17 March 2008
by Paul Kunert
A rationalisation exercise to address over-distribution in the UK has seen AMD end its agreement with Computer 2000, its least performing partner in the region.
This leaves the chip vendor holding pan-European contracts with three master distributors — Avnet, Microtronica and Ingram — and a UK-only agreement with Manchester-based VIP Computers.
With fewer large system builders surviving the tough PC market in 2007 and existing distributors out-selling C2000 on AMD, Andrew Buxton, European channel director at the chip maker, said the time was right to make changes.
"We were over-distributed in the UK, but have addressed that and brought more balance to our market," he said, adding it only needed one broadline partner in each country and "Ingram [had] delivered higher [UK] volumes."
The volumes supplied by AMD made it difficult to justify the franchise, said Eddie Moore, general manager for PC components at C2000.
"From our side, supply was the biggest issue. It was felt most [acutely] on the hot sellers and we weren’t getting sufficient supply to make [the line] viable," he revealed.
C2000 also works with Intel and Moore believed AMD had lost the edge over its arch rival in recent times, adding: "AMD has clearly had the wrong strategy."
In the third and fourth quarters of 2006, AMD upset many in the channel by struggling to match demand for desktop chips with supply, only months after signing up to an OEM deal with Dell.
But aside from the lacklustre launch of the Barcelona server chip last year, which was not freely available, Buxton insisted AMD had not experienced serious product constraints.
Supply was not an issue in the market, according to Sukh Rayat, EMEA vice president of sales at AMD distributor Avnet Technology Solutions, who also unsurprisingly agreed the vendor had been over-distributed.
"Three masters are about the right level," he said. "That is where most markets are heading to. It is about focus and having the right distributors."
