This story ended up with some very interesting competitive spins to it. Some hard work and some great relationships brought everything together quite nicely. Very pleased with the story.
By Rivka Gewirtz Little, Senior News Writer
Last week cabling company Belden
Inc. completed its acquisition of Trapeze Networks for $133 million, and
executives say the wireless LAN company's 200-plus partner channel will remain
intact and supported.
"Our partners are pretty
excited about this," said Jim Vogt, president of Trapeze, adding that the
company will function independently, continue to use its own name and look to
further expand the channel.
Because it is so difficult for an
independent company to survive in the hotly competitive wireless LAN market,
Trapeze partners appear to believe that the acquisition by Belden, a publicly
traded company, will strengthen Trapeze's position and give it global reach. A
string of small wireless LAN companies have been acquired in recent years.
"This is going to solidify
Trapeze and give them the financial backing to continue on in the future,"
said Dick Stayner, major accounts manager at Valcom, a Trapeze partner in Salt Lake City.
Trapeze can't promise that there
won't be channel conflict, since at least a portion of Belden's channel, which
dwarfs Trapeze's, will eventually be able to sell the wireless product.
Initially, though, Trapeze partners
are likely to see new opportunities, because many Belden partners are not yet
trained in wireless technology and can't sell the wireless product until they
are. In those situations Trapeze partners will be brought in on Belden deals,
Vogt said.
"Now we can put our sales force
behind them and go after larger accounts," Vogt said. Belden partners
often serve large businesses that could have both wired and wireless networks,
or have wireless systems that need extensive behind-the-scenes cabling.
However, it is unclear how Belden
partners will take to bringing in Trapeze partners.
"Everybody will want to sell
Trapeze and they'll wonder why we're bringing in [our own channel]," Vogt
said. "So there will be some conflict there." But he added that there
will be "some reward" for taking Trapeze partners into accounts.
A formal award or incentive system
hasn't been finalized yet, and the companies are banging out the rules of
engagement. Those guidelines must emerge quickly since eventually Belden
partners will be trained and may try to cut out Trapeze partners, resulting in
channel conflict.
"What the Belden guys are doing
now is sorting out where the interest is in the Belden channel, figuring out
who would like to step up and extend their business with this offering and
whether they have the propensity to do it. Then we are going to have to map our
channel list and say, 'Here are my channels by region, and here are
yours," Vogt said. He added that it will be like putting the "decoder
ring together."
Beyond concerns about channel
conflict, partners also hope the Belden acquisition won't change Trapeze's
partner-friendly attitude.
Cliff Arellano, president of Trapeze
partner Communications Products Inc. (CPI) in Indianapolis, said his company
used to work with wireless LAN company Airespace, which was later acquired by
Cisco Systems Inc. CPI started working with Cisco but didn't find the
super-vendor to be "really partner-friendly," so it switched to
Trapeze. CPI has a rosier outlook on the Belden deal since it is already a
Belden partner too. Nevertheless, Arellano said he hopes Belden sticks to its
word that it will be friendly toward Trapeze partners.
"Belden seems to get the
picture, whereas Cisco didn't appear to care," Arellano said.
In the meantime, CPI is testing
products from Ruckus Wireless and may eventually incorporate some Ruckus
technology into its offering.
Ruckus launched an incentive program
to poach unhappy Trapeze partners once the Belden deal was announced. Ruckus marketing
vice president David Callisch said the incentive program has drawn new
partners, and he gave two examples. CPI was the only Trapeze partner contacted
by press time that showed any interest in Ruckus, and Arellano stressed that
CPI is moving very slowly with Ruckus and is fully committed to Trapeze.
Arellano said the company "had
been stuck once before" with small vendors like Ruckus that were later
acquired and weren't the same for partners. Now that Trapeze has been purchased
by Belden, he said, it is definitely stable.
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