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As part of Merisel Inc.'s strategy to service resellers through a borderless North American operation, the company has expanded its division devoted to Sun Microsystems and enterprise-class, third-party products and services into the Canadian market. The Merisel Open Computing Alliance (MOCA) gives Canadian resellers access to the company's certified Sun sales and support teams for help with education and training, financial assistance, marketing and business development programs, integration services and pre- and post-sales technical support. MOCA also provides 48-hour delivery via FedEx to all Canadian customers from two U.S.-based Sun distribution facilities. Merisel Canada Inc. has been selling Sun products for six years, longer than the U.S. operation, but the MOCA initiative aligns its own Sun-based back-end with the U.S., while retaining the Canadian front-end, says Roger Prince, national director of VAR sales at the Etobicoke, Ont.-based distributor. The bulk of MOCA's 100 employees reside in the U.S., but there are dedicated sales, marketing support and some engineering support and administration staff in Canada. Extending MOCA into Canada gives Merisel's resellers access to about 10 times the operation in Canada, says Prince. We're in their face, on their site, north of the 48, and that's really key in the Unix business," says Prince. He adds that the MOCA model is a different distributor approach in that it's hands-on and designed to put investment with resellers to help facilitate market growth. "I get really excited about this MOCA model because it's delivering on some tried and true systems and processes through to the customers. And its ultimate focus is on delivering expertise and, secondly, helping develop the end-user marketplace as well." According to the American parent company, its recent quarterly Sun business shows a growth rate of 34 per cent over the previous year, and is now worth about US$400 million.