Macromedia flashes HQ to Singapore

The company has also unveiled plans to restructure its channel programs, introducing a direct sales force for the first time in Australia and focusing new initiatives on increased sales into the enterprise IT market.

Macromedia's recently appointed Asia-Pacific vice-president Peter O'Connor – who joins the company from a Singapore-based VP role with I2 – said the company had relocated to Asia in order to get closer to the region's vast pools of Web development talent.

O'Connor said the company also wanted to be nearer to global and regional OEM customers, many of which are also based in Singapore, as well as to better address piracy problems.

The decision to move the headquarters operation from Melbourne was made just four weeks ago. As a result, Macromedia will shut-down the Kew-based Melbourne facility, with the company's Australia-New Zealand offices now based in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Stanmore.

He said Australia would be used as a pilot in the region for the introduction of a direct sales force from next January. Direct sales would then be rolled out progressively across the region over the following 18 months.

O'Connor promised Macromedia's present reseller partners would not be disadvantaged by the direct sales plan, saying all fulfilment operations would be conducted by channel partners.

Resellers would generate more revenue – not less – as a result of Macromedia direct sales, because sales volumes would increase, O'Connor promised.

The company planned to initially add just one direct sales staffer, based in Sydney, although more would be added in Australia and then New Zealand as volumes increased.

O'Connor said the direct sales strategy was not being introduced in isolation and that a completely revamped channel program would be introduced from early next year – including a plan to build a “preferred reseller” initiative that will increasingly target enterprise and government customers.

Macromedia country manager John Treloar said specific details of the new channel program had not yet been finalised. He said the company would seek to appoint between 10 and 20 “preferred supplier” resellers to service enterprise and government customers. The company also unveiled its latest content publishing application, a low-end package targeting non-technical employees that need to update corporate or small business Web sites called Contribute. The product will be available in early December for $249 through retail stores.