Channel News

Merisel Inc., El Segundo, Calif., has announced plans to combine its U.S. and Canadian distribution businesses and has made several personnel changes related to that move.

Ron Smith, president of Merisel Canada Inc., will lead the new North American distribution business as president.

Jim Illson, Merisel president and chief operating officer, will step out of U.S. operations to focus on strategic projects, such as the company's e-business initiative.

In other changes: Bill Jones will oversee North American sales; Mitchell Martin will handle North American products; and Jamie McClelland will oversee North American marketing.

All three Merisel Canada vice presidents will work in the coming weeks to determine the best strategies for leveraging synergies with the U.S. team, according to the company.

With these changes, Kris Rogers, senior vice president of products and marketing of U.S. distribution, has left the company.

Tadpole-RDI has named Government Technology Services Inc. as a federal government reseller for its ranges of portable Solaris and HP-UX-based workstations and servers.

The move allows GTSI to sell portable Unix solutions to its established customer base of federal, state and local government agencies, and to add the Unix vendor's unique offerings to its federal government contract vehicles.

Carlsbad, Calif.-based Tadpole-RDI is a subsidiary of mobile computing vendor Tadpole Technology Plc.

GTSI, Chantilly, Va., holds an information technology, multiple-award General Services Administration schedule, and more than 30 federal government acquisition contract vehicles and blanket purchase agreements.


Sideware Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sideware Systems Inc., announced that Reston, Va.-based Digital Commerce Corp. has decided to purchase its Dr. Bean, e-Customer Relationship Management technology.

Digital Commerce will be using Dr. Bean for its customer service needs on its Powertrust.com site and also will be expanding its use to other sites under the DCC umbrella.

Additionally, DCC has signed an agreement with Sideware to market the product as a value-added reseller.

"We are very pleased to have DCC on board with Dr. Bean, both as a customer and value-added reseller. Nothing gives more confidence to DCC's potential customers than to see them use the solution themselves," said James Speros, president and chief operating officer for Sideware.

Digital Commerce Corp., a private company, is a leading electronic commerce solutions provider for government and industry. Sideware is an e-business company in Herndon, Va., that provides products, solutions and integration services.