Bell Micro Celebrates 20 Years of Storage, Jelly Beans And Race Cars

From left, Phil roussey, Bob Sturgeon, George Smith, Don Bell, Bill Smith and Jack Holman, circa 1998.

"At that point, we had a contract manufacturing business. It seemed like a great idea at the time. It was a great idea at the time," Bell said. "But somewhere around that time, Solectron started scaling and margins went from 25 percent to 5 percent. We made the decision to divest. It was the smartest thing we ever did to get out of it and stick to what we do best. We're much better at the distribution segment of the business."

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