The ocean of high-tech at MERLION Dealer’s Conference

Traditional Spring conference of best MERLION dealers More IT was held on April 23-25. The conference gathered 14 world-class manufacturers of IT products and 140 Moscow-based and regional dealers of PC equipment and components.

"More IT" conference

On April 23-25 park-hotel "Le Meridien Moscow Country Club" hosted the traditional Spring MERLION dealers' conference "More IT". The conference gathered 140 best MERLION dealers and 14 well-known manufacturers of PC equipment and components: Gigabyte, nVIDIA, BROTHER, DELL, MUSTEK, PROVIEW, CANON, IPPON, JetBalance, KINGMAX, MINOLTA, LG GSM, PHILIPS, SAMSUNG.

The program of More IT conference combined business and informal formats. The official part of the conference included presentations, exhibitions, meetings and roundtables. This year the conference participants were offered to select in advance most interesting and useful presentations and meetings.

MERLION's CEO Nikolay Artemenko said in the opening speech:

"MERLION is still the leader on the Russian IT market. In 2003 the company demonstrated growth of at least 30 %.
The company's portfolio of products continues to growth. Today the price list includes over 3200 items of PC equipment and components. Our ultimate objective is to cover 90% of the most market-demanded selection. It is important for us to develop our own business and at the same time to help you, our partners, develop your business and earn profit. That is why we are focusing on the most dynamically growing and unique product groups.
Last year brought a lot of new projects and interesting products to the company. MERLION now distributes Philips and Proview display products, Minolta digital equipment, Biostar motherboards, Brother office appliances, Verbatim media, Mitsumi optical drives and many more.
Regional sales now account for 63 % of the company's total sales, and growing. It is important for us that Russian citizens in all regions have access to computer equipment at competitive prices. MERLION is a client-oriented company. In order to better focus on your needs, and take into account regional specifics, companies within MERLION group have created special regional task forces, where employees are personally in charge of the success of each and every one of our partners.
We are planning to open our own warehouses in 7-10 regions before the end of the year. These are going to be logistical hubs, where the selection of goods will be driven by the needs of MERLION strategic partners, and only such partners will have access to these warehouses.

MERLION's priorities for the immediate future are your interests - interests of our partners, and we will do our best to make your business develop and prosper".

More IT included the total of 6 presentations, where Gigabyte, nVIDIA, BROTHER, DELL, MUSTEK and PROVIEW presented their new products and promotion strategy on the Russian market.

The first day of the conference featured presentations by Dell and Gigabyte.

Sergey Lanovenko, Dell's Corporate Sales Manager, spoke about the specifics of selling Dell equipment in EDB and said that the share of Dell notebooks on the Russian market grew over the last year from 1.4 % (Q1/ 2003) to 12.3 % (Q1/2004). The share of Dell server solutions increased from 2.2 % (Q1/ 2003) to 3.6 % (Q1/2004). The company's long-term development strategy is driven by a very ambitious goal - to become the world's larges manufacturer of solutions, including through a more active cooperation with MERLION dealers network.

The head of Gigabyte Representative Office in Russia Mr. Cooke Huang said that starting as a motherboards manufacturer the company is currently expanding its products range to become a comprehensive solutions provider.
Alexander Doroshenko, Gigabyte Technical Specialist, presented to conference participants the brand-new P4 motherboard 8KNXP Ultra 64; wireless solutions Titan 2004 GT, broad-band networking equipment; wireless USB solutions, optical drives, new generation of the overclocking utility V-Tuner 2 etc. A special emphasis was made on NVIDIA-based graphics solutions utilizing GeForce 6800 and GeForce 6800 Ultra chipsets. Other specialty presented was RZ-series motherboards, allowing dealers to efficiently compete in the low-end and corporate segments.
100 MERLION's Russian partners were awarded authorization certificates as the result of the marketing program "GIGABYTE: Become a Hero!".

The second day of More IT conference featured presentations by Mustek, Proview, Brother and NVIDIA.

Mustek used the opportunity to authorize 50 best dealers. Sailau Shingisov, Mustek's Lead Sales Manager for Eastern Europe, announced the new compact flatbed scanner BP6400TA Pro Be@rPaw series and presented a variety of consumer appliances: DVD recorders, digital cameras etc.

Proview General Manager for Europe David Hsieh presented the company and its products, distributed on the Russian market. Russian dealers learned about the company's global monitor brands. Mr. Hsieh paid special attention to the exterior style of Proview monitors (this is the brand MERLION promotes on the Russian market). Combination of first-tier quality and service support with second-tier pricing was quoted as the strongest competitive advantage of Proview monitors.

Two representatives of Brother Company spoke at More IT: Head of I&D product planning department of Brother Europe HQ Maskazu Goto and Marketing and Business Development Manager of Brother Russian Representative Office Nail Gimaliev. Speakers described the company's position on European markets and presented MFD, printer and fax model ranges offered on the Russian market. Six specific models were demonstrated during the presentation: MFC-4800 and MFC-8820 office centers, HL-5150D and HL-1430 printers and Fax-236 and Fax-737MC fax machines.

Ottmar Knauer, Director for Marketing in Central and Eastern Europe for NVIDIA, provided a detailed overview of the company's desktop solutions and presented the new graphics processor GeForce 6800 Ultra. Conference participants got very excited about the company's new symbol - the beautiful mermaid Naloo. Equally exciting was the company's large-scale campaign "NVIDIA - The Way It`s Meant To Be Played", designed to shape and stimulate consumer demand for hardware, software and games.
After the presentations conference participants had an opportunity to make personal contacts with representatives of vendors. Dealers were especially interested in after-sales service and new marketing initiatives.

CANON, IPPON, JetBalance, KINGMAX, MINOLTA, LG GSM, PHILIPS and SAMSUNG opened exhibition and negotiation booths, that had been working both days in parallel with presentations. Vendors really appreciated the possibility to resolve many issues during in-person communication with second-level partners, and get first-hand feedback from channels.

Such roundtables allowed JetBalance and PHILIPS put end to "fears" related to efficient promotion of audio equipment through a non-traditional PC distribution channel. Dealers of Ippon UPS had an opportunity to discuss the development of regional service network.

The informal part of the conference was dedicated to the results of marketing programs "Gigabyte: Become a Hero!" and "To The Best NVIDIA Entomologists!" and the draw of grand prizes - BMW 318i and Nissan Primera.

Gigabyte party was organized in a large marquee on the lake shore, with magnificent barbeque for More IT participants. Prize draw was inspired by a very popular TV show "The Last Hero". The lucky winner from Barnaul company "АS Barnaul" received the ultimate prize - BMW318i.
After the prize draw MERLION dealers welcomed the famous Russian pop band "Hi Fi".

NVIDIA party was equally exciting and captivating. Contest participants were launching paper planes, dancing with fan and searching for butterflies hidden on bodies of strip-tease girls. The luckiest entomologist was from "AC" company, Makhachkala city. He was the one to grab Nissan Primera.

The party continued with charming "Strelki" girls band.

Summarizing the results of the conference in his concluding remarks, the CEO of MERLION Nikolay Artemenko noted: "More IT is a very important opportunity to get the feedback from out partners, to better understand their needs and focus on their interests. I am sure that this format of communication will allow us to enhance the quality of our service and design a customized set of services for all our strategic partners.

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