3Com: Onus Is On Us To Regain Partner Confidence

But some 3Com partners say they've grown tired of the rhetoric and are looking to the vendor to make the necessary changes soon, before their 3Com business and their relationship with the vendor dissolve. "It's truly in limbo-land," said Frank Kobuszewski, vice president of the technology solutions group at Syracuse, N.Y.-based solution provider CXtec. "I'm kind of through hearing the 'what ifs' and they have to move forward with the 'what is.' We need that commitment." And Kobuszewski is not alone. Several VARs are taking a hard look at their partnerships with 3Com, which has suffered a few very public missteps over the past months.

First, the vendor ousted global channel chief Nick Tidd and his team to take a more regional, geography-based approach to the channel. Then, a pending merger transaction with Bain Capital Partners, a Boston-based investment firm that many VARs thought might steady 3Com's course, went bust. In September, Bain offered to buy 3Com for $2.2 billion. The deal would've made Chinese networking equipment vendor Huawei Technologies minority a shareholder with a 16 percent stake. Huawei's reported ties to the communist government had many U.S. companies concerned about security.

Bain terminated the deal in March, noting that it and 3Com could not reach an agreement and that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a government agency that reviews and can block international transactions based on national security, would likely refuse the merger. 3Com shareholders, however, voted in favor of the transaction the following day, with nearly 70 percent of shareholders approving the merger. The approval opens the door for 3Com to pursue a $66 million break-up fee.

And while still in the wake of the Bain deal collapsing, 3Com tossed president and CEO Edgar Masri at the end of April and replaced him with board member Robert Mao, who is based in China, with 3Com saying the decision will support its increasing focus on its China-based H3C operations and that Mao's bi-cultural background, fluency in both English and Mandarin and his Asian business experience can bridge 3Com's Chinese and Western business operations.

That one-two-three punch in just a short time has 3Com resellers walking on egg shells and evaluating alternative vendors in case the other shoe drops.

"I don't know what to make of it. There's been little to zero leadership in North America for five years, and the decisions that have been made were either inconsequential or just silly, and now we're looking at leadership coming from mainland China," said Glenn Conley, president and CEO of St. Louis-based solution provider Metropark Communications. "It sounds like they're putting a bullet in the way they've done business in the U.S. and maybe starting from scratch."

Next: 3Com Counts On New Partner Program