Just look at the quote below from Mr Warburton and figure out who he's protecting! I for one would love to have just bought one computer over the last 20 years - I remember the fuss about CE conformity Keith, and it was the usual British Civil servants creating jobs for a law which most of the rest of Europe (esp the French and Spaniards) ignored - and probably ignores still. That's why I buy Dells for my customers! If you want people to join your trade association then advertise - don't try to frighten them into it - oh I get it - Halloween tomorrow - lets frighten all the poor PC builders! Keith, when did ANYONE get hurt by a faulty computer?

"We were a consultee to the DTI, the House of Lords Select Committee and the EU. Had we not been, Europe would have ended up with a law whereby consumers would only ever have needed to buy one computer, because they would have had the right to demand –and receive –a replacement because of non-conformance every time the system hung."

i remember that guidance from the early 90's. Local system builders were sued by council's trade enforcement depts if that exact hardware configuration hadn't been tested in an EMC chamber. Of course, simply by opening the box and upgrading the hard disc in a CE approved PC meant it was no longer the unit that had been certified and one now owned a non-CE approved PC.

Extend that principle to the high street / independent PC vendor assembling PC's to user spec's - none of these PC's will ever be CE approved by that measure. The only PC's that will ever be "legal" would come from the likes of big corporations making 10's of thousands with exactly the same hardware configuration.

Mr Warburton - you may speak for the Dell's and HP's of this world - you don't speak for any independent UK system integrator.

As for the general public, few realise that component manufacturers can often "self-certify", so at the end of the day, it takes an experienced system integrator to know which brands of components are good - the CE mark having little to do with it or the reliability of your PC.

It is impossible for a small business (especially one building customized units) to get a CE certification. We looked into this when we first became aware of the CE certification requirement.

The cost for getting a PC certified is roughly £5000. This would be fine if a company was supplying 1000+ units with the exact same specifications.

However, if every unit is custom built (as it is in every business) and even a slight difference in specifications requires a separate certification, then it is obviously impossible to do this. So every high street computer shop (and I do mean each and every one) that upgrades (every upgrade changes the specifications and so would require a new CE certification), repairs (every replacement part changes the specifications and so would require a new CE certification) or builds customized PCs either has to violate the rule or shut down their business.

In fact this would also means that even people like Mesh, Ginger6, Palicomp, Scan, Cube247, Cyberpower, Chillblast, PC Specialist, Arbico, Beast, Cryo, Kobalt and all other companies which offer customization will have to shut down shop.

This is based on my understanding of the law and I am not a lawyer and it is therefore quite possible that I am mistaken. If that is the case, I would be grateful to receive any edification regarding the matter.

Someone needs to get a grip, seriously.

Moaning about a system built out of CE approved components when Powerline Networking is for sale freely breaking almost every section of the EMC regulations.

Even a component that caries a CE mark is not necessarily compliant with EU regulations.
There are a significant number of components available from high street retailers in the UK, that have gained the CE mark, but in subsequent production runs vital components are omitted for cost cutting. Not all these originate from outside the EU!
The EU should spend more time ensuring that its CE mark is use legaly before hitting small companies who are doing there best to assemble PC's using supposidly CE certified components.
Also as already mentioned the case of Home PLT equipment, which is using a loop hole in CE certification, to market non compliant equipment, and putting the responsibility on the end user to ensure compliance with EU Directives, and member state regulations.
CE certification is a complete farce!

"Many British PC builders are failing to observe EU laws"
Quite possibly true, but then the majority of British PC builders are small one-two-three man companies who cannot possibly spend the cash to certify their end products
What Warburton and his pet association should be shouting is how stupid the rules are - and doing something about getting them changed. Not whining about how so many UB businessmen are non-compliant. If he was doing the job he's self-appointed himself to do, then he would be defending the UK small scale computer industry - not poking scorn at it
However of course just who does Warburton and his cronies at the PCA actually represent? Take a look at the TCA website - all the "elected" members are ex-employees or directors of large-scale organisations, backed up by a co-opted cabal of eight fellow-travellers. More to the point the TCA website appears to make it clear that its really there to represent the ripoff middlemen (sorry I mean those hard-pressed hardworking industrialiists known as "the channel"), not the small companies at the coalface actually selling stuff to endusers
From where I'm sitting the TCA is a self-appointed bunch of windbags who have no authority to credibility to claim to represent the computer industry in this country. Rather it appears to be n attempt at a get-rich quick scheme at the expense of those of us who actually deal with customers.
Warburton - if you want us to listen to you,start representing the small industry people, not your pals from MegaCorp

But what would our civil servants do if they couldn't spend weeks in committee meetings working out the exact text of pointless documents?

If the 10 commandments could cover all humanities bases in 331 words, why does the EU need tens of thousands of words for a CE directive on PC's ?

its p.c. gone mad as ushal, being a small system builder ourselves, i would never invest into these pointless legal trade bodys, how the hell would you pass that cost on to your client! these accreditations only exist because of certain people out there who have nothing better to do than sue just to earn a living! courts should impose imprisonment to those people for not using common sense and generaly being thick as ****! I have never known after personally building over 1000 computers to be a single problem with regards to health and safety. most of a pc is 12v for god sake!

This is an old chestnut coming round for another airing I suspect when Keith is struggling for something new to talk about! I think we all need to be looking at where we are today and where we are likely to be next week, month and year as this terrible economic depression gets even deeper. Currently a great deal of my time and my teams time is spent trying to council Brigantia members that have hit a brick wall financially and do not know where to turn. Bailiffs at the door is more of an issue to the Indie sector at the moment than historic CE rules and regulations! What we need our industry trade body to be campaigning for is help for small businesses in the form of hardship relief for business rates, reduced rents during in these unprecedented times, further PAYE and VAT relief and easier to obtain banking facilities to tide people over with solid businesses that are suffering ridiculous cashflow problems due to bad debts and slow payers as well as less new business opportunities coming in.

Brigantia is not a trade body but we are a subscription membership organisation that tries to help our members with the day to day side of business. We run a free legal and business telephone helpline for our members which is busier than ever currently. We are looking at bad debt at the moment and are intending to launch a service called Credit Enforcement in January (or before if CCL comes through quicker) to help our members chase in debtors.

Come on Keith and crew lets hear your voices in the national media during the run into Christmas. Harness all those connections and shout the message from the rooftops – support your local Indie – support the channel - buy local etc. We would be happy to team up on a campaign as I am sure other groups would. Less historic naval gazing and more action now is my message!

KW.
Get real. If you feel this is the most pressing issue of the day within a fundamentally flawed channel during a blindingly obvious depression then you really should be stepping away from any pretentious role within any trade association movement. You are totally insensitive to the needs and wellbeing of the independent sector. Perhaps you will now issue a statement that most electronic goods e-stores are ignoring their WEEE obligations. Perhaps you will start crusading regarding the amount of dead on arrival product supplied (primarily by your members) which end up in the bin rather than through unworkable "RMA"

Get Real. Join today's real world.