Stordis, distributor of the soon to be murdered Gateway brand wants to play no part in Acer's server business when it relaunches early next year.

The German-owned HPC components minnow says it had a pan-European contract with the Taiwanese firm but enduring such an unpredictable working relationship that it decided to call it a day.

"We had a European-wide agreement with Acer Gateway but it did not go in the direction we wanted it to with availability, stock and lead times and it didn't have the latest CPU architecture," Alexander Jeffries, CEO at Stordis told El Reg.

Ironically, parent Acer's channel partners had more notebooks than it could shift, a theme that dogged its balance sheet in 2011 and forced it into a loss-making position.

Jeffries said dealing with Gateway was "not such a pleasant experience" and confirmed that Stordis would not seek to distribute the products when the Acer Business brand replaces Gateway from Q1.

Stordis has established a UK office to be run by sales manager Andrew Jones and is setting its sights on vendor expansion. ®