterhouse, sales manager at VAR Leapfrog Computers, said: “It is sad to see a £20m turnover firm go under. It was a leader in putting Smartboards into schools. There is an order book being negotiated by a few resellers, for schools that have got installations booked for the summer holidays. We got a mailer out so that we might pick up some of the work.”

However, Steve Dracup, managing director of distributor Promethean, said: “I think that any order book would disintegrate by the second, because schools are likely to cancel their Bullet Point contracts.”