Life left in distributor shows

Around 800 resellers walked through the door at Ingram Micro’s Expotech show at Sydney’s Darling Harbour last night proving there’s life left in channel trade shows.

The show attracted 49 exhibitors – including Ingram’s own stand – which was “probably less” than exhibitor numbers in 2005, Rochelle Krason, event manager at Ingram Micro told CRN.

In terms of floor space, however, the event was slightly larger, with Ingram using 4500sqm floorspace, compared to 3800sqm at the Homebush, Sydney event last year.

Krason touted the event as a success. “From a reseller’s perspective, they have [vendor] competitors in the one spot at one time,” she said.

For first timers like Vodafone, the niche show was the only place it could get the company’s products across to the right people.

“CEBIT is becoming unnecessary. The problem with shows like that is it’s opened to the public and just doesn’t help us to sign the right customers up to our services,” said Steve Nichols, NSW IT channel manager at Vodafone.

Nichols said the vendor was getting the “right people” signed up for its packages. “We don’t have to weed out the resellers from the general public,” he said.

Brian Allsopp, IT distribution manager, Asia-Pacific at Juniper Networks said shows like ExpoTech got vendors in front of the right audience and agreed that CeBIT was a mass-market show that didn’t reach his target audience. “I get to talk to customers about our catalogue and we get to relate on a level emails and telephone calls just won’t allow.”

Graeme Reardon, regional director at Linksys Australia and New Zealand, felt that the $3000 spent on a stand was useful as it promoted the brand in front of resellers. Still, he says the vendor would get more out of paying $7000 to attend a forthcoming Ingram sales conference.

Jackie Taranto, managing director, Hannover Fairs Australia said CeBIT had attracted resellers.

"CeBIT Australia 2005 attracted over 4,000 resellers," she said.