Plextor enters Ingram fold
Broadline distributor and drive vendor sign UK agreement
Ingram Micro has fleshed out its optical drive business by signing a UK distribution agreement with drive vendor Plextor.
The broadline distributor will take on Plextor's full range of optical products, including recordable and rewriteable CD and DVD drives. It will also distribute the company's newer analogue-to-digital converter products for recording TV on the PC, and transferring VHS and camcorder material to the desktop.
Ingram has separate relationships with Plextor in some European countries, but expects the UK distribution alliance to become a pan-European deal by the middle of this year. It distributes similar optical drives from LG and Lite-On.
"We decided a while ago that our optical range was a little limited," said John Fitzgerald, general manager of components business at Ingram.
"What we needed was a strong brand, one that was not over-supplied in the UK market. After looking at a number of manufacturers, including Samsung and Toshiba, we approached Plextor. Its products are not commodity price offerings, relying instead on quality and good support."
Plextor had four UK distributors last year but has reduced this to just Actebis and Computer 2000. Plextor's account executive Peter Bosschaerts explained the move.
"We terminated our arrangements with Avnet and Ideal because of poor sales," he said. "We needed a third distributor and we already had a good relationship with Ingram in some other European counties, including Germany and Belgium."
Ingram will target the Plextor products at the SME sector, with analogue-to-digital products going through to the retail channel. System builders are also high on the customer hitlist, Fitzgerald said.
"We expect to sell the products mainly in the SME space, but also to system builders producing high-spec machines for entertainment and games," he said.
"The package will be attractive. An optical drive is like a hard drive in that there is very little margin, so the emphasis has to be on the quality, software bundle and support."
Bosschaerts added: "The UK is a very competitive market. It is harder for quality brands to compete because low cost is very important to UK buyers and there are a lot of non-brand name drives on the market too. But we have new products in the growing analogue/digital space."