PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Distributor VIP’s new event, designed to showcase PC and gaming technology, had its first outing last month.
Taking place at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry on Friday September 7th, VIP’s Evolution Expo focused on the future of gaming and technology.
The inaugural outing for the event proved to be a successful outing for the UK distributor, with over 400 attendees from across the UK and in fact Evolution 2 is already penned in for Friday September 6th, 2013.
Big brands from Microsoft to ASUS, Nvidia to AMD, Intel to Synology all had stands at the event, and many hosted break-out sessions designed to give further insights to the dealers attending. VIP staff and representatives from all of the companies on show were on hand to talk through retailers’ questions.
The firm’s Dave Stevinson commented: "VIP clearly demonstrated that an exhibition is the best way to build channel relationships. It was wonderful to see our resellers meeting face to face with our key vendors. Everyone had a great time and I have been overwhelmed with emails, texts and calls of gratitude.
“PC gaming demand is surging and our vendors were able to take the time to share their expertise with our resellers in order that they are in best shape to deal with this opportunity. ”
Microsoft used the event to showcase the power of Windows 8, whilst NVIDIA brought along its racing seat with full motion and 3D Surround graphics.
ASUS exhibited an extensive range of consumer focussed products including an exclusive preivew of the new Taichi notebook-tablet, and AMD showed-off Eyefinity.
In truth, there was too much going on to cover fully here, but some of the other highlights include Seagate’s Satellite drive, which really should be getting a lot more attention – up to eight devices can stream movies from it at once, and QPAD’s range of mechanical gaming keyboards, for gamers looking to gain an edge over their rivals, whilst home NAS products from Synology showed just why that sector is likely to take off very soon.
Duncan Rutherford, product manager for dabs.com, said: “The VIP Evolution event was a great opportunity for the dabs.com team to spend valuable time with a key distributor for our business.
“Over the past few years our relationship has grown thanks to the products and service that VIP can supply and we saw the Evolution event as an extension of that. It was a fantastic chance for us to get together with established brands and see new vendors that we may look to partner with.”
Joakim Stenberg, sales director, QPAD, commented: “We got to meet a lot of excellent resellers that showed a great interest in our brand and products. This will be a great start for us at VIP. We are very happy about the event.”
Chris Whiteman, ASUS distribution account manager concluded by saying: “ASUS has always worked with VIP because of its commitment to promoting and improving our relationships with customers.
“The Evolution Exhibition provided a brilliant opportunity for us to show off our excellent new range and spend some time with our customers. We’re already looking forward to next year!”
Check out our Evolution Expo Facebook photo album by clicking here.
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