3Com Names Target As An Authorized Distributor

Target, a Germantown, Md.-based outfit, specializes in the distribution of communications products.

“Target brings a boutique-like environment whereby they are specifically recruiting IP telephony resellers,” said Nick Tidd, vice president of North American channel sales at 3Com, Marlborough, Mass. “We&'re getting a much more tactical distributor as opposed to a broadline [distributor],” he said.

Other 3Com distribution partners include Alltel Communication Products, Ingram Micro, Synnex and Tech Data.

With its extensive history in the communications market, the voice expertise Target brings should be a big boon to the 3Com channel, said Bob Rankin, general manager of Telephony and Data Solutions, a 3Com partner in Dublin, Ohio, that already sources other products such as voice products from Vodavi Communications Systems through Target. “Phone people should be selling phones,” Rankin said. “Target is truly a phone company. They understand phones up and down,” he said. The solution provider almost exclusively taps 3Com products for education customers, he said.

Some 95 percent of Target&'s base of primarily SMB-focused VARs, integrators and interconnects are new partners to 3Com, Tidd said.

The two companies have been working together for the past five or six months to determine partner overlap and to educate and train Target employees on 3Com&'s offerings, Tidd said.

Through the partnership, Target will distribute 3Com&'s full voice and data portfolios but not its TippingPoint security lines, Tidd said.

While noting that “the door is never closed” to bringing on additional distributors to carry 3Com&'s voice and data lines, Tidd said the company would not expand its partnerships at the expense of its existing distributors&' profitability. Tidd said 3Com is still considering adding distribution partners to carry its TippingPoint portfolio, which it acquired in February.

3Com is also on track for a fall rollout of a deal registration program, new specializations and a new lineup of Web-based partner tools, Tidd said.