Your new improved PC Dealer

The candle often burns late into the night in the PC Dealer editorial offices but the past few weeks have seen truly heroic efforts. Our labours have had but one purpose: to bring you a brand new, redesigned newspaper. Our old, familiar look had just about had its day and we wanted to increase our news coverage too. We have done that, and this week we carry comprehensive Comdex coverage and even more news pages.

We have also beefed up our analysis and opinion columns with new regulars, which will give you information and advice on marketing, public relations and European channel developments. Our weekly year 2000 column will highlight the legal problems resellers will have to cope with as the millennium approaches. And we will be bringing you regular recruitment features to help you solve the perennial skills shortage. Every week in Dealer Viewpoint, a reseller will be given space to highlight the problems they face, or solutions they have discovered, or just to moan about some current aspect of life in the channel. This week also sees the launch of our venture marketing column, written by Ken Olisa, one of the most respected venture marketers in the UK. It is designed to help you make the best of any opportunities that come your way, so we hope you will contact Ken through the pages of Dealer and have all your trickiest problems solved.

And that's not all. Over the next few weeks and into the new year, we will be bringing you even more columns, information and new regular features, all with one aim in mind - to give you the news, comment, analysis and information you need to help you develop your business.

This is your newspaper, so get in touch with us and tell us what you think of the new, improved PC Dealer. We think all the effort has been worth it, but please let us know. We'd love to hear from you.

The IT skills shortage is becoming a major problem for companies.

In this week's issue we take a look at how CRT Group is investing £70 million over a two-year period on a scheme called Career IT (page 83).

It is targeted at people who probably equate IT with rocket science - non-graduates and older people. There are certainly enough ex-employees of downsized corporations to staff any large helpdesk. CRT Group deserves the channel's whole-hearted support for this initiative, which could put thousands of unemployed people back into productive work in one of the UK's major industries.

CRT Group has come up against a chorus of disapproval from rivals saying it cannot be done. Nonsense. Over-40s and non-graduates have experience and enthusiasm in abundance, and companies which have staked their reputations on them, like B&Q, have had their expectations fulfilled.

We wish them every success.