Good week/Bad week

We round up who's had a stonker and who's had a stinker in the IT industry in the last seven days

Good week

Plain speaking
Many in the business of IT solutionising and holistic wrap-around services may feel that one of the industry's key value-add differentiated USPs is its colourful, evocative lingo.
But a blog post last month by Rolf Jester, Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst (a no-nonsense job description if ever we heard one), slammed the use of "meaningless", "irrelevant" and "useless" buzzwords. His principle bugbears include such channel staples as "solution provider", "end-to-end offering", "trusted partner" and "focused on value-add".
Jester opined that such language is "white noise" that causes potential customers to "switch off".
Well said, that man! That's just the kind of envelope-pushing, blue-sky thinking this industry needs to escalate going forward on an ongoing basis.

Reseller handbags
If competition is healthy, VARs Kelway and Insight must be fighting fit after they were involved in a spat last month.
The set-to began when Insight was set to hold a recruitment event in Bury, just a stone's throw from the home of recent Kelway acquisition Equanet. Insight insisted the location of the bash - a hotel in which 65 Kelway staff were staying during the integration period - was merely a coincidence.
The CRN newsdesk was slightly disappointed to hear Insight insist that it moved the location to "avoid upsetting Kelway" as we were secretly hoping for handbags at dawn.

Setting records straight
Outsourcery boss Piers Linney has not had the smoothest introduction to his new role as a Dragons' Den investor thanks to the pesky national press.
Hitting back at reports that he has been a director of 32 failed businesses, Linney lambasted the Daily Mirror for unearthing unwelcome Companies House records, and also claiming he was a director at two firms which folded with combined debts of over £1m.
He branded the claims "misleading" and insisted he has never wound down a company while owing creditors.
Well that clears all that up then. We're sure the red tops will leave him alone now.

Bad week

Tech Data
Tech Data is in line for a wrist-slapping from NASDAQ after admitting it won't file its annual 10-K report on time. The distributor's finance bods are working to restate three years of numbers following the discovery of accounting "improprieties" relating to its UK business last month.
The adjustments could see it lop up to $33m off its previously reported net profits. Tech Data said it couldn't say when it will complete its numbers for its financial year ending 31 January 2013, but admitted it will be outside the 15-day extension allowed by NASDAQ. Let's hope they're paying their accountants overtime.

Avaya
As Oscar Wilde famously wrote (more or less): "To lose one distributor may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness."
Lord knows then what the playwright would make of poor Avaya, which has been so careless as to lose three (count ‘em!) UK disties in two years. In late 2010 the New Jersey-based comms vendor took the decision to excise Nimans from its then slightly bloated five-strong UK distribution stable.
The relationship formally wound down in Q1 2011, but six months later musical differences spelled the end of Avaya's UK relationship with Azlan. With Avnet shutting its UC business as of the end of March, Westcon and ScanSource Communications are the two remaining UK distie partners. Perhaps the vendor ought to be more careful what it wishes for.
As Wilde said: "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

2e2 creditors
You have to have a little sympathy for 2e2's financial backers after a report from administrator FTI to creditors shone a light on the last days of the stricken VAR.
Just four days before its backers threw in the towel, 2e2 revealed its draft accounts for 2012 - and they didn't make pretty reading. EBITDA had been "readjusted" to £11.6m compared with the £34.6m quoted previously, net losses almost doubled year on year to £48.9m and revenue was down by £66m to £337m.
Oh, and unsecured creditors will get nothing, FTI confirmed.