Ideal Hardware believed to have poached some of Clarity Technology's staff

Ideal Hardware is believed to have lost up to nine staff to rival distributor Clarity Technology, which has been poaching storage professionals to aid its market expansion.

CRN has learned that Mark Walker, director of open storage products at Ideal Hardware, resigned from the company last week. A further eight Ideal employees are also understood to have accepted positions at Clarity.

Alex Tatham, director of commercial products at Ideal Hardware, confirmed Walker’s departure to CRN. “Mark Walker is definitely leaving. I heard it in an internal email this week,” he said.

Clarity is looking to expand further into the storage space, as it mirrors the move made by Sun, one of its major vendor partners. The firm said it is also looking to expand further into the data-management space.

Ian French, formerly managing director of Ideal Hardware and now consultant to Clarity’s parent company Horizon Technology Group, told CRN that Clarity’s internal expansion would strengthen its presence in the enterprise sector.

“We are recruiting people from storage distribution,” he said. “All of the people we have offered jobs to at Ideal have accepted.”

Nigel Ghent, marketing director for the UK and Ireland at EMC, a vendor partner to both Ideal and Clarity, told CRN: “We have no favouritism towards any distributor. We support any business moves made by [channel partners] to get our products out into the market.”

A source, who asked to remain anonymous, told CRN: “At the beginning of the year, Ideal made some redundancies. This could have left the remaining employees on edge.”