UK PC giant runs out of Time

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Topics

Tiny, time

ANALYSIS

Granville Technology – which owns Time Computers, Tiny and The Computer Shop retail chain — has gone from being the UK's biggest independent PC manufacturer to a company with a very uncertain future.

News

Time crisis: Workers and customers share woes
27 July: TalkBack: This week's unfolding drama at Granville Technology Group saw employees and punters turn to the Web to swap information and express their concerns

Time crisis: Will customers get their goods?
27 July: People who purchased computers from Granville Technology could have a tough time getting their computers — or their money back

Time crisis: Administrators called in
27 July: Reports say workers are locked in at their Burnley HQ, as the UK's leading PC retailer hits troubled times

Time closes stores but keeps running
26 July: Time Computers closes 78 retail outlets 'for now' because of issues with its bankers, but its mail order business continues

Time staff sent home as work dries up
25 July: The largest UK-owned computer supplier has asked staff to return on Thursday, as some worry that they may not get paid on time this month

Time Computers denies tales of woe
22 July: Rumours of financial troubles at Time Computers are just the work of a 'disgruntled employee', according to the firm's parent company

Comment
Time is up for PC retailers
27 July: Strong strategy, great products and retail nous are needed to survive in the high street

Talkback

Simple, they have been known for selling inferior goods, sure those who dont know still flocked to buy their poorly produced products but many people in the know wouldnt buy a floopy disk from them let alone a system.

Bunch of jokers and good riddance!

via Facebook 28 July, 2005 08:25
Reply

As a large customer I have watched the quality of
hardware and technical support get progressively
worse through the transition from Opus to Tiny to
Time. Tiny going bust caused us untold pain and lost thecompany most of the business and goodwill they had.However we carried on trading with Time and during thehoneymoon period everything was great, including price.

The phrase 'does anyone know who our Time accountmanager is?' has been the only reference to thecompany for far too long and once again we are left ina difficult situation.

I shall miss working with some of the more capable
technial staff and wish them well for the future. As
for Tiny / Time - Rest in Peace but probably best for
my sanity if you don't come back

Andy

via Facebook 28 July, 2005 12:27
Reply

Time have rubbish customer support - I am glad they are closing.

via Facebook 28 July, 2005 19:54
Reply

Ex-staff & customer site www.tinycon.com has been setup to allow people to tell there stories in full and also to try and help customers with any technical (hardware/software/or the deaded SUPANET!) issues that they my have.

via Facebook 29 July, 2005 11:11
Reply

so what about how bad they were.
Bear in mind 1600 people havent been paid, and arent going to get paid.
1600.
A huge proportion of these people were on min wage, and have nothing saved, so their kids go hungry, the rent doesnt get paid, and they are screwed,
And most of teh frontline staff felt the same as the customers about the company. we just wanted to do our jobs well, but were hamstrung by poor support.

via Facebook 2 August, 2005 11:59
Reply

Time and Tiny have made the poorest quality computers for many years, their customer service has been appalling and frankly I am glad to see the back of them.

They gave the industry a bad name.

Good riddance to them

All we need to do now is get rid of P C World and their rubbish service / overpricing

via Facebook 2 August, 2005 23:37
Reply

This post has been removed by a moderator.

time/tiny pcs were no worse than the rest my last pc was a power tower, costing a little over over a grand, it was put together better than most, i have had 6 pcs in the last seven years. it is a pci express with 3.4 pentium proccessor,400 gigabyte hard-drive,a gig of memory,touch wood i have only had 1 problem, which was quickly repaired, unfortuanately i paid £240-00 for a three year warranty, its not yet run out of the first year, which is not right i will get nothing for paying in advance this happened on my previous pc, remember multivision, cost £1850-00 power tower only, money paid out in advance should be protected, ron lennard i still hope to get it back, i have heard nothing from the administraters, or the receivers. tel 01638780107

via Facebook 1 September, 2005 16:55
Reply

The adminstrators/receivers have never respondend in any way to any form of communication.

It makes it worse when you see the same family re-open as Time UK at the same site, by using someone who was not on the previous board, stating they are nothing to do with the previous Time/Tiny.....who are they trying to kid?!

Nothing but a bunch of thieves.

I have since purchased from Dell who I cannot fault.

via Facebook 26 June, 2006 12:28
Reply

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