Commander: The channel reflects on a fallen icon

In a statement to the ASX, Amanda Lacaze, Commander's managing director and CEO, announced "with great regret” that Steve Sherman and Max Donnelly of Ferrier Hodgson have been appointed as joint voluntary administrators for Commander and its subsidiary companies.

The news is a far cry from the vision of a company set to revolutionise the voice/data integration market as was Commander's plan with the purchase of data service provider Volante in April 2006. At the time, the channel said the integrator’s acquisition of Volante would have a far reaching impact on the voice and data market. However Commander has been less than successful in integrating the two companies, a fact that undoubtedly played a role in its downfall.

Craig Neil, managing director at Australian-owned voice integrator NSC, said it was always sad to see an Australian company hit the wall, with two in one week particularly “distressing”. However Commander’s problems could be attributed to management’s decision to branch into two different arenas, he said.

“You can really only blame management in any of these cases. If NSC fell over than I would blame the management team. As an outsider looking in on Commander’s business, I believe management was trying to diversify and it branched into areas that were to new for management,” said Neil.

Neil claimed Commander was a household brand and was performing strongly in the voice integration market for a small-to-enterprise organisation. “It was strong and doing exceptionally well and then it decided to branch out and did a lot of carriage with through its acquisition of RSL.com and then into the data market with the purchase of Volante.”

Kevin Hartin, marketing manager at Australian-owned distributor Altech, said that although he hates to see any fellow participants in the IT industry experience difficulties, one of the things that he has experienced in the late 90s and early 2000 is a spate of local IT companies rushing to go public.

“Going from a private company to one that is publicly listed changes the driving force of an organisation. While I can’t comment on the internal problems within [Commander], I wouldn’t be surprised that some of these companies have difficulties because they have lost their initial vision,” said Hartin.

According to Hartin, the driving force that got them to the point of going public is often lost when the requirement of pleasing shareholders begins to arise.

“Revolution is good when it rights the big wrongs. However this is an industry that is maturing and changing gradually, rather than being forced to change,” he said.

As for what’s next for Commander, Neil said the company, despite its problems, had a strong franchise model.

“It would be a good pick up and I think Telstra could pick it back up and set it back up in the SME market. Optus might also be in there. At the end of the day its core business was a great brand with a good solid foundation and a refocus on its core business would help it to get back on track.”

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