SEC/N Thoughts
Gary Alexander, President, SEC/N -- Semiconductor International, 4/1/2002
Judy Creswell's article in the Feb. 4 edition of Fortune magazine is titled "Cisco's Worst Nightmare (and Sun's and IBM's and Nortel's and...)." Creswell subtitled her article, "Tech's big guns are waging war with a new foe: used-equipment sellers," and then goes on to paint a pretty ugly picture of the telecom industry's used equipment dealers.
Quote: "(Dealer's name) is a denizen of high tech's gray market, a realm of fast-talking smoothies who buy leftover routers, servers, and other networking gear for pennies on the dollar and resell them at a profit." Unfortunately, the quotes from the dealer in question did not do much to improve this image and I'm sure by now that every OEM in the telecom industry, plus others, has Judy's article on their internal, "See, I told you so" list.
Fortunately for the semiconductor industry, several leading companies had the foresight in the mid-90s to anticipate the future growth potential of the semiconductor used equipment's international market, as well as the need for ethics and professionalism among the dealers and refurbishers who service that market place. Starting with a few benchmark companies, that consortium's numbers and reputation have grown to where, today, SEC/N is internationally known for its member companies' commitment to ethics, standards, professionalism and education. Even companies that are not members of SEC/N recognize the positive impact that this effort has had on the way the used equipment business is conducted internationally in the semiconductor industry. It appears the communications industry might do well to follow suit or, better yet, join forces.
The overwhelming majority of the dealers and refurbishers involved in the buying and selling of used equipment are reputable. The unethical ones can only remain in existence if other companies continue to support them by buying the equipment and services that they have to offer. Unfortunately, the damage inflicted by the Fortune article to the used equipment industry's reputation is already done.
| Author Information |
| Contact Gary Alexander at galexander@secninc.com and visit SEC/N's Web site at www.secninc.com. |
