Anixter post-dated my period in Chicago, and I've had no direct...

Anixter post-dated my period in Chicago, and I've had no direct involvement with them. So I don't know any more specifics about the deal than can be gleaned from TZ's announcements.

The initial product is a subset of the Cloudcom technology suite, and from information which is publicly available, uses a simple interface to third party networked control equipment. This is separate from the technology provided by RPM.

From the above, it is safe to conclude that this initial product satisfies a subset of the data centre security space. The overall architecture is fairly well depicted in the network architecture diagrams in the 2008 annual report (of which, incidentally, I am the original author.)

From reading the announcements re Anixer, it seems that the arrangement with TZ includes joint development of an expanded product range moving forward.

At the risk of misquoting, "one distributor relationship does not a company make", I am not of the opinion that Anixer is the panacea for all things - just one step on the way to the mountain top. Hopefully it's not all we've got. If so, I guess its better than nothing, and may save the day whilst some fast pedaling is done.