TData ditches Tandberg Data for rival start-up, actidata

Niche storage distributor, TData, has ditched its relationship with troubled vendor, Tandberg Data, in favour of a new deal with rival start-up, actidata.

TData director, Jeremy Campbell, said it and Tandberg mutually terminated their agreement last week. He claimed the one-exclusive relationship had been increasingly turning sour after the vendor brought on multiple Australian distributors.

Norwegian-based Tandberg Data filed for bankruptcy in April. actidata was established in Germany by several former Tandberg Data employees, including its former CEO, Gudmundur Einarsson, shortly afterwards.

The two organisations are now engaged in legal action across multiple regions including Europe and Asia-Pacific. In May, new, would maintain all its subsidiaries.

TData will now be the sole representative for actidata in Australia.

“Our relationship was with the people at Tandberg Data, so we switched to actidata,” Campbell said.

He was unperturbed by the legal action and confident of actidata’s success in the local market. The vendor’s product line-up includes tape drives, autoloaders and libraries based on LTO technology, disk-based removable storage systems and RDX and LTO media.

“Actidata has the whole storage range. We have been more in the SMB space, but we’re also looking to move up the value chain,” Campbell said.

Partner initiatives, such as training and promotions, have not yet been announced, but the range would be available to its entire reseller base, he said.

In a statement, actidata’s Einarsson said it was proud to work with a well respected and experienced storage distributor like TData and hoped the relationship would significantly increase its presence in the local B2B channel.