Stoll faces judge over IBM Ts&Cs

Plans by IBM to impose common Ts&Cs across Europe are under threat as the company's UK arm confirmed it was suing a German distributor.

IBM UK is suing Stoll Datentechnik, a Cologne-based distributor, for nearly $600,000 for non-payment of IBM hard drives.

Mike Bell, director of sales and support at IBM UK's storage division, said his company was making an example of the German distributor. 'I run a European sales team, but contracts are done under the terms and conditions in the UK.'

The UK company had decided to take action against the distributor because its Ts&Cs state that payment must be received in 30 days. 'In diligence to our shareholders, every one of our divisions is concentrated on accounts receivable and this type of action is not assurable. We want payment in 30 days,' he said.

Common Ts&Cs still awaited approval over two divisions at IBM, he admitted.

'It is true for networking products and ourselves; we operate on a non-landed basis. We will have bespoke contracts in the vast majority of cases.'

Bell's statement was echoed by an insider at IBM, recruited by chairman Lou Gerstner as part of the company's drive to use indirect channels. 'It has proved harder to impose common Ts&Cs across the entire spectrum of divisions than we expected.

'There is a great deal of duplication and some of the divisions, especially AIX, are competing against others,' he said.

The IBM PC company has sent out a letter to its dealers harmonising Ts&Cs across Europe. An insider claimed that there were no changes to discount structures because of the new desktop machines that were launched last week.