Time for this week's round-up of the UK channel press. Computer Reseller News Police have charged three Microsoft resellers from London with handling stolen goods. Pirated copies of Windows NT, Windows 98, Publisher and FrontPage worth £3 million were seized.

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Rory Sweet, former RBR Networks chairman, has set up a networking reseller called Zycko. He also plans to start a mystery business called e-cable.com.

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ICL has shut its £60 million trade distribution business. The company said the business had been losing money for some time and did not fit with ICL's plans for the future.

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IT Network is to offer resellers information on users of its portal in return for them promoting the IT Network through a hyperlinked banner on its site.

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Microscope Hewlett-Packard and Dell saw PC sales surge in the last quarter of 1999 – to the detriment of IBM and Compaq. According to IDC, HP's worldwide PC business grew by 49 per cent, and Dell's by 45 per cent.

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Compaq has made a botch over sending out spares. Part numbers on the Webs ite do not correspond with UK part number.

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IBM wants to topple Compaq from the top of the PC sales market. The vendor said it would no longer separate direct and indirect sales teams in an effort to shift PCs over the Web.®