 ntelligent Electronics may be gone, but its memory lingers on.
More than 200 former employees, resellers and vendor partners of the Exton, Pa.-based distributor and reseller gathered in Colorado last month for a reunion--the largest gathering since IE splintered in April 1997 after selling its $3 billion distribution arm and Reseller Network Division to Ingram Micro for $78 million. Other divisions were later sold to Xerox and GE Capital. Deb McKinney, a former manager of the president's office at IE, organized the event after the events of Sept. 11.
In late January, she invited some fellow ex-IE associates to her house to relay the idea of a get-together. It was received favorably, and the group formed a reunion committee. "When we were putting the event together, we received numerous interesting responses and comments from individuals who had been affiliated with IE in one way or another," McKinney wrote. "It was a business culture that none of us had experienced previously, nor have we experienced since. Many of us established what are proving to be lifelong friendships." Several solution providers in Ingram Micro's VentureTech Network, which sprang from the Reseller Network Division, attended the reunion.
Signaling the beginning of the end of the "master reseller" model, Intelligent Electronics sold the distribution side of its business to distributor Ingram Micro five years ago for $78 million. Recently, more than 200 former employees and partners of the Exton, Pa.-based solution provider got together to reminisce about IE's role in shaping the channel model. Sanford, the now-retired former chairman and CEO, did not attend the reunion, but his son, Richard Sanford Jr., was there. Sanford Jr., IE's former national security manager and now a safety and security project manager at WorldCom, marvels at how the industry has changed over the last five years. "The industry changed with direct selling from manufacturers. The whole model changed on us. Open source took off from there. It's still changing today. Now [Hewlett-Packard] and Compaq [Computer] are together. It's a new world," he said. But it's a world in which IE still has an impact, said Warner. For one, IE pioneered the cost-plus model, which has become the standard for setting prices in the channel, he said.
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