American giant distributor Avnet, which had acquired its British competitor some months ago, has finally merged it with its Time division, bringing both into Avnet Abacus. This distributor, which is specialized in interconnect, passive, electromechanical, power supply and battery products, is a part of Avnet Electronics Marketing EMEA. It counts 450 employees and reached a turnover of €330m in 2008. Based in Germany, it is also present in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey. Local Avnet Time Hungarian and Irish subsidiaries have been seemingly quietly closed, these countries being from now on covered from Austria and the United Kingdom. Trident Microsystems, an Abacus subsidiary, has been merged with Avnet EMG Embedded division which is now present in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Taking advantage of its experience in distribution and collaboration with IT distributors, French editor I-COM Software has just launched its latest Distri-Portal. This distributor-oriented e-commerce portal integrates, beside other modules, new functionalities specific to distributors’ business, such as destocking management, resellers’ outstanding management or even an optimized engine for resellers price rules. Through a connector library, Distri-Portal can be easily interfaced with distributors’ ERP. I-COM Software already works with major distributors in Western Europe, such as SQP, Conectis or Copymix in France, or Sharptext in Ireland and Micro Peripherals in the United Kingdom.