CRN News Briefs: June 14, 2004

TECH DATA'S BAZZONE RETIRING

Bazzone spent 12 years at Tech Data and 25 years in the channel. Now she said she wants to golf. "My husband has been retired for a number of years, I have two grandbabies, my golf game needs improving and we have a beach house that is not used nearly enough. It's time," Bazzone said.

She gave her notice last Monday but plans to stay on through Tech Data's second fiscal quarter, which ends July 30.

Tech Data's executive teams have known that she planned to retire soon, Bazzone said, and were waiting for her to give a final date.

"Terry has been quite open about her pending retirement and we appreciate the extra time and effort she has afforded the company when we needed her the most," said Ken Lamneck, president of the Americas at Tech Data, in an e-mail to employees. Tech Data plans to interview external and internal candidates for her replacement over the next couple of months, Bazzone said.

FORMER TOP SYMBOL EXEC NOW A 'FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE'
Symbol Technologies' former president and CEO, Tomo Razmilovic last week failed to appear for a court appearance to face federal charges that he orchestrated a four-year accounting fraud scheme at the mobile products vendor.

Robert Nardoza, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, said Razmilovic's attorney, David Nachman, called Wednesday to report his client--thought to be in London--has no plans to appear at a scheduled indictment in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, N.Y.

Nardoza said the U.S. Attorney's office has reported Razmilovic as a fugitive from justice to Interpol and issued a warrant for his arrest in the United Kingdom, the last place authorities believe Razmilovic was living. Meanwhile, Leonard Goldner, Symbol's former general counsel and executive vice president, pleaded innocent last week to tax evasion, wire and mail fraud charges related to a stock option scheme aimed at bolstering the profits of top executives and illegally minimizing their tax obligations at the expense of Symbol, according to U.S. District Court documents. He was released on a $500,000 secured bond.

ASCII GROUP PENS RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR VENDORS
The ASCII Group has written a "Statement of Principles for Sales and Service of IT Products and Solutions" in an effort to get vendors to treat VARs more ethically, said Alan Weinberger, The ASCII Group chairman and CEO.

Weinberger said the VAR organization would encourage vendors to sign the statement, saying they agree with terms of the document. He noted that so far no vendor has signed the document, but he expects that momentum will build for the initiative. "If vendors don't agree with [the principles] VARs should ask, 'What are you hiding?' " he said.

Weinberger said that the principles are necessary because of the growing tendency by some vendors to steer business direct or favor larger solution providers over smaller ones.

MICROSOFT PARTNERS TO MERGE
Microsoft partners Interlink Group and Equarius unveiled merger plans in a bid to amplify their presence in the western United States.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but Interlink CEO Bart Hammond said the combined company--to be called Interlink--will generate about $25 million in services revenue annually.

Hammond will serve as CEO of the merged company, while Burley Kawasaki, former CTO of Equarius, will be vice president of solutions.

ADOBE BOLSTERS DOCUMENT SECURITY, MANAGEMENT
Adobe Systems aims to build on its PDF and Acrobat franchise with new server software that delivers document services for business-process management, document control and document security.

Dubbed LiveCycle, the server software extends the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform, Adobe's family of document life-cycle solutions. It includes new services for document control and security--Document Security Server and Adobe Policy Server--as well as a group of services for process management: Adobe Form Manager, Adobe Form Server, Adobe Barcoded Paper Forms Solution, Adobe Reader Extensions Server and Adobe Designer.

Document Security Server, which is shipping now and costs $50,000 per CPU, applies server-side encryption to documents that will last throughout their life cycle, and will enable users to apply variable levels of control to documents and regulate access to them, even after they exit the firewall.

Policy Server enables logic to be embedded in a document so that when recipients click on the file to view it, they are authenticated, and the document checks back in to ensure it hasn't been outdated or revoked since it was issued.

VIDEOCONFERENCING VENDORS FOCUS ON INFRASTRUCTURE
Sony Electronics and Tandberg last week both expanded their portfolios to focus on videoconferencing infrastructure.

Sony said it is partnering with Radvision to offer complete videoconferencing solutions through its channel partners.

Under the agreement, part of Sony's Open Conferencing initiative, Sony and its solution providers will sell its videoconferencing end points bundled with Radvision's videoconferencing infrastructure and middleware, including Radvision's gateways, gatekeepers, MCUs and management software, according to the company.

Tandberg, for its part, launched a new high-end multipoint control unit (MCU) dubbed the Media Processing System, which supports IP-based videoconferencing for large enterprises and service providers. The new system supports 48 video ports and 48 audio ports, enabling customers to connect large groups of users. Until now, the company has only offered an MCU aimed at small and midsize businesses.

It will be available July 12 for a list price of $146,000. Tandberg plans to add support for ISDN and V.35-based videoconferencing later this year.