1998 NEWS ROUND-UP - Did we have news for you?

JANUARY

The first issue of 1998 brought the revelation that Bascrown, trading as Crown Computer Products, had crashed into administration. Another New Year casualty was The Big PC Company.

GE Capital acquired P&P from Skillsgroup for #11.5 million.

Ilion's troubled year began with staff problems over contracts. Its aim was to prevent employees leaving for competitors but all it succeeded in doing was starting the year as it meant to go on - perplexed and struggling.

Specialist Computer Holdings' takeover of Preview Data Systems resulted in creditors being forced to accept 33 per cent of outstanding debts being paid.

Microsoft began its year by being browbeaten by the DoJ over bundling Internet Explorer 4 with the Windows OS.

Compaq made its surprise bid of $9.6 billion for Digital, throwing the Alpha chip into uncertainty.

FEBRUARY

Unity offered its staff golden handcuffs with its reviewed employment contracts, in an attempt to stop them jumping ship to Landis.

AST pulled out of PCs and servers to concentrate on notebooks.

Info'Products changed its management team, while ex-Azlan director Ed Arnett resurfaced at Interquad as managing director.

The dearth of Hewlett Packard printers in the channel continued. Hitachi and Texas Instruments liquidated their $500 million joint venture, Twinstar Semiconductor.

PC Dealer exclusively revealed West-Glamorgan systems builder, Electro-Wide had plunged into administration. One of the main creditors was Northamber.

Ilion informed its sales staff that if they contacted ex-Ilion staff at Landis, they could face the sack.

MARCH

The move by vendors going direct started with Microsoft and Compaq.

Azlan issued a profit warning.

PC Dealer exclusively revealed US mail-order firm Insight Enterprises would storm into the UK market with the acquisition of Choice Peripherals.

Meanwhile, 3Com made 30 people redundant and Ilion's IBM workforce walked out of the networking distributor.

Ideal Hardware issued a profit warning and Memsolve purchased the Atlantic brand and the manufacturing facility from Electro-Wide's administrators.

Mike Lunch, former IBM UK managing director, appeared at SCC.

Computers Unlimited vowed it would continue selling Macintosh hardware despite terminating its Apple distributor status.

APRIL

KD Technology (UK) fell foul of its Singapore parent company's collapse in January.

IBM slashed the prices of its business PCs, due to excess inventory problems. SCH was signed up on the vendor's authorised assembly programme, jeopardising Northamber's position as the UK's premier assembler.

Fraudulent stock appeared on the market as AMD warned chip brokers were rebadging Intel Pentium II and AMD MMX chips.

Dixons strengthened its hold on the retail sector after buying Byte, then closing all but three stores.

Tech Data entered the UK by taking control of Computer 2000.

The Serious Fraud Office was called in at Azlan to investigate allegations of false accounting. This arose from a predicted #15 million profit eventually resulting in a #14.1 million loss. Adrian Lamb, the former group finance director, then issued a writ against Azlan, alleging breach of contract and wrongful dismissal.

Dutch manufacturer Tulip Computers withered, as it went into administration after its credit was withdrawn.

MAY

DataTec was rumoured to buy RBR Networks, throwing its Cisco-only agreement into doubt.

Apple's resellers were worried as the vendor launched its own online e-commerce site.

Landis signed a supply deal with Bay Networks, but a verbal agreement between Landis and Shiva collapsed. This prompted Landis to drop the vendor throughout Europe and sign an agreement with its arch rival Ascend. Shiva has since been acquired by Intel.

Compaq made a U-turn by deciding to move into channel assembly in Europe.

IBM's own channel assembly strategy was facing problems, as Big Blue had been having problems buying in and supplying PC components.

Multiworld Trading Company collapsed with more than #200,000 worth of debts after a disagreement with Barclays Bank. Multiworld's sister operation, mail-order firm Tag PC Technology followed suit.

Ilion issued its second profit warning in six months.

Tulip saw its fortune turn upwards after it was saved by Ingram Micro.

JUNE

Resellers were up in arms over a change in IBM's Ts&Cs which required any customer information to be handed over to the manufacturer. Big Blue then put resellers' noses further out of joint by following Dell's lead and launching the Netfinity Direct initiative, selling Intel-based servers direct to corporate buyers. Compaq revealed it would pitch to corporates and sell direct over the Net. HP described IBM's and Compaq's approach to the reseller community as naive.

Compaq, in the process of purchasing Digital, squeezed the acquisition through by a narrow vote. The fusion of the manufacturers was expected to result in the loss of up to 17,000 jobs.

Nortel moved into the networking sector with the purchase of Bay Networks for $9.1 billion.

Ilion's troubles continued as its share price plummeted once again, with the stock valued at less than #1 million.

