A Sharp P4P'er PM'd me this today (alot of stuff here from a tech MB)
There had been rumors circulating that Panasonic was in dire straits. Some rumors said that Panasonic was getting out of the game altogether, some said that Panasonic would continue to make SOHO machines, but was dumping the commercial-grade WORKiO line. Some said Panasonic was just dumping printers.
All of these I discarded, because Panasonic just recently announced two new WORKiO models, and will be shipping new color laser printer models along with desktop color MFPs based on those new printers, supposedly 2nd quarter of this year.
There was also a rumor going around that Panasonic was going to completely dump its dealer network and go to a distributor-only model (a'la Samsung), or that Panasonic would retain only its top 50~100 dealers and the rest would be dumped in favor of distributors. I took these rumors with a huge grain of salt, because I'd spoken to my Panasonic sales rep about such matters more than once, and he assured me that such was not to be the case.
Either he'd been lying to me, or he was just as blindsided as I was. I got a letter today from Nick Miyake, the new president of Panasonic North America. Along with most of the rest of its dealership base, I'm getting dumped. Effective March 1, I will no longer be an "Authorized Dealer", but instead will be an "Authorized Reseller".
No one at Panasonic is returning my calls today (big surprise), and I don't know what this is going to mean. My "Assigned Distributor" is NuWorld (and I hate them with a passion). I don't know what this is going to mean for special programs. Apparently our KeyAccount program is still intact, just with more middlemen in the picture, as I know have to pass those deals through the distributor. I don't know if PrizeConnection or other spiffs will remain, or if those will go away. But I'm greatly disappointed by how they handled this. Instead of having the sales reps deliver the news in person, they took the cowardly way out and delivered a form letter by certified mail.
I dunno guys... We've been a Panasonic dealer since 1985, and if this is how they toss us out the door, my loyalty is about exhausted. The other Panasonic dealers in the region have all gone Canon, perhaps that's an avenue worth investigating.
Any other (former) Panasonic dealers get their walking papers today?