Briefs: September 11, 2006

GATEWAY NAMES ARROW'S COLEMAN CEO

Coleman spent one year at Arrow Electronics. He replaced longtime Arrow executive Mike Long, who was named to lead Arrow's components division. Previously, Coleman was CEO at CompuCom Systems, a large corporate reseller.

Arrow named Catherine Morris as acting president of Arrow ECS, which includes distribution units focused on IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and enterprise storage products. The company will conduct a search for a permanent replacement for Coleman.

Gateway, the third-largest PC maker in the United States behind HP and Dell, reportedly is seeing renewed interest from investors, according to published reports. Late last week, Gateway rejected a $450 million bid to take over its retail operations by Lap Shun Hui, a former executive at eMachines.

XEROX LAUNCHES COST-PER-PAGE PROGRAM FOR SMB MARKET
Xerox has launched a new channel program to drive more business into the small- and midsize-business market.

Called PagePack, the program features a cost-per-page model that enables solution providers to offer broader document imaging solutions to their customers, said James Firestone, president of Xerox North America.

"This new program utilizes Xerox's expertise with document management to target SMBs. It was developed for enterprise [customers] and now is a fit for SMBs. The supplies and services contracts are based on the number of pages a customer prints," Firestone said.

The document IT company didn't specify pricing but said PagePack leverages Xerox technology to manage and maintain devices at customer sites. The goal is to more accurately predict monthly printing and copying costs and provide end users with a more affordable monthly bill.

Xerox also announced that several new products are available through its VAR channel, including the WorkCentre 7132 and 4150 color multifunction systems and ScanFlowStore software from X-Solutions, a Xerox business partner.

The WorkCentre 7132, which carries a starting price of $5,199, copies and prints at 32 ppm in black and white and 8 ppm in color. The WorkCentre 4150, with an entry price of $2,199, prints at up to 45 ppm and is the first multifunction product in its class to be sold through resellers, according to Xerox.

LOGICALIS AGREES TO BUY IBM VAR COMPUTECH RESOURCES
Solution provider Logicalis said last Wednesday it's acquiring Computech Resources, an IBM partner. The companies declined to disclose terms of the cash deal.

Plans call for Computech to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Logicalis. By acquiring Computech, a $35 million IBM Premier Business Partner, Logicalis stands to lift its U.S. IBM revenue over the $200 million mark in fiscal 2007. Jeff Teeter, IBM general manager at Logicalis, noted that the Computech deal marked his company's third acquisition of an IBM Business Partner in the past two years.

"You can expect more acquisitions [of IBM Business Partners] in the future that are complementary to where we are geographically and where we may have a weakness [in the IBM portfolio]," Teeter said.

Logicalis acquired Eisco, a $20 million IBM zSeries partner, last year, and STI, a $90 million IBM partner, in 2004.

Teeter said Logicalis needs to expand its IBM geographic coverage to the East and West coasts and is looking at regional IBM Business Partners in those areas. Computech expands Logicalis' IBM geographic reach into Wisconsin and Minnesota and bolsters the solution provider's capabilities in IBM iSeries, IBM software and resold IBM services.

Computech CEO Bill Larsen will remain on the job until the end of the year and then become a consultant to Logicalis beginning Jan. 1, 2007.

ORIGINAL SUN INVESTOR WON'T SEEK RE-ELECTION TO BOARD
Sun Microsystems said last Wednesday that John Doerr, Silicon Valley's most famous venture capitalist and one of Sun's original investors, plans to resign from the computer maker's board.

In a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Sun said that Doerr had notified it on Aug. 30 that he would not stand for re-election to the board once his term expires Nov. 2.

Doerr, a partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, joined the board of Sun Microsystems at the time of his firm's original investment in Sun in 1982. He has remained on the board for 24 years. He also sits on the boards of Google, Amazon.com and Intuit.

CA CHANNEL CHIEF QUINN OUT, KAFKARKOU BACK FOR INTERIM
CA channel chief Gary Quinn has resigned his position after taking the job earlier this summer.

Quinn, executive vice president for indirect business operations, decided to leave CA "to spend more time with his family," according to a letter to employees from Mike Christenson, COO of the software company.

George Kafkarkou, CA's senior vice president of SMB and consumer markets, will assume responsibility for the vendor's indirect sales on an interim basis while a search for a replacement is conducted, the letter from Christenson said.

In late August, Quinn outlined an aggressive new channel strategy designed to triple CA's indirect sales volume and double the number of CA solution provider partners.

Kafkarkou said there will be "no change" to the channel programs that were under development at CA.

Kafkarkou said Quinn has no other job lined up at this time. Quinn has more than 20 years of service at CA, and that simply had taken its toll, according to Kafkarkou.

"It's a punishing schedule," Kafkarkou said, adding that Quinn would have left only "at a time that he thinks things are in great shape [at CA]." Quinn will stay on for a short period of time to assist in an orderly transition, the letter from Christenson said.

POLYCOM SET TO UNVEIL FIRST HIGH-DEF DESKTOP VoIP PHONE
Polycom this week plans to unveil a new VoIP desktop phone, the first to incorporate the vendor's new high-fidelity voice technology.

The new SoundPoint IP 650 handset supports Polycom HD Voice, a new wideband technology from the vendor that provides two times to four times the clarity of ordinary phone calls, said Jim Kruger, vice president of marketing at Polycom. The new product will debut this week at the Fall 2006 VON Conference and Expo in Boston.

The new phone provides six lines and also supports Polycom's SoundPoint IP Expansion Modules, which can increase the line count to 12 or 24 concurrent calls for attendants and administrative assistants that need to monitor multiple lines.

The handset is scheduled for availability in the fourth quarter for a list price of $449.