CU served a writ against Apple for allegedly breaching its distribution agreement.

JULY

Microsoft came under fire as delays in setting sales targets for its large account resellers left them open to legal action. The misery for smaller resellers continued as the software giant slashed discounts on products available under its Microsoft Open Licence Programme.

Disqualified company director William Wilson faced DTI action when PC Dealer launched its campaign to clean up the channel after discovering he was employed as a director by SD Group and its reseller subsidiary Systems Direct, between 1996 and 1997.

Wayne Channon, chairman and chief executive of Ilion, assumed day-to-day responsibility for the networking distributor, following the swift departure of managing director Allan Mack. Troubles deepened when European sales director Charlie Stewart resigned after being overlooked for the managing director role.

Info'Products confirmed the loss of its multi-million pound supply contract with Citibank to Computacenter. Business development director Howard Dickel and head of product strategy and supply Alan White resigned.

Tesco began trials selling #799 Fujitsu and Siemens Nixdorf PCs at two UK stores. The move prompted Dixons to slash its prices and four days later, the retail giant unveiled a 233MHz PC for #599.

Seagate gave Ingram Micro its marching orders after just six months as an authorised distributor amid rumours of poor sales and a lack of value added services.

Ingram Micro and CHS Electronics sold their respective training divisions as part of a refocus on their core competencies.

Mitsubishi Electric Europe slapped Principal with a writ, claiming the distributor failed to pay a bill for nearly #250,000.

AUGUST

Microsoft's plan to increase the number of Authorised Technical Education Centres beyond a 38 caused a furore as partners claimed it would devalue accreditation.

C2000 abandoned the Brother printer range as part of a refocus on its key product lines.

HP said it would cut the salaries of 2,400 middle managers by about five per cent for three months.

The staff exodus at Info'Products continued as sales director Norman Kough left to join ICL Multivendor Computing.

Ilion's list of departures lengthened following the resignation of finance director Jeff Collard.

Datrontech shares tumbled by almost a third following a profit warning.

Ideal Hardware rushed to reassure the City that it was trading in line with expectations.

Computacenter's management practices were called into question when a PC Dealer investigation discovered that 10 former staff had files cases at the Employment Tribunal, ranging from racial and sex discrimination to unfair dismissal.

SEPTEMBER

Ilion offloaded its loss-making German, Austrian and Swiss operations as its share price slumped to a record low of 57.5p.

A City-based Compaq reseller was up in arms after Compaq approached one of its clients to discuss 'delisting' from its current supplier and buying direct.

John Lowry moved into the hot seat at Info'Products by taking over the role of UK managing director from interim Huib Winkel.

C2000 marketing director David Clark resigned.

Asda jumped onto the PC bandwagon to sell Viglen PCs in its 219 stores for a one-month trial.

As part of PC Dealer's clean-up campaign, Mike Penny, the former managing director of Omni Solutions - who was labelled the best boss in Britain - was the subject of an investigation over his business practices.

Lloyd Pinder, vice president of sales, and Nigel Judd, senior marketing manager, left Ingram Micro as the exodus of staff continued in the year that Sandy Scott joined as managing director.

Apple reseller Universal Computer Systems, which trades as Mac Supplies, crashed into administration with debts of more than #3.5 million. Mail-order business Multiple Zones took on the name.

Samsung issued Tiny Computers with a writ in an attempt to recover an outstanding debt of more than #400,000 following the collapse of a #31 million deal.

Former Ilion managing director Allan Mack joined Datrontech and was reunited with ex-Frontline colleague Mark Mulford.

OCTOBER

Scotland suffered at the hands of massive divestiture, when National Semiconductor scrapped 600 jobs at its Greenock plant, while Hyundai shelved plans for a #2.4 billion wafer fabrication plant in Dunfermline and Seagate closed its microprocessor plant.

Gateway decided to can Northamber and Norwood Adam, the two it inherited from its acquisition of ALR.

NOVEMBER

Memsolve was raided by HM Customs & Excise as the government body went on one of its biggest VAT fraud crackdowns to date.

Compaq continued to bleed key staff as small business manager Peter Blampied was poached by Dell, following the demise of channel sales manager Ian Jackson and enterprise product manager Hugh Jenkins. Datrontech UK's managing director Martin Mulligan left the distributor after only five months in the position.

Mike Watkins, former vice president of sales at Ingram Micro, won his year-long battle over claims that he was wrongfully and unfairly dismissed.

DECEMBER

Granville Technology Group slapped IBM with a writ of #40 million.

Compel picked up Info'Products UK for #10 million.

Wayne Channon, chairman of Ilion, and survivor of two consecutive profit warnings, could not survive a third and resigned.

Report compiled by Wale Azeez, Steven Palmer, Simon Robinson and Paul Grant.