Stone becomes "manufacturing added reseller" with Lenovo deal

System builder to sell Chinese PC vendor's wares into education market

System builder Stone has tied up a deal with Lenovo to supply the Chinese vendor's technology in the UK education space.

The agreement, which takes effect today, will see the Staffordshire-based firm offer customers the manufacturer's ThinkPad notebook range, as well as ThinkCentre desktop PCs. Stone will also provide wraparound services including software configuration, encryption and memory and hard drive upgrades. In addition, the system builder will offer five-year warranties and free recycling of old hardware at its onsite facility.

Stone chief executive James Bird (pictured) said the deal will be instrumental in "helping us achieve our aggressive growth targets for 2011 and beyond". He added that the partnership effectively creates a new breed of channel player: "manufacturing-added reseller".

"The arrangement represents a move by Stone to meet the requirements of existing and new education customers with a varied product portfolio which includes tier-one products, in addition to Stone-manufactured devices," added Bird. "As well as enabling more choice, this deal will give our customers access to Lenovo products as part of a configuration package that we are happy to put our name - and reputation for unrivalled service - against."