More Novell disties to go in autumn cull

Novell will axe another 10 per cent of UK distributors currently partnering with the software vendor by the start of November this year.

The company has told disties targeted with the chop that their contracts would come to an end with the software vendor over the course of the next month or so.

However, Novell has declined to confirm which disties it has decided to cut loose in the latest cull.

The firm recently took on Avnet as a distribution partner. It also currently has Bell Micro, Magirus, DNS Arrow, Interactive Ideas and CMS Peripherals on its books.

“We will reduce another 10 per cent between now and 1 November and then we will be steady,” the firm’s EMEA channel veep Dan Veitkus told The Register yesterday.

He said Novell had "more than doubled" its distribution partners in just a few years following a series of acquisitions.

"As we acquired these companies over three or four years we neglected to take another look at distribution, to see which distributors are key to our business and add greater value to the resellers," he said.

"We were asleep at the wheel for a couple of years… We were over distributed and not focused on quality. But our actions today indicate we’re no longer afraid to consider quality over quantity and the distributors that are with us are clearly applauding the effort."

Since the start of this year Novell has reduced the number of disties on its books by 25 per cent. Computer 2000 was one of the casualties in Novell’s initial distributor axe grind.

The firm’s UK software boss James Reed told El Reg last month that C2000 hadn’t been “heavily focused” on the Novell account for quite some time because customers weren't flocking to the vendor's products any more.

He told us that Novell “lacked resources and marketing funds” and was “vastly over-distributed” even as its business had “repeatedly shrunk over the past decade.”

Reed labelled Novell "not channel-friendly" and said the distie wasn't really bothered to have lost the account. We put those grumbles to Veitkus.

“The perspective that Novell wasn’t investing in distribution would have been accurate a year ago," he said.

"We've learned our lesson and are willing to take our cash and our time and invest in the long-term opportunity instead of turn-coating our channel." ®