NEC Display takes two

NEC Display has exclusively revealed it has signed up two new distributors.

Sahara Presentation Systems will take the firm’s business projectors to market from April 14, while RGB Communications will distribute its high-end professional range from May 1.

“We chose them as they are so focused,” Neil Hartigan, NEC Display’s channel director told Channel Pro. “They have a narrow range of vendors to handle, which appeals to us enormously.”

Hartigan says the education sector is “still a huge focus” for us, particularly regarding NEC’s projector range. “The launch of our projector range has given us more entry into that market, and now we’re one of the favoured vendors for ultra short throw projectors. We’re also getting involved with signage applications for schools and universities, where signage and video walls are becoming a large requirement in higher education.”

While he describes spending in traditional primary and secondary schools as “cautious”, Hartigan says there is a real growth in demand from the new academies. Academies are publicly funded independent schools, free from local authority and national government control. Hartigan says of the axed Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme: “We didn’t play a large part in the BSF, but now we’re playing a larger part more localised decision-making,” he says.

Hartigan says the vendor is looking to recruit not only AV specialists, but also IT resellers, who, he says: “still have a large part to play in selling a large number of desktop monitors for the IT market. [They] tend to overlap with AV, with more IT resellers involved in digital signage.”

Hartigan is also keen to emphasise the firm’s 100 percent channel model: “All transactions go through the channel, unlike some competitors that have taken high profile deals direct,” he says.

NEC has just recruited a new account manager for the North of England, Richard Hutchinson, who will look to expand the vendor’s reseller base in the area.