 |  | Once upon a time, not so long ago, the channel was dominated by large corporate resellers with a national reach. These companies had a heavy hand in shaping vendor policies. Then along came a direct-selling behemoth named Dell Computer and A dot-com channel that emphasized e-business services, and everything changed.
As the year 2000 approached, companies such as Inacom, Intelligent Electronics, CompuCom and Entex Information Services would make dramatic changes to their business models. Intelligent Electronics sold its $3 billion distribution business in April 1997 to Ingram Micro for about $78 million. Inacom turned to a more controversial buyer, selling its configuration and distribution arm to Compaq Computer in February 2000. The reseller would file for bankruptcy in mid-2000 after shedding its pioneering telecommunications solutions unit to specialty distributor Westcon. MicroAge, which made its own costly distribution gamble in the form of Pinacor, would file for Chapter 11 barely a month later. It's impossible to name one event that led to the downfall of these companies, although Compaq's decision to cut its distribution partners in May 1999 is a contender. The splintering of this channel segment stemmed from factors such as the growing influence of line-of-business managers in IT investment decisions. But CRN recently discovered that although these companies have been out of the headlines for the past two years, they are about to generate some new ones.
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Five Companies That Dropped The Ball This Week For the week ending Feb. 10, CRN looks at five companies that were either asleep at the wheel or just didn't make good decisions. |
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Five Companies That Came To Win This Week For the week ending Feb. 10, CRN looks at five companies that brought their 'A' game and made moves to beat out competitors |
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10 Challenges That HP Wants Partners To Tackle Right Now CRN speaks with HP's business unit chiefs to get a sense of where they'd like partners to focus in the coming year, as well as how CEO Meg Whitman is making a difference. |
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