Ideal signs Soyo in motherboard deal

Peripherals Distributor seeks further vendors in comeback bid.

Ideal Hardware is making a fresh foray into the motherboard business and has signed up Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer Soyo as one of its first vendors.

Talking to PC Dealer, Ed Bateman, business unit manager for the components division at Ideal, said while the distributor's core business will remain storage, it was looking at ways of bringing more associated products for systems integrators on board.

'This is not a quantum leap for us. We have always been successful in storage but we need to look at other products we can offer to our customers. We already sell disk drives and DVD drives, so we have the customer base and can sell other products to them.'

Bateman claimed that while Soyo was one of the first manufacturers it had managed to secure a deal with, it was planning to make further announcements with other motherboard vendors over the next few weeks.

'We are talking to other manufacturers. We want more than one vendor and Soyo knows that. If we build up a quality range of motherboard vendors, it will encourage our Soyo sales,' he said.

This is the second time Ideal has entered the motherboard market. It previously had a supply deal with Elite which, according to Bateman, 'did not work out for one reason or another'.

Soyo is one of several medium-sized Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers and its products support a variety of x.86 parts from vendors, including Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.