SOS 'quells rumours' over Toshiba status
Distributor stresses it has not been dropped by Toshiba as the vendor begins phased exit from UK comms market
SOS Communications has moved to "quell rumours" by stressing it remains an authorised distributor for Toshiba following the vendor's decision to exit the UK comms market.
SOS said in a statement that its 18-year partnership with Toshiba is not ending and that it will continue to support resellers both through the end-of-life process and in the after-market sales and distribution.
"We are glad to have this confirmation, and to quell the rumours, as we continue to support our Toshiba customers," SOS stated.
Toshiba confirmed in March that it would move its IP Edge and Strata CIX products into technical support phase on 1 June 2016 for the UK and Irish market.
Edd Kelsey, Toshiba sales manager at SOS, claimed confusion over SOS' role began when Toshiba appointed reseller South West Communication Group as sole outsource partner for all its Unified Communication & Solutions products. The handover will occur on 1 October.
"Toshiba brought on a second distributor for when they were going through the end-of-life phase," he said. "Sadly for the reseller channel, it was another reseller and not a specialist distributor, and there was a lot of communication from this company saying they would be solely distributing on Toshiba's behalf and putting us out of the picture. But that is not the case. We are very much an authorised Toshiba distributor going forward."
When we put these comments to Jon Whiley, commercial director at South West Communications Group, he claimed his firm had never billed itself as the sole distributor.
"I don't think we've ever put any information out to say that," he said. "We are the outsourced partner for Toshiba [unified communications] so we manage the stock, the administration, the sales out to distributors and resellers across the UK. We will supply SOS, the other distributors, and any other resellers that want to come to us. If they don't want to come to us, we are more than happy for them to go to the distribution network that exists."
Toshiba's UK comms exit comes in the wake of an accounting scandal that engulfed the Japanese vendor last year, prompting it to restructure.
Kelsey said: "It's not possible to sell a brand new [Toshiba] system, but we can still sell equipment for growing and maintaining existing systems already in the field."
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