Dicker Data founder and guru, David Dicker, has been promising some big news for a very long time. In fact, every journalist at ARN at some stage or another in the past year was told by Dicker or his faithful marketing and communications manager, Ben Johnson, that 'Something Big' was in the pipeline.
As the months dragged by and successive ARN journalists pestered either Dicker or Johnson only to get the same answer, it would have been easy to discount the likelihood of 'Something Big' happening as a little bit of a marketing ploy. Except Dicker doesn't work that way.
He's as blunt as he is sharp. If Dicker says 'Something Big' is in the wind then surely enough it is.
Today that Something Big rumbled into town and the channel shook a little. Dicker snaffled up Express Data, a lovely buy for DD if ever there was one. Hello new distributor world.
Don't worry too much that Dicker Data is now a billion-dollar baby. That's just numbers. Nice numbers. Big fat nice numbers. But let's look at the clout Dicker now has and why every other distie in the channel will now be on the phone to its key vendor partners and resellers, shoring up relationships, checking everything is okay, seeing if there's a better deal to be had.
Dicker now numbers amongst its vendors Fujitsu, Samsung, Toshiba, HP, Microsoft, Cisco, the highly-aggressive-in-2014 Lenovo, SAP, Watchguard, Sony, Symantec, ASUS, Belkin, APC by Scheider - it's a list that packs a wallop.
It is no secret that Ingram Micro and Synnex form the axis-of-three major disties, although Distribution Central, Avnet, Westcon Group and the emerging WhiteGold Solutions all have a strong hold on various sectors of the distributor market.
But for sheer weight of potential clout and value, Ingram and Synnex remain the two heavyweights most capable of either trying to do something about the new, much bigger Dicker, or losing out to David's little monster.
Sometimes there is nothing more appealing than a company growing legs. It breeds confidence and perhaps the desire to shift allegiance and move to this shinier, new and improved, mob which potentially has a lot to offer.
So watch out for deals. And watch out for more acquisitions by all three.
But also watch out for any company that might feel that Dicker has suddenly got too big for his boots and thinks it might feel better off - or greater love - elsewhere, perhaps at a destination more boutique or specialist.
To be honest, anything could happen. Acquisitions this size shake up the market and bring with them a whole lot of cause and effect that will filter down the chain and change the shape of distribution in the Australian channel. How Dicker fits ED and rolls out his new breed DD will be a key component in how this all pans out. And as the deal doesn't finalise until April 1, for now it is a waiting game.
But for the next seven weeks there will be a veritable downpour of lunches, catch-ups, phone calls and emails across the channel. There is much to lose and everything to gain.
