Wednesday 21st May 2008

Troubled notebook vendor Rock finds new owner

Posted at: 9:53am 21st May 2008 by James Morris

Outstanding preorders and warranties to be honoured as Stone Group buys laptop maker

Good news for owners of Rock notebooks. It has been less than two weeks since the company announced it was going into administration, citing financially crippling actions by a former employee. Now Rock has announced it has already found a buyer, in the shape of the Stone Group. In its original statement, Rock had expressed hope its business could be sold as a going concern. This appears to be what has happened.

For an ‘undisclosed sum’, Stone has purchased the trade and assets of Rock. As well as being able to offer Rock’s range to its own customers, Stone will ‘fully back the Rock brand going forward’, which will allow it to continue developing Rock notebooks and honour existing warranties. So if you had an order in with Rock just before it went into administration, the process could be back on track. And current Rock owners will be able to get their notebooks fixed if they go wrong.

Former Rock Chief Executive Nick Boardman has underlined this, saying ‘it is vital that customers’ historic warranties will be supported going forward. Everyone can continue to buy Rock products with confidence.’

In a separate statement, Dominic Wong, Joint Administrator from Deloitte & Touche LLP, indicated that the sale would also preserve staff employment at Rock. It’s particularly good news for Boardman, who will be moving over to the Stone Group board as director of its mobile technology division.

Staffordshire-based Stone Computers focuses on the public sector, and already employs over 200 people. According to Stone’s website, the company sold 40,000 PCs last year and cites 500 UK schools, colleges and universities as regular clients.

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Comments

Or even 'Pebble' ;p

Comment by NikoBellic at 5:39am 25th May 2008

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Mmmm...

Why dont they open up a store and call it Brick!!!

Comment by NikoBellic at 2:35pm 22nd May 2008

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Stoned again

To be fair when i used to work fro them years ago the then trading name of Omega was shite aswell. One day they will think of something good.

Comment by Almightydutch at 12:01pm 22nd May 2008

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Thank God (Not the religious one, but..)

We have people in business able to help out and buy a company that was so in the scope of being very successful... Stone will likely recieve even more public interest from this stunt, especially making customers already owners of Rock made laptops, who wish to buy upgrades ;)

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 10:58am 22nd May 2008

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Long may the brand continue....

Comment by l3v1ck at 1:59pm 21st May 2008

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Mmmm... STONE!!!!

Well if your wondering why a computer firm has such a dodgy name... well its because its based in a location called stone!! just on the edge of stoke!!.. but we have to admit though (even us stokies!) that its a daft name... it would be stupid if overclockers called themselves Fenton because they're based there lol... on a good note, thanx Stone for saving the aston martins of the laptop world!!.

Comment by NikoBellic at 11:37am 21st May 2008

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Nice One!

I'm pleased for Rock, and the employees that work there as it will be nice to see their laptops on the pages of CPC. It a shame i would never buy one coz laptops lack upgradability. But it is still nice to see that the company will still be churning out high end hardware.

Comment by paullarkins at 10:40am 21st May 2008

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Rock gets Stoned

This was the headline I really had to force myself not to use. It's not all good news, though. We're also hearing from a former employee that some staff, suppliers and people Rock advertised with will not be getting their full entitlement. This is pretty par for the course with a process which involves Administration status, but it is sad nonetheless.

Comment by jdmorris1 at 10:59am 21st May 2008

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Rock and a hard place?

Does anyone else find it rather ammusing that Rock has been bought out by Stone? On another note, excellent news, I was looking at a Rock laptop when I heard the bad news! Good to see they will still be producing the world class laptops that made them a great company in the first place.