GOLD COLUMN

It's been a bloodbath of a summer for the UK IT reseller community, as witnessed by preliminary data from IDC (www.idc.com) for the second quarter of this year.
In fact, according to IDC's Q2 figures for the entire EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) regions, PC shipments across the region only increased 9.6 per cent when compared with the same period last year.
IDC says that the slower-than-anticipated recovery of the corporate marketplace with poor `post-Y2K' hardware investments continued to affect volume desktop products and servers. Consumer sales, however, remained healthy and strong notebook sales drove unit growth.
According to the market research firm, the adoption of a wait-and-see approach from large businesses with regard to faster processors and Windows 2000 has also served to slow growth in the business market.
Revealingly, IDC says that the French market was the most affected whereas the United Kingdom and Germany sustained double-digit unit growth rates.
Andy Brown, IDC's senior analyst for IDC's EMEA PC Tracker division, said that the slower-than-expected recovery in the corporate market can largely be attributed to investment in other areas such as e- commerce and supply chain management, the adoption of a wait-and-see approach to rapidly improving technology, as well as the current lack of impact of Windows 2000 on business renewals.
The good news, however, is that sales of notebooks were very strong in all markets. This perhaps explains why Compaq (see below) introduced no less than five new notebook configurations to its UK dealer channel during August.

Compaq's customisable PCs
Compaq has launched a range of Presarios that can be customers to meet end users' personal tastes. The PC vendor says that users can personalise their Presario notebook or PC in different ways including changing the PC exterior and keyboard using a new 'MyStyle' Accent Colour Kit with a range of colours such as Ruby Red, Amber Orange or Sapphire Blue.
The computers also feature an Easy Access capability, a 'pop-off' panel giving access to memory, PCI slots and hard drive and a new Internet keyboard featuring an 'e-mail-waiting' light which lights up the PC to notify up to 10 household members that there is new e-mail.
The customisable Presario PCs and notebooks are available in a wide range of models through dealers and retail outlets priced from 899 pounds. In a related story, Compaq has just extended its range of notebooks by a further five models priced from 999 pounds.

Compaq, +44-20-8332-3000, www.compaq.co.uk

PST launches stock management Web site
PST, the redistribution and excess stock firm, has launched a Web site to address what it calls "poor stock management" among manufacturers and distributors.
The specialist firm, which posted an annual turnover of 125 million pounds last year, has come a long way since the late 1980s/early 1990s when it bought and sold excess inventory in the UK channel, selling the kit into Eastern Europe.
According to John Broderick, PST's business development director, who is heading up the new operation, the Internet has accelerated the pace of the market, reducing product life cycles and putting some vendors in an impossible situation.
"PST provides a service that is increasingly in demand. We have to turn down 85 per cent of the stock offered; the online service will help us handle more volume," he explained, The aim of the Web site, he said, is to provide an online database of all available stock, but the service will keep suppliers' details private unless otherwise requested.
John Meredith, PST's marketing manager, said that, if a firm wants to offload 50,000 unsold printers, it <->doesn't want to publicise the fact, and so prefers to keep its name withheld.

PST, +44-1628-782233, www.pst.co.uk

One Stop fails - 100 staff on the street
One Stop Computer Solutions, the retail arm of Software Warehouse, sold as a management buyout in May of this year, has gone the wall. The firm, which has 30 outlets across the UK, has shut its doors and laud off around 100 of its staff, appointing Pricewaterhouse Coopers to act as liquidators.
The failure of the operation comes at a critical time for Software Warehouse, which has reverse merged itself into Jungle.com, the Web- based retail arm, headed by Steve Bennett.
Jungle.com, which is looking to float on the stock market some time in the future, is reported to be waiting for around 50 per cent of the stock proceeds from the sale of One Stop. Although One Stop was sold to the management team in May for one pound, around 800,000 pounds worth of stock was sold as well.

Jungle.com, www.jungle.com

Brits get ripped off for their PCs - official
According to research just completed by Arthur Andersen, PCs and peripherals really are more expensive in the UK than elsewhere in Western Europe. For its research, the IT consultancy compared the cost of 156 consumer products in Britain, Belgium, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the US.
The survey showed that UK consumers paid an average of 802 pounds for a PC, whereas Germans pay 700 pounds for the same computer, Americans pay 647 pounds and the Spaniards get away with 626 pounds - that's 22 per cent less than the British price.
Investigating the research, ComputerActive magazine, the computer weekly for the consumer marketplace in the UK, looked at other areas of the IT marketplace. The conclusion should worry resellers, as all of the cheapest prices were on the Web.
For office suites, a quick check with Dabs Direct at www.dabs.com revealed that Corel's WordPerfect office suite is only 210 pounds - 176 pounds less than the cheapest standard edition of Office 2000, or the perfectly adequate Ability Office, that can be bought for around 50 pounds at www.uk.ability.com.
Two better bargains, the magazine noted, were to be found at ThinkFree Office, www.thinkfree.com, as well as Star Office from Sun, www.sun.com - both are free, bar the cost of a hefty download.

www.ac.com