by Stuart Wilson, Wednesday 4 February 2009 (Channel EMEA)

More than a dozen vendors from Gyeonggi Province in South Korea have signed up to attend DISTREE XXL 2009 in Monaco. EMEA’s premier event for the distribution channel represents an unparalleled opportunity for the Korean delegation to demonstrate a range of innovative technologies and business opportunities to potential partners from across the region.

Gyeonggi Province surrounds the South Korean capital of Seoul and is home to many global enterprises including Samsung, LG and Hynix. The region is the country’s core manufacturing base and is also home to some 120,000 small and medium companies. Vendors attending from Gyeonggi Province include Diasonic, Digifi, NeoLux, Netforyou, Luxiium, Moimstone, Mtron, Pentacle, RadioGears, Sammi, Shehwa, Trigem and Wellbas.

The vendors present plan to showcase a wide range of innovative technologies at DISTREE XXL. Joseph J. Jo, VP and general manager at Luxiium, said: “Our Luxeed keyboard is the world’s first programmable colour keyboard. Each individual key can be color-coded by user. Luxeed allows its users to change the colors of each keycap in any way they want using 512 different colours whatever it’s a colour pattern or a rainbow pattern. The colour pattern created by user can be saved in file and retrieved later.”

Luxiium will use DISTREE XXL as a springboard for finding distribution partners within EMEA. Jo reckons that Luxiium has a compelling margin proposition and a product that meets consumer demands for increased individuality and sensitivity.

Shehwa Company will demonstrate its privacy products at DISTREE XXL, focusing on its “Magic Screen” privacy filter – a film attached to the LCD screen of a mobile phone or notebook that prevents the screen from being seen by other people.

Park Jae Hyung, assistant manager at Shehwa, explained: “When you attach this film to your LCD screen of mobile phone or computer monitor, you can enjoy mobile banking, e-mail or games in public place without being overlooked by other people, because this film can be seen from the front, but it is not possible to see the screen from the side, an angle of more than 30 degrees.”

Hyung says that only Shehwa and 3M hold the patent to this technology with Shehwa able to supply these products to EMEA distributors at highly competitive prices. Shehwa is also offering to support potential distribution partners in marketing its product portfolio in EMEA.

Also hailing from Gyeonggi Province, Mtron Storage Technology operates in one of the IT industry’s hottest market segment: solid state drives (SSDs). Eddie Lee, sales and project manager at Mtron, said: “Mtron SSD is a high performance flash memory storage device for avoiding the system bottlenecks often experienced while using conventional disk drives. Mtron SSDs can immediately replace hard disks without any additional software installation.”

“We want to expand our retail distribution in EMEA – especially in Europe,” added Lee. “We consider UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain as the main markets in EMEA. Mtron SSDs are state-of-the-art products. We will enlarge the scope of our business activities in the core markets first and then try to expand to the other EMEA markets as well.”

Mtron reckons that the SSD market will be worth a whopping US$10 billion in 2010 and the company is offering a range of business benefits to distributors including short lead times, attractive payment terms, technical support and MDF. Mtron reckons that demand for its products – and understanding of the technical benefits – will increase as the adoption of netbooks in the EMEA market continues to grow.

Diasonic Technology will showcase its digital voice recorder and e-dictionary device solutions at DISTREE XXL. Dae Jung Kim, general manager at Diasonic, said: “We want to set-up a sales and distribution network in EMEA region and eventually find long-term local partners that can introduce unique and value-added products [to the market].”

“Last year, we streamlined and reshuffled our business items. This year, we will focus on our 3 flagship products of PDVR, e-dictionary and professional digital voice recorder in overseas markets,” Kim added.

TriGem Computer is now focusing on its Averatec lifestyle PC brand. TriGem’s 18.4″ Averatec A1 ‘all-in-one’ PC has already made inroads into the US, European and Korean markets. The Averatec A1 was rated as top selling ‘all-in-one’ PC at Best Buy USA at the end of January, according to TriGem.

Suhee Lee, European marketing manager at TriGem, added: “All the countries in EMEA are important potential markets to us. We support co-op marketing and promotion and make MDF available to distributors. Our PCs are manufactured in Korea meaning that we can guarantee the quality of our products.”

TriGem expects to broaden its product range in 2009 with potential additions to its portfolio including an ultra portable 10.1″ netbook and a thin and light 13.3″ notebook. “The PC trend is starting to change and the demand for ‘all-in-one’ PCs and notebooks is growing,” added Lee.

Innovation is the name of the game for many of the other vendors making the journey to Monaco from Gyeonggi Province. NeoLux will showcase its NUUT electronic book reader while Netforyou will focus on its high-end JNAVI car navigation system. Wellbas will look for potential channel partners for its HiSAVER power strip outlets.

Elsewhere, Moimstone will be ready with a portfolio of innovative IP telephony products; Pentacle will showcase its multi-pad dual display presentation notebook product, Radiogears will focus on home network media players and IP network boxes, while Sammi will offer a range of rugged computing solutions.

Source: Channel EMEA
http://www.channelemea.com/spip.php?article1096