Apricot, the veteran UK PC maker, is to axe 200 staff -- 40 per cent of its workforce -- following the decision of parent company Mitsubishi Electric to scrap in-house motherboard production. At the same time, the company is scaling back in Germany, where it will close its local sales office before the end of June this year. In the third leg of the re-organisation, Apricot is setting up its own dealership to sell what it calls “integrated IT solutions to the UK’s education and medium corporate marketplaces”. Called Metaphorix, the dealership combines Apricot’s Software Solutions, Internet Services and direct PC hardware units. Apricot will shut down its surface mount technology (SMT) plant in Glenrothes, Scotland by the end of March. The company says it is committed to designing motherboards for the worldwide OEM market. This business is growing at 100 per cent a year, it claims. But it will sub out production in future to a company with “locations throughout the world and (which) will provide cost reductions via its overall volume”. ®