News

A new manager for Brightstar
2011-09-08
Germany : following the decision of its founder in the country, Axel Grellhorst, to quit, telephony and mobility specialist Brightstar has appointed Torben Pedersen as new country director. Torben is of course not a newcomer in this business, as he was the VP Western Europe of its arch-competitor Brightpoint. Since last April, Torben is Brightstar's director for Nordics, Mediterranean and Eastern Europe.

David Grant appointed to Senior Vice President Europe, Westcon Group
2010-08-24
Networking, convergence, security and mobility VAD Westcon has been promoted David Grant to senior vice president, Europe. He will continue reporting directly to Westcon Group President and CEO, Dean Douglas. In his new role, Grant will have primary responsibility for the continued growth Westcon Group's European business, including its European strategy, human resources and legal organizations, supporting the expansion strategy in the Nordics, the Baltics and Southern Europe of the company. David Grant has been with Westcon Convergence for three years and was previously CEO of European distributor Crane before its acquisition by Westcon Group in 2007. Prior to his role at Crane, Grant spent 14 years in a variety of senior level positions with Canon UK Ltd.

Barthe enters IT market
2010-03-25
Cebit 2010/France : created in 1927, Barthe is an historical vendor on foreign language learning products. It was among the newcomers on Cebit, with a booth on Planet Reseller. The company was presenting there its newborn product, Duplicator. This product ought to be the cheaper USB stick autonomous duplicator. It exists in two models, of 21 and 35 ports which are sold €699 and €899 excl. VAT. Duplicator has been created following a recurrent demand from teachers – the usual Barthe's market – which were looking for a simple solution to duplicate content for their students. In France, it fits perfectly well in current IT equipment State program for Digital School. The company is testing IT market through its presence on Cebit. According to Stéphanie Kabela, export sales manager of Barthe, Duplicator has met a huge interest from Cebit visitors : « two of them have even signed firm orders », she says. Many contacts have been made over whole Europe, with resellers wishing to sell the product, or to use it for their own use or for service providing. Everywhere, distribution network remains to be built.

Brightpoint leaves France
2009-11-10
France : following its underway reorganization, pan-European telephony specialist Brightpoint has decided to close its French office, which reached a €150m turnover in 2007 (last known data, in strong growth compared to 2006). According to a former employee, the company is currently reorganizing its operations, by focusing on 3 or 4 logistic poles (among which Germany), and a centralized back-office in Spain. Some less performing offices have to be closed until a restart of local activities in the coming years, almost certainly around a reduced team working with an optimized back-office. Some feels it a shame, as Dangaard (which was acquired by Brightpoint in order to strengthen its positions in Europe) was one of the best performing among mobile phone distributors and is now a shadow of itself. In the last months, Russian office was also closed and many others should follow, although it is difficult to be rapidly aware of which, as Brightpoint seldom communicates about this. Meanwhile, another giant is preparing to thrive and take Brightpoint place : Brightstar should open more offices very soon.

Brightpoint to close offices
2009-08-20
American-based telephony specialist Brightpoint saw revenues tumble 40 per cent to €555m in the quarter to June 30, compared with the same period last year, as sales fell away and the average selling price decreased. It therefore will look to exit certain under-performing markets in Europe, failing to hit a 15 per cent return on capital investment, in the second half of the year consequently ; the UK will not be among the casualties, even though a precise list of the future closed subsidiaries has not been unveiled. Beside UK, Brightpoint owns subsidiaries in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates. It has recently closed its Russian office (source : Mobile Today United Kingdom).