Compaq to demote tier one resellers…

...and further DEC heads rolled this week

Sources very close to Compaq told The Register that the firm is to take action as early as next week to reduce the number of its tier one resellers. Channel players are up in arms at the changes, which means that a number of their top resellers (but not the very top ones like Computacenter) will be downgrated to master reseller, effectively tier two status.

Meanwhile, Shannon knows Compaq tells The Register that the company will roll out a re-vamped Unix strategy at the beginning of February. D/UX (or as we call it, Ducks), will disappear in favour of a new name, while Compaq is also likely to be caught very short indeed on the Bravo front. And Eckhard "Santa" Pfeiffer's troops piled into what remained of the former DEC administration staff during the course of this week and rounded them up into a P45 (pink slip) corral, we are given to understand.

Meanwhile, and we heard these rumours too some while ago, former Tandem top sales staff were shown the door by the barber some months ago, then hastily re-hired when sales went through the floor and given big bonuses. This caused tier two Tandem sales staff to walk out. And yes, we heard this too, former DEC and Tandem staff are constantly whinging: "They, [Eckard's troops] just won't listen to us."

Compaq was unable to comment on any of these reports at press time, while its UK PR company, Firefly, remains on holiday until the 4th of January. (Haven't they heard of skeletal staff?)

Related Yule Stories Compaq, IBM dump on Taiwanese manufacturers This story also contains links to the numerous other Compaq stories written since Christmas Eve. *

Mother Shipton's Tale No. 1999ß. US and international readers please note that most UK people went on holiday on the 24th of December and won't return to work until the 4th of January, hence enjoying a period of detoxification until February. There are no UK national holidays in January, but quite a few execs decide to take skiing holidays. Today is a Bank Holiday in Blighty, so it's just as well we didn't join our partners in Europe for the launch of the famous Euro in Euroland (yuk).