Intel comes clean on PC COM direct site

Chip giant Intel has clarified its position on the PC COM direct sales site in Singapore. The company, this morning, admitted that the domain name was owned by Intel, as first revealed here at the end of last week, but was set up in collaboration with a group of Singapore resellers.

A representative said: "This is an Intel website. It's a showcase site we set up after being approached by channel partners in Singapore who wanted to get online." The representative said that the resellers had the interest, but not the ability, to set up such a site themselves, so Intel, on this occasion had helped out the group of channel partners.

Resellers participating in the scheme had to be based in Singapore, and the site was intended specifically for the Singapore market, he said. Intel has no immediate plans, however, to roll out similar sites in other geographies, he added.

"This site was setup by Intel as part of our channel programs in Singapore, the addition of the WEB capability (thus far not done anywhere else) was due to channel partner feedback, that is, wanting to get on the WEB but not having resources/ability.

"While this site was established because of local channel requests, we will continue to work our established channel programs worldwide whilst evaluating local requests," he added. Over the last weekend, we conclusively showed that the site was Intel-based, with a link to it from the chip giant's own home page. ®