Data General Ltd and ICL Plc’s personal computer reseller, Tech-nology Plc, (CI No 2,179) parted company because neither was achieving the results they wanted from the deal: according to Data General’s UK marketing director, John Coon, the decision was a business one – not only were the two organisations different both culturally and organisationally, but Data General underestimated the time it would take to get them [Technology] up to speed – in other words, the time it took to skill up Technology wasn’t worth it in volume sales terms; Technology was the company’s first UK distributor of low-end AViiON Unix servers and CLARiioN disk array products; furthermore, Coon said, it takes resellers a long time to get used to a third party, and on the whole, Data General’s just kept coming back to the group to buy low-end kit; in retrospect, he added, perhaps we should have phased the move a bit more and not seized the opportunity as quickly – this would have meant that the deal didn’t have to go live and produce instant results; but, he did state that over time the group would consider taking on another distributor, and didn’t rule out the possibility of working with Technology again in future.
