PC Retail

When was the last time you opened the paper, turned on the radio or switched on the TV and didn't hear about all the economic doom and gloom of the 'Credit Crunch', which is evidently happening all around us?

And we're reminded of it everywhere; when we shop for food, when we buy petrol, when we glance in the window of any estate agent to see empty desks and miserable-looking staff.

So why should this column be any different? I'm afraid it won't.

Dealer troubles
I'm very sad to report the demise of two long-established and well-respected Apple resellers, in very different parts of the UK, who have both struggled to survive in the rising tide of their clients going bust or their customers simply spending less money.

Mac-1 Support has been Telford's only main source of business and personal Apple Computer support for over ten years and were members of this Association for many years.

Keith Cox, its MD and a veteran of the Mac channel, called me earlier this month to tell me the sad news that it was closing its doors after seeing many of its larger support contract clients also close down.

Mac-1's engineering team are now freelance, and supporting their former clients directly; but the demise of such a well established and locally renowned reseller always causes me great concern and I hope that a replacement organisation will rise in the area to take its place.

And even more sadly, we've recently heard from The Shetland Mac Shop in Lerwick – the most northern Apple reseller in the UK – that it will also be closing for business in the near future.

The Association assisted this excellent dealership to attain Apple Authorised Reseller status some years ago, despite the fact it fell well below most of the criteria required by Apple for this accreditation. But the business has become increasingly uneconomic to run a full-service dealership in the face of mailorder competition on hardware.

Goodbye, John, we'll miss you
I was very sad to hear of the recent passing of John Lewis. John was very significantly involved in the Mac reseller channel since the early inception of the Mac and was a well-known face in the industry.

He set up the original Macintosh Association – in many ways the forerunner of this Association – and also started the original Macintosh User Group along with the ClarisWorks and FileMaker user groups.

Many long-standing Apple resellers will remember the excellent MacTimes periodical that he published for many years before we all started getting our new product information and reviews straight from the internet.

In recent years, John established and ran MaxResponse from his home in Oxford, enthusiastically and expertly helping and assisting many hundreds of Mac users in the city and surrounds.

But he also took an interest in this Association and often gave the benefit of his insight and expertise to us. His presence will be certainly missed and our thoughts are with his wife and family.

Channel Expo Report
Yes, we know Channel Expo was way back in May, but somebody pointed out we never actually got around to publishing a 'Mac-slant' on the show and its exhibitors. Well, as the dust has now settled, I'll just point out a few Mac-relative developments at the show that might have otherwise passed the Apple channel by:

TRUST had a major presence at the show, and was launching its new (and very impressive) range of Mac-focused peripherals and accessories. It'll be up against the traditional Mac-channel suppliers of Macally, Griffin and Contour and lately Belkin, but the range it is launching is pretty significant nonetheless.

It includes some very goodlooking mice, an excellent USB headset, a slimline keyboard that appears to almost match the latest Apple style, and – very interestingly – a tablet which is likely to give Wacom some serious competition. You can see the range at www.trust.com/mac

CompTIA was there and spoke to me about a partnering arrangement on its training and accreditation courses.

Grafoteam is the UK distributor for Indafa cleaning products for laptop and desktop computers. We've seen many such products over the years, but these really do appear to be well-designed, are evidently high-quality and obviously a serious margin earner to go with any sale or support call.

The new Mac Dealer Directory
By the time you are reading this, we'll have put the finishing touches to the new Mac Dealer Directory that will be appearing in print on the pages of MacUser, MacWorld and MacFormat magazines.

This is a major new service, and the directory will be open for entries from any resellers who sell, support or maintain Macs, not just our members (although our members will get a special rate, naturally).

Members of other Associations
It's been another month with a number of calls and emails on the same subject. This time it was 'do we offer a special membership rate for members of other Associations?' The answer is yes; if you're a member of the PCA, Brigantia, CompTIA, Integra, ITACS or FixITlocal, then we offer an Associate Member rate of just £50+ VAT per year.

Creative Live Expo
I'm pleased to announce that we've been selected as a 'Media Partner' by the organisers of Creative Expo Pro – incorporating Mac Expo UK, which was formally known as Mac Live Expo – which is being held at Olympia in London between October 23rd-25th.

This new show will have a more multi-platform feel to it, with areas for Windows and Linux applications, but the Mac community will certainly be well represented. If you want to find out more then please visit www.creativepro-expo.co.uk