Panasonic strengthens toughbook team

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 08 December 2011 01:02

IT People - People

Capping off what it says has been a successful year of increasing sales in Australia for its Toughbook notebooks, Panasonic has appointed a new marketing head for the Toughbook range.

Group manager Toughbook for Panasonic Australia, Mark Wallis, said Andrew Smith, formerly with Sony, had been appointed product marketing manager Toughbook and would work closely with the company's key distributors and resellers and be responsible for building on Toughbook's 'recent successes in the local market while overseeing marketing strategy for the Panasonic Toughbook range.'

Smith worked for more than six years for Sony's consumer AVIT sales and product marketing divisions, in both Sydney and Tokyo.

Wallis said the latest appointment reflected the 'incredible success' Panasonic Toughbook had enjoyed over the past year. 'Panasonic Toughbook here in Australia has certainly gone from strength to strength in 2011 with some fantastic new customer wins as well as existing customers choosing to extend or refresh their Toughbook fleet,' Wallis added.

'In fact, it is now becoming quite difficult to define a 'typical' Toughbook customer, as our latest range satisfies the needs of our traditional heavy industry customers such as mining, as well as healthcare and the growing number of Australians spending time away from the office that need a notebook solution that can stand up to the rigours of the busy working day.'

Panasonic recently announced the expansion of its Australian Toughbook computer line-up, with models which Wallis said were designed to deliver enhanced performance, reliability and ROI for the mobile professional.

Wallis said the latest Toughbook range was the largest offering yet for Panasonic in Australia and features three lightweight business-rugged models alongside three fully-rugged models, and Australian customers for the notebook included Coca-Cola Amatil, Telstra, Western Power, ETSA, Honda, Port Philip Sea Pilots, BlueScope Steel, Aurora Energy and Ambulance Victoria.