CHS sets sights on PC ambitions

Garry Boon, UK regional director of CHS Electronics, has lashed out at hardware manufacturers with claims that vendors make decisions that are detrimental to resellers.

The allegations were made as the distributor prepares to launch a range of non-branded PCs.

Speaking last week about the distributor's recent acquisitions, which include Vobis and Metro-logie, Boon said: 'It is our intention to deliver a full range of PCs with the aim of giving value to resellers.'

'Some manufacturers make decisions that are not the best for the reseller and they suffer,' he added. 'You cannot make the reseller change.'

Boon specifically pointed to changes in discount terms and marketing funds as having a 'knock-on effect for the reseller but said: 'CHS will maximise this. We can buy more efficiently than the manufacturers.'

He denied that CHS' move to offer resellers and system integrators a cheaper alternative to the larger PC vendors would cause conflict.

But James Wickes, managing director of Ideal Hardware, said: 'The point of a distributor is that it should act as a cushion and not be selling machines to the reseller.'

He added: 'Carrying out integration work on the behalf of manufacturers is hard enough without the reseller having to build to brands, which is very expensive.'

Peter Rigby, director of marketing and communications at CHS, said manufacturing facilities for the non-branded PCs and part-configured systems will come from Maxdata once the acquisition has been completed. CHS bought Maxdata alongside Peacock and the Vobis retail group for $320 million earlier this year (PC Dealer,15 July).

He said the European facility could produce up to 75,000 PCs per year to allow CHS to infiltrate 40 per cent of the market, which Rigby claimed was the area left untouched by larger PC vendors, including Hewlett Packard, Dell and Compaq.

But one reseller said: 'I do not see how a corporate customer would want to go for this. The sector likes large vendor branded PCs.'