Cyclone Computers wiped from PC market

Kiwi firm Cyclone Computers will soon leave the declining PC market, but insists no New Zealanders will lose their jobs.

Created in 1988, the company provides IT hardware, software and support to some of New Zealand's largest organisations.

"We're winding down the brand and will be out of the market by the end of the year," says Richard Morgan, managing director, Cyclone Computers.

"We used to be the largest local assembler, at 6500 units a year, but we can't be price competitive any more. Margins are the hard one.

Insisting that all 55 jobs across Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin will be safe, Morgan claims the company will switch focus to HP, Samsung and Apple as its main brands.

"Turnover, in fact, is up substantially. We did $55 million last year, and this year we are on target to do $60 million.

The revelation follows an announcement earlier this month confirming the firm won an open tender to become the supplier of Motion Computing tablets to government agencies via the All-of-Government (AoG) purchasing programme.

Effective immediately, the AoG procurement reform programme objectives includes a centralised procurement process for selected categories in order to deliver savings to government agencies.