CHANNEL NEWS
HUGHES, CISCO, HELIUS TEAM ON MULTIMEDIA PRODUCT Hughes Network Systems Inc., a provider of satellite communications; Cisco Systems Inc., a provider of internetworking equipment, and Helius Inc., developers of LAN-to-satellite integration technology, have announced a joint venture to allow local area network users to download Internet documents and broadcast them to servers at various locations. The product, Dire
INGRAM MICRO NAMED EXPORTER OF THE YEAR
Ingram Micro, Santa Ana, Calif., won the Large Business Exporter award for 1996. The World Trade Center Association of Orange County recognized the company for successfully overcoming stringent export barriers and increasing export sales based on the total percentage of sales.
Ingram Micro competed against three of Orange County's most prominent companies: Allergan Inc., Irvine, Calif.; Beckman Instruments Inc., Fullerton, Calif.; and Unisys Corp., Blue Bell, Pa. Ingram Micro sales stood at $170 million in 1995. Affiliates in 15 counties sell to 105,000 resellers in 120 countries.
CISCO SYSTEMS SELECTS COMSTOR
Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., will turn to Comstor, Chantilly, Va., as a distribution channel. To support Cisco's U.S. federal resellers, Comstor has established a staff to provide marketing, sales and technical support, including specific reseller services such as configuration assistance and verification. Comstor will also provide bid responses, order processing and post-sales services. The relationship with Comstor will give a wide range of small- to medium-sized resellers easier access to Cisco products and services. Federal end users will have increased access and procurement options to acquire Cisco internetworking solutions.
SEQUEL TEAMS WITH JAPAN'S TRANS COSMOS INC.
Trans Cosmos Inc., Tokyo, has agreed to be the exclusive distributor for Sequel Technology Corp., Bellevue, Wash. Sequel will turn to TCI to penetrate the Japanese market for its first product, Sequel Net Access Manager, a management and reporting tool for a company's Internet and intranet usage in North America. In conjunction with the distribution agreement, TCI has made a multimillion-dollar equity investment in Sequel with the EnCompass Group Inc. EGI is a joint venture with TCI and Nikko Securities, a global securities firm.
Sequel selected Japan as the first offshore focus due to the country's trend for Internet usage. According to a Nikkei Multimedia survey in November 1995, at least 60 percent of the top 636 companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange will be Internet users by the end of 1996. TCI is the majority owner of Asahi net, the largest Japanese Internet service provider with a customer base that includes Microsoft, NTT, Spry/CompuServe and other top companies. TCI is the master distributor to the Japanese market for many U.S.-based software products, including Spry/CompuServe's "Internet-in-a-box," which is a popular Internet package in Japan.
ADIC, ACCESS GRAPHICS TEAM TO TAP INTO VAR MARKET
Access Graphics, a division of Interpoint Corp., Redmond, Wash., will offer a complete line of ADIC automated tape libraries and stand-alone subsystems to the Access network of value-added resellers. Access Graphics, a worldwide channel integrator, will draw on its strength in UNIX-based distributed computing solutions to distribute drive-independent robotic tape storage systems for ADIC, Boulder, Colo. Access Graphics has offices in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Europe.
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