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The last time American voters prepared to elect a president, the entire assets of Canon Computer Systems Inc. (CCSI) fit in the trunk of marketing vice president Peter Bergman's BMW. That was four years ago, when Bergman and two colleagues accepted an offer from Canon USA and Canon Inc. to create a new Canon subsidiary in the United States. The trio's challenge:find a way to leverage the Japanese conglomerate's rich technology portfolio so it could become a bigger player in the U.S. computer market.
For Bergman, that meant putting the start-up company in the trunk each night and hauling it home so he could spend a few more hours building the CCSI empire. Today, the BMW accommodates only a fraction of CCSI's diverse product line and less than a hundredth of its employees. Like other hardware manufacturers that constitute the second tier in the United States, CCSI has quietly grown into a technology powerhouse. With sales of $1.2 billion, it is poised to challenge the likes of IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq on their home turf.
Several Asian-based electronic giants with vast financial resources, diversified product portfolios and huge manufacturing capacities are converging on U.S. markets. Interestingly, VARs, as much as any group, stand to benefit from the renewed efforts of Hitachi, Fujitsu, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Electronics, Aiwa, Acer America, Epson America, Panasonic and others to establish themselves as tier-one competitors in the United States. At the very least, the presence of those vendors here puts additional pressure on U.S.-based suppliers to push price/performance barriers. More significant, however, is the potential for VARs to create new solutions from the rich resources brought to market by those companies. "The VAR channel may very well be where we do best, because VARs sell products to customers that buy solutions, not brands," says Scott Bower, vice president of sales and marketing with Samsung Electronics America's Information Systems Division.
A Changing Landscape
VARs who have not looked beyond tier-one suppliers in some time may be surprised by the sight of the current landscape, which is undergoing tremendous upheaval. Nowhere is that more evident than in notebook computers. This spring, for example, Hitachi's new PC Corp. launched a line of notebook computers targeted at mobile workers. That was followed by...