Time warranties could mean revenue for VARs

Creditors may lose out, but resellers could gain valuable IT support sales caused by Time demise

Creditors of collapsed vendor Time may be left up to £54m out of pocket, but VARs could generate lucrative IT support sales off the back of end-users left stranded by worthless warranties.

When Granville Technology, Time’s holding company, went into administration earlier this month (CRN, 1 August) it was revealed that the firm had debts of more than £30m.

However, Simon Rothchild, a representative at administrators Grant Thornton UK, told CRN: “There are suppliers that will be affected and which potentially would lose out to the tune of £35m, aside from the funds [£19m] owed to HSBC,” he said.

However, Rothchild added that since the collapse there has been increased interest in Time’s assets.

“There has been a lot of interest in the assets of Time. We have had over 300 expressions of interest, which is an impressive figure. Lots of people think they can get something of value for relatively nothing,” he said.

Hamish Robertson, managing director of Edinburgh-based IT support provider ISKM, which has begun offering a 20 per cent discount to SMEs on repairs of Time PCs in the area, said: “A lot of SMEs don’t yet realise they no longer have PC support from Time. There is an opportunity for businesses in a similar position to us to generate services sales.”

Shaune Parsons, managing director of Computer World Wales, agreed. “We have had calls from SMEs using Time computers. While the home-user PC user market won’t suit the average VAR, it is possible that some smaller business users will come to us for upgrades and systems support on Time PCs,” he said.