VARs to CompUSA: Good Bye, Good Riddance

"They got too big for their britches. If I sat on their board of directors, I'd have done things a little differently. But hey, it's good for us," Desrosier said. "That's one gone. Hopefully Dell and Best Buy will be next. People can only buy so many DVDs."

CompUSA, owned by the Mexico firm Grupo Carso SA, said last week it plans to sell its assets, including 103 stores, after the holidays to Specialty Equity, a division of restructuring firm Gordon Brothers Group.

CompUSA executives could not be reached for comment. Roman Ross, CEO of CompUSA addressed the closure in an e-mail to eomployees dated Dec. 7. "As you are well aware, we have worked very hard over the past year toward our goals, and have made significant strides. I am very proud of the progress we have made together. However, despite our best efforts; the difficult environment and consumers' changing shopping behaviors requires a change of direction," Ross wrote in the e-mail, a copy of which was viewed by CMP Channel.

Ross later notes that the company's CompUSA Tech Pro technical services division grew more than 100 percent year-over-year. "This is something to take pride in," he wrote.

Desrosier said he feels CompUSA's business model simply didn't add the value that a solution provider does with commercial customers. "They've got a PC on their shelf for $299. Are you going to trust your business to that? People do. They haven't learned that lesson yet."

Desrosier noted that a Boston TV station did an investigative report last month, disabling the BIOS on a PC and taking it to local big box retailers for diagnosis. CompUSA was the only one that correctly identified the problem. "Even that didn't help them," he said.

He also noted that CompUSA's deal with Microsoft to offer Vista to small businesses two months before it was released to the general public could not provide a shot in the arm for the retailer.

"I don't see the big chains selling computers. Everybody's got one. It's saturated to the point where you have to ask where can I do the next step? They couldn't bring people to the next step," Desrosier said.

Gregory Geodakyan, managing partner of SoftNet Technology, an Iselin, N.J., solution provider, said he also saw the obvious signs that CompUSA was struggling.

"You'd have to be a fool if you didn't say you could see it coming: the competitive pressure, the closing of stores," Geodakyan said.

Unlike Desrosier, Geodakyan had built a relationship to provide services to local CompUSA customers. In fact, he said he finished one deal last Thursday.

"We got home Friday and there was an e-mail from the client saying 'Did you see CompUSA is closing? Customers are still customers. They still need IT service. We'll have to work that out," Geodakyan said. "It's obviously disappointing. We put a lot of energy and time into that company. We can't say we didn't get a lot out of it. We wish the best for everybody else and hope we can get rolled into another VAR program somewhere else."