Northern VARs clash over website wording

Leeds VAR SICL speaks out after discovering content similar to its own on rival Concorde's website

Concorde IT Group has removed from its website content it admits was similar to that used by fellow northern VAR SICL, but claims it was never meant to be published.

Cliff Fox, managing director of Leeds-based SICL, contacted CRN to highlight the almost identical wording used on the duo's websites to market their respective cloud offerings.

It is not the first run in between the two firms after Concorde agreed to modify content on its website last September after SICL threatened legal action.

The initial spat occurred shortly after Ossett-based HP Gold partner Concorde poached two of SICL's sales staff.

Fox (pictured) told CRN: "I received a written undertaking from them not to do it again, so this is a massive surprise. Emulation is one thing, but taking word-for-word content from our website - that's ridiculous."

Erick Mackay, marketing director at Concorde, admitted that content relating to the VAR's FLEXCloud offering was "similar" to that used to market SICL Coud but said it had appeared on its website in error.

The offending page has now been taken down.

"This was a draft page that a junior member of staff had mocked up and was never approved for publishing," he said.

Mackay also disputed the validity of much of what was in SICL's legal letter in September.

"As the marketing director responsible for the website, I looked at a lot of [Cliff's] claims and couldn't agree with them.

"If you go to any IT company's website, there are a huge amount of similarities as we all pick up the same messages from vendors. We made some minor changes to keep the peace but I didn't agree that anything had been plagiarised."

Mackay added that SICL had only appeared on his radar after the two staff came across, "so I wouldn't have ever looked at its website".