Acorn loses Beebug as strategy is overhauled

St Albans reseller, Beebug, is scrapping its retail outlet and catalogue operation due to uncertainty in the Acorn market.

Beebug, one of the UK's largest Acorn dealerships, delivered a further blow to the Acorn community with the announcement that its retail arm will cease trading on 13 November. The retail team has been made redundant, including retail manager Jeremy Botterill.

Botterill revealed that the market had dried up as potential Acorn purchasers had been holding out for the Risc 2 PC, known as Phoebe.

The #2 million project was scrapped by Acorn and has an uncertain future, although rumours suggest it will be picked up by Dutch manufacturer Tulip (PC Dealer, 21 October).

'The Acorn sector needs fresh blood and Tulip could do the job,' Botterill said.

But he added: 'Acorn was proud that its marketing policy was by word of mouth. Companies can't do that in today's market. Acorn made some serious mistakes for the channel. It bought products in bulk a year ago, so we were shipping eight speed CD-Roms today.'

He stated that the business model needed to be altered to resemble the PC channel with more value-add opportunities.

One industry observer commented: 'Acorn is in the middle of restructuring its business model, changing into a Web, new media, StrongARM business.

'The problem is that the company has not clearly communicated this to its channel, most probably because it's trying not to scare it and jeopardise its present revenue source.'