GE Access Out; Access Distribution In

The Westminster, Colo.-based distributor is dropping the GE from its moniker as part of a rebranding effort at General Electric, executives at the distributor said. The official name, effective immediately, is Access Distribution, a GE Company.

"GE has 180 companies that go to market differently, using the brand differently. They want to reestablish the brand," said Access Distribution CEO Anna McDermott.

The distributor started its internal rebranding last week and began notifying solution providers today, said Mark Kulaga, director of corporate communications and marketing at Access Distribution.

Solution providers should not see any visible changes other than the name change, Kulaga said.

"We're still Access, and we still have GE in all our architecture," Kulaga said.

The loss of GE from its name is no indication that GE is looking to sell Access Distribution, he added.

"If anything, this cements their commitment to us because they could have relegated us to Access Distribution, a [Vendor Financial Services] company," he said. "In the architecture, we're four levels down, but we are exempt from the architecture and we can say we are a GE company."

Eleven GE companies will continue to use the GE name, including GE Commercial Finance, which has Access Distribution under its umbrella. The name changes within GE will be subtle, Kulaga said.

"The whole branding message is all about the customer. There are no press releases. You'll find the changes are more of a controlled rollout," he said.

Access Distribution has not changed its corporate infrastructure within GE, Kulaga said. The company is still under Vendor Financial Services, which is under GE Commercial Finance, which is under GE, he said.

GE company names will now better describe what the companies do, Kulaga said. "When we were thinking of names, we thought down the road to a name we could withstand for the next five years. We carry the message around the name. Our whole goal is to provide access. Access to products, access to financing, access to services," he said.

Access Distribution was founded in 1988 as Access Graphics in Boulder, Colo., as a CAD and graphics-systems distributor. The company was purchased by GE in 1997 and became part of GE IT Distribution Group, when GE also owned Integration Alliance and Comstor. Integration Alliance faded away after losing its Hewlett-Packard distribution agreement and Comstor was sold to Westcon Group. Access Graphics became known as GE Access in January 2000.