17 March 2008
by Simon Quicke
Mystery surrounds security vendor GSEC1 after its sister firm ITAC fell into administration last week.
Software distributor ITAC and GSEC1 were both owned by Barry Omesuh, who has been beyond contact since revelations of financial problems (MicroScope 10 March).
The channel is braced for a sale of the company that specialised in unified threat management (UTM) appliances aimed at SMEs.
Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of Wick Hill, said competition in the market for tier-two UTM appliances was fierce.
"The market is a tough place to be and the channel has been moving over to quality in the past nine months and there is an over-supply in the UTM market," he said.
One GSEC1 distributor said it had informed customers that its supplier was encountering difficulties attributed to the collapse of ITAC, but it expected things to become clearer this week.
"We understand that staff have been put on notice of redundancy but the company is still trading and we expect it to be acquired by new owners," he said.
A source close to the firm confirmed the notice of redundancies but said further details unavailable because some staff handling the channel appeared to have already left.
As MicroScope went to press phones at GSEC1 were being left unanswered and the company’s website was down.
