Alcatel Names Channel Chief

Tom Eggemeier, formerly senior vice president of channel development and marketing at Enterasys Networks, will serve in a newly created role as vice president of channel development for Alcatel's North American enterprise business unit.

"Everyone at Alcatel realizes in the enterprise division that the only way to scale and grow the business is to continue to make heavy investments in partners and make it a win-win proposition both for our business partners and for Alcatel," Eggemeier said.

As part of that strategy, Eggemeier plans to offer solution providers more technical and sales training programs and emphasize joint sales between partners and Alcatel's sales force.

Solution providers said they hope Eggemeier will continue Alcatel's high level of partner support.

"Alcatel has multiple people in front of me all the time, and they do a great job in terms of being in front of customers with us. As long as [Eggemeier keeps it going, we'll be happy," said David Shepard, director of technology at Terra Telecom, Tulsa, Okla.

One area Alcatel needs to improve is brand awareness in the United States, which is lacking, said Dennis Gorecki, marketing manager at Data Comm Networking, a solution provider based in Burr Ridge, Ill.

Indeed, Alcatel's biggest challenge is building its name in North America, Eggemeier said.

"Alcatel still, quite frankly, has a limited brand name in the enterprise market, so we think the best way to overcome that potential challenge is to continue to invest in national and regional business partners. That's really the key to our success on a long-term basis," he said.

Alcatel ranked fifth among IP-PBX vendors in the first quarter with a 4.7 percent share of the market, up from 3 percent the same quarter a year ago, according to research firm InfoTech. In the enterprise market, Alcatel ranked third with 14 percent of the market, behind Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks, InfoTech said.