Imago has been appointed as Sony’s fourth distributor for projectors, joining Midwich, Micro Peripherals (Micro-P) and Steljes, but will focus on selling Sony’s mid- to high-end products.
Rita Lip, product manager for projectors and displays at Sony, told CRN: “Imago will focus on our mid- to high-end range: anything that’s 2,500 lumens or above. It will cover all of our installation projectors as well as wireless. Imago is more of an audiovisual [AV] specialist, so it will give us better reach to AV resellers.”
The addition of Sony to its portfolio means that Imago can offer VARs all three projection technologies: LCD; digital light processing (DLP); and liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS).
Ian Vickerage, managing director of Imago, told CRN: “The king of LCOS projectors is Canon, and we signed a deal with it in the third quarter of last year. The king of DLP is BenQ and we have sold BenQ’s DLP projectors for years. Sony is the king of LCD projectors, so we now cover all three technologies, which opens us up to new applications.
“We also sell NEC projectors, which includes DLP and LCD projectors, but we wanted a specialist LCD vendor.”
Stuart Mizon, business manager at distributor Midwich, said: “We have sold Sony projectors since April 2005 and have been successful across the range. We stock the whole portfolio. Steljes tends to be education-focused, while Micro-P focuses on entry-level projectors. So I imagine Sony felt it wanted a distributor that would focus more on the high-end kit.”
Vickerage said: “The home market has been a disappointment for projector vendors because it hasn’t really taken off. The education market is experiencing thin margins and seeing volumes drop, so it is not a place that projector vendors should get imprisoned in. Sony will still sell in these markets, but its main thrust is going to be the high-end market.”
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