Today completed its work the largest annual computer fair CeBIT 2003 (Germany), which usually serves as a meeting place for partners, and helps establish new business contacts. In Hanover and attended by representatives MakTsentr, namely, Dmitry Havzhu, CEO and Dmitry Serezhnikov, head of sales of pocket PCs. Helped them Anton Kuznetsov, head of the project HPCru, who spoke in their own roles korrepondenta our magazine at the exhibition. At our request, Dmitry Havzhu commented the course and outcome of negotiations with key partners.
Palm
March 13, the second day of the exhibition, held talks with the oldest and most tradition and partner MakTsentr - by Palm Computing. We have verified that Palm feels confident enough in a situation of fierce competition. Although the exhibition has not been shown new models, as expected, but in the very near future, Palm, definitely give its response to competitors. The details are still default.
MakTsentr representatives discussed with the Palm joint marketing activities in Rossii. The latter expressed his willingness to substantially increase the marketing budget, which should naturally affect the reputation of the brand in the domestic market.
Palm also included in the list of approved accessories, flexible silicone keyboard Flexis FX100, Russified version of which produces and sells currently MakTsentr. Included Parts, besides the keyboard, is an original development of the company - the driver Uniboard, which ensures correct operation of the binder pocket PC with a keyboard. The news about the appearance of this product in the Russian market has caused a very positive reaction from representatives of Palm. Now the Tungsten T can work with a flexible external keyboard, fully adapted for our users, and it's a good argument for switching to the device.
SHARP
At CeBIT 2003 MakTsentr delegation began talks with representatives of Sharp. They were attended by Mr. Takeshi Kishibe, head of the Moscow office of Sharp, Mr. Mamoru Takatsuka, business and Administrator of the European office, Vitaly Gritsenko, marketing director, who organized the meeting.
In my opinion, we managed to convince the Japanese kollleg in perspective Zaurus PDA shipments to Russia. A strong argument has served as shown by us Russification of the device. Sotrudiki Sharp did not expect that Russification is possible and real, and it has given them much hope. No concrete decisions at the meeting was not accepted, but we agreed to continue negotiations.
I very much hope that the Moscow office of Sharp agrees to supply, and we do not have to carry Zaurus directly from Japan, as is done now. I especially want to note the device Zaurus SL-C700, which has a completely unique design. In my opinion, to leave the Russian users without simply unreasonable.
Casio
Casio at the booth we talked in detail about the prospects of business with Mr. Marco Pistollom (Marc Pistoll), the European branch manager of sales planning company Casio. As is known, Casio Pocket PC froze production, although it has recently been on the list of favorites of the market. We tried to convince the partners to continue to release at least two models of Cassiopeia - E-200 and BE-300.
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As a result, we went to meet halfway: it was promised to ship 500 pieces of BE-300 in the coming weeks and 700-800 units in May - June, after which new supplies are not guaranteed, and therefore we will continue negotiations during the summer. As regards, Pocket PC Cassiopeia E-200, their delivery is completely stopped. Managers of the company explains this cooling to the PDA desire to focus resources on the promotion of digital cameras, considering this market is more promising. Sales figures are also hand-held computers of this brand in Russia say the opposite, so we can not agree with this position Casio.
MiTAC
One of the most notable vendors in the PDA market today - the Taiwanese company MiTAC. Device of its production is already well known in Russia as a native brand Mio, and a Russian - Rover. In Germany, Mitac sold under the name of Yakumo.
MakTsentr signed a distribution deal with MiTAC, but for us inaccessible devices supplied for Rover on OEM contract. In particular, the most popular model Mio 338, better known to us as Pover P3. We are exploring the possibility of solving the problem of supply expense of Yakumo.
This time CeBIT'e c MiTAC failed to agree on the supply device Mio 728. We received samples of this curious device in all respects and will soon appear on the pages HPCru information about the test results. The sale of the "PDA phone" in Russia may start in 6-8 weeks.
ETen
Another company, is seriously engaged communicators - Taiwanese ETen. One of the models - P600, we have already tested. Her review can be read here. Others - a tri-band P603, is currently studying and report the results a little later.
In talks with Mr. Wayne Ma, president of the company and Mr. Andres Liang, Director of Sales (pictured), we took a fairly serious commitment to the promotion of communicators in Russia and agreed to sign an exclusive contract. The first P600 will be available in late March.
DOTel
MakTsentr promotes a device of this company under the Russian brand Wincent because of the significant differences between the Russian version of the Korean. Until now, selling Pocket PC Wincent 320 were low due to, basically, a small number of programs under WindowsCE.NET. It seems the situation is changing for the better. Already in summer 2003 DOT plans to equip its new Pocket PC operating system DOT400S CE.NET 4.2, which allows you to work with programs written for PocketPC. A little later, the company plans to launch another new product - DOT400W - GSM / GPRS device.
In a conversation with Mr. NHKim, president of the company, we discussed the need to improve customer support through the Internet and in particular the fate of the site www.dev.dotel.co.kr, who recently disappeared from a long time is given. Co his part, he promised to correct the situation.
Pretec
March 15 as part CeBIT'a seminar (workshop) European distributors Pretec, a reputable manufacturer of flash cards and accessories for the Pocket PC. MakTsentr received the award for the fastest-growing business.
President Pretec Mr. Gordon Yu talked about new products, among which the most interesting are the new memory card format SDCompatible, multifunctional CF-card type "2-in-1" (GPRS + 128MB memory card, a hybrid of Bluetooth and GPS, GPS-receiver and 128MB of flash), a digital camera on a SD-card ...
... As well as CF card, Leapt 6 GB-line ...
... Digital Camera Pretec DV-4200 with the possibility of creating movies in the format of MPEG4 ...
... And a portable GPS-receiver, which works with a PDA wirelessly via Bluetooth, and a few other devices on which we reported in our news. Pretec now occupies a leading position in Russia as a manufacturer of peripherals for the expansion card format Compact Flash (modems, digital cameras, GPS-receivers, LAN-card) and malozameten market expansion card memory. New developments will allow the company to improve the company's position in this niche. The authors, translation:
