New Ingram Micro unit to focus on white box market

Technology distributor Ingram Micro plans to set up a business unit to focus on delivering PC components to “white-box” system builders in the U.S., the company announced Monday.

Ingram Micro’s new unit will help system builders quickly roll out PCs for the U.S. market by offering cheap components, technical support and prompt delivery of supplies, the company said in a release. Components from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Seagate Technology, Hitachi, Maxtor and Western Digital, among others, will be available to Ingram Micro customers, it said.

White boxes are PCs assembled by local resellers or distributors and sold without a major brand name, primarily to small businesses. Individually, the white-box system vendors make and sell a small number of PCs, but collectively they represent the largest percentage of PCs sold each year, according to market data.

Market research company IDC pegged the percentage of white boxes sold in the U.S. at 36.4 percent of the total market, or 4.3 million units in the first quarter. Gartner thought the amount of white boxes sold in the U.S. was even higher in the first quarter, at 4.5 million units or 38 percent of the total market. Worldwide, more than half of all PCs sold are white boxes, according to both companies.

While Ingram Micro has always worked with unbranded system vendors in the U.S., it has never had a dedicated unit for that business, said Pat Collins, senior group vice president of sales, marketing, and product management. Previously, components for both unbranded systems and large brands were handled by the same purchasing and marketing departments, but the new business unit will have its own purchasing and sales departments dedicated exclusively to unbranded system vendors, he said.

The company operates similar business units in Europe and Asia for white-box customers, and is starting to develop a white-box organization in Canada, Collins said.

System vendors will be eligible for technical support and marketing assistance if they commit to purchasing a certain number of components from Ingram Micro, Collins said. That number is still under evaluation, he said.

Geno Marcoux, general manager and vice president of the components business unit, will head the new organization. The white box business unit will be based at Ingram Micro’s headquarters in Santa Ana, California.