Revolution leads to customer war

Two former business partners are in dispute over their old customerbase

A war has been declared between former business partners Ian Donaldson and Ian Jones after allegations that Donaldson is targeting Jones' customers five months after quitting their joint venture.

The two, both founders of Micro P in the UK, had been running storage distributor CD Revolution until June this year, when Donaldson left to set up storage firm Micrologie as a subsidiary of the PC assembler Akhter.

Donaldson, MD of Micrologie denied competing for the same customers.

But he said: 'I'm at war. Anyone who's not with me is against me. Business is war.'

Sources alleged that the two distributors, which both sell Yamaha as well as other vendors, are now squabbling over the same customer base.

David Nuttall, MD of CD-Revolution, said: 'You never know what customers you might have had and any rival is going to compete, but we haven't noticed any difference. If Micrologie are using our database, then that's naughty and we'd like to know about it.'

He acknowledged relations had deteriorated between Jones and Donaldson.

'They had worked together many years: they went to school together, but they wanted to go their separate ways - nobody agrees all the time,' he said.

'Donaldson had just passed his fiftieth birthday and wanted to do something different.'

CD Revolution is understood to have been under pressure since prices more than halved in the CD recorder market. One source said: 'The business came and went and they fell out over that.'

The change in company management was suggested in March after both Jones and Donaldson stepped down as co-MDs. Jones now works from home as marketing director.

CD Revolution has recently branched out into Internet products, signing distribution agreements with two Internet firms - UK-based Autonomy and Israeli/US Vocaltec.

The storage distributor has a turnover of u10.3 million and employs 40 people.