Datrontech on support mission

Datrontech is seeking the backing of its vendors before it releases interim results, which are expected to disappoint the City and may lead to a management shake-up.

Mark Mulford, chief executive of Datrontech, has been in discussions with vendors in an effort to calm fears, claimed a source close to the company: "He wanted to be sure he had their backing before Datrontech hit a rough patch."

There was also speculation that Mulford may take a back seat and allow Neil Ledger to take over the day-to-day running, but Datron-tech was unavailable for comment.

One analyst said: "Datrontech will have had pressure from banks to get its house in order and may look at disposing of another arm."

The distributor sold its PC recycling unit RDT to Computacenter earlier this year for £1.9m.

- Confusion over Computer 2000's expected namechange to Tech Data UK, led to a small number of resellers' customers to access trade-only pricing from a C2000 website.

Inquisitive customers, who read last week's PC Dealer story about the distributor winning the Toshiba deal, typed techdata.co.uk into their browsers and accessed a trial website without full security measures in place.

Tony Rayer, owner of Cardiff reseller Sceptre, said a customer handed him a printout containing September's 'price-flash' trade-only promotional offers and asked to place an order at those prices.

Andy Dow, general manager for marketing at C2000, said: "It did happen, but we believe the number of hits was minimal."