Flashpoint rejigs for dealer appeal

The distributor hopes a diverse product line-up will attract moreresellers

The Macro Group reinforced its commitment to subsidiary Flashpoint last week in a move to woo dealers and resellers.

Flashpoint, owned by $250 million firm Diploma, is moving from its core competancy of memory and has redesigned its logo to mark the change.

The holding company set up Flashpoint two years ago and has signed a fresh set of vendors, said Sukh Rayat, the company's general manager.

It will push Motorola's fresh range of Mac clones and NT Power PC machines.

Rayat said that resellers were not now wedded to the Intel branding.

'We held a seminar in Slough last week to update our customers. We were seen as a memory components distributor but now we've diversified.'

Flashpoint boasts 15 vendors in its product line-up, including ATI, AMD and Cyrix.

Rayat said firms such as US Robotics, Texas Instruments, SGS-Thompson, Videologic and Plasmon had realised the wisdom of a not-necessarily Intel approach. TI is moving in to networking, using Flashpoint as one of its chief routes to market.

Rayat claimed Cyrix processors were now so sought-after that even IBM Microelectronics was unable to supply the product, despite the fact it did not use them in its own machines.

He said: 'We are now a one-stop shop. We are still committed to developing long-term franchised relationships with vendors that offer alternatives to industry standard solutions.'

Flashpoint is a master distributor for the Motorola range of products in the UK. It has grown its business from u7.5 million to u20 million in two years. Motorola holds 60 per cent of the 28.8Kbps modem market.

Flashpoint has a 20,000 sq ft warehouse in Crewe.