Gateway in doghouse over ALR stoppage in channel

Direct vendor Gateway 2000 has run into trouble with its two UK distributors over a lack of supply of multiprocessing servers in the channel.

The two distributors affected are Northamber and Norwood Adam, which were originally signed by ALR, prior to Gateway's purchase of the vendor.

Commenting on the vendor's treatment of UK resellers, one distributor said: 'There's a lot of politicking going on in the background, but for us it means we have had no stock of ALR servers. We haven't spoken to Gateway 2000 in the UK yet and we've been very much in the hands of ALR UK.'

But Manny Pinon, sales manager at Norwood Adam, said: 'The truth of the matter is that there have been problems, but they have eased off now.

It has been hard for us to get supplies.'

Pinon added that Gateway 2000 had assured the distributor that supplies would be in place soon.

Another source claimed that stock was still a problem. The company had waited while it was trying to supply ALR servers to its customers, one of which was the London Ambulance Service. Corporate customers were 'sick of waiting', he pointed out.

Gateway 2000 was unavailable for comment, but when it acquired ALR in the spring, it maintained it would keep its existing channels happy.

At the Comdex Fall show two weeks ago, Gateway previewed an eight-way multiprocessing server, dubbed by the company as the Eightway Gateway, manufactured by its ALR subsidiary.