I have to agree with Andy’s comment “The shock that we’ve seen in the financial markets says that almost anything could happen.” Who would have thought that great institution like HBOS could be brought to their knees so quickly? It makes one doubt all the certainties that we took for granted in our industry. I can only speak from an Indie channel perspective but if I was a distributor, vendor or service provider I would be looking for breadth at the movement rather than relying on the multiples and online retailers. The other thing I would be doing is thinking beyond traditional marketing methods and I would be looking to engage either directly, or through supportive distributors, with the established ‘for profit’ UK Indie communities such as Integra, NBG and Brigantia. I use the word ‘communities’ deliberately as this is quite unique and the difference between a member and a customer is quite profound. From a Brigantia perspective our forum of 1014 posting Indie members has been a lifeline to many who are leaning on their community for support in these troubled times. The bulk of Indies will survive because they are used to low margins on hardware sales and have been moving their businesses ever more toward service over the last three years. Frankly I do not see how the multiples can ever compete on service given the knowledge base and relationships required to deliver this.

Vendors could do far worse at the moment than making over stocks available to the Indie channel through the solid and well respected distributors working hard with our comminutes such as Westcoast, Midwich, Enta and others. Vendors might be surprised how easy it is to get their message straight to the Indie community through the established UK owned Indie communities at very reasonable cost.