14 April 2008
by Billy MacInnes
TallyGenicom has marked its entrance into the thermal printer market with plans to recruit 30 ‘market maker’ VARs that will be supported by a distributor appointed to carry the range.
The vendor claimed the chosen VARs could earn 50 to 100 per cent more margin than they receive from existing suppliers in the thermal printing market.
Senior vice-president and EMEA managing director Robin Edwardes said TallyGenicom had decided to enter the market because it had noticed an increase in thermal printers in its customer base as the technology moved more and more from a niche product to the mainstream.
In addition to recruiting 30 managed partners to concentrate on the main markets of logistics, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare and pharmacy, TallyGenicom is in the last stages of appointing a distributor to supply the products to general resellers. Edwardes revealed the vendor would be making the appointment from one of its existing UK distributors, which include Bannerbridge, Interface and Micro-P.
"The jury’s still out," he commented. "We’ll know in the next month or so. They are all already involved, to a lesser or greater extent, in the thermal printer market and it’s a question of how focused they will be on the TallyGenicom brand."
He estimated that of the 30 proposed market maker VARs, around half were likely to come from the vendor’s existing reseller base.
TallyGenicom would do its best to ensure the new products were not over-distributed and give the market makers "the very best discount available, including margin on the print heads. We will make sure it’s a very margin-rich product," he pledged.
One source said there were competitors in the market and it was always easy to claim that margins and discounts would be better than rivals’, but the proof had to be in the delivery. He added that resellers would understandably be cautious about turning their backs on existing supplier relationships.
