Poland is Wyse Technology Inc’s fastest growing market worldwide – it generated $4m there last year – and to capitalise on this, the company has set up a wholly-owned subsidiary there, its first in Eastern Europe. It is also negotiating with Polish manufacturers to establish a terminal assembly operation in the country. The company’s new Warsaw-based office has a skeleton three-man crew to provide marketing support and technical assistance to its existing distributors. Product marketing manager Zbigniew Maik disclaimed the possibility that Wyse would sell directly into Poland in the near future. But he did stress the importance of having a local office and a resident project manager in case the group secures any large government contracts. He said he is working on a couple of deals at the moment. Vice-president for sales and marketing, David Everett confirmed Wyse’s interest in Poland at Computer Expo 93; We have investigated the market in Poland for more than a year and have had broad discussions with the public authorities about the opportunities for companies like us here. He added, During the last year, we have found no lack of capability to manufacture in Poland. The decision to manufacture here would be a multi-variable issue; the economy of scale in the Far East, where we make 1m terminals a year is a big factor to overcome, but there are obviously factors other than this. Everett said that Wyse is currently deciding whether to buy manufacturing capacity or a manufacturing company rather than establishing a green-field site. One possibility, he said, would be for the company to package key caps, firmware and manuals in Poland and switch manufacture of co-axial AS/400 terminals there from Taiwan. The latter have only just been launched, and Everett said that economies of scale are not a major issue. He didn’t rule out the possibility of Wyse using a Polish site to supply the entire European market, saying that is an area I would not want to get into.
