Online retailer Play.com has admitted that some of its customers received the wrong graphics cards before Christmas.

The Jersey-based firm said it had sold the graphics cards to a number of people because its supplier, Zotac, had passed on inaccurate information which was then used on Play's website.

Former Cisco UK boss Alan Watkins has jumped the fence into the channel with the buyout of Teksys, a Microsoft LAR (large account reseller).

Computacenter today shrugged off any suggestion that it could be hit by the credit crunch crisis, even as evidence mounted that the contagion is spreading from the financial sector to the High Street.

Systemax is buying the CompUSA brand name, its ecommerce operations and up to 16 stores in the great CompUSA close-out sale. The big US computer reseller hails CompUSA as a "strong complementary" business to its own retail TigerDirect brand and is paying up to $30m for its new baby, depending on how many stores it actually buys.

Dixons Store Group International saw its shares fall more than 20 per cent this morning after the company admitted Christmas trading had been poor.

Game Group Plc has ratcheted up its profit expectations for the fiscal year ended 31 January 2008 buoyed by strong sales in the run up to Christmas.

From January, HP is to start selling Compaq PCs in Germany again - because it needs a downmarket brand to help it better compete with the local market leader Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC).

Dell is buying a UK data storage consultancy for an undisclosed sum. It's called The Networked Storage Company (TNWSC) and the founder, Simon Pennock, ran EMC in the UK and Ireland for a while. Dell likes the methodologies TNWSC has devised to evaluate, choose and install storage networks, and will roll the service out across its consultancy division. You can read more about TNWSC here. ®

Tesco has clasped Dell to its sizeable retail bosom, and will begin punting the firm's computers from next month.

Chinese computer maker Lenovo has rebuffed claims that it was considering scaling back its 2008 retail ambitions in the EMEA region in the face of the credit crunch crisis and any potential economic nosedive.

Best Buy had a great Q3, propelled by strong sales of fat-margin games consoles, notebook PCs, flat screen TVs and GPS thingymajigs. An extra week of holiday shopping for the quarter ended December 1 did it no harm, either.

DSGi has inked a fat pan-European deal with Dell to punt the firm's notebooks and desktops in stores across 12 countries including the UK.

Best Buy has sent a snivelling apology to bloggers at Laughing Squid after it wrongly accused the website of promoting t-shirts that parody the firm.

Computacenter Services has won a £19m managed IT contract with UK retail behemoth Marks & Spencer (M&S).

Under the deal, Computacenter will provide infrastructure and software management support for 4,000 M&S head office staff across six sites over the next five years.

Retail mammoth DSG International (DSGi) looks set to spectacularly tumble out of the FTSE 100 today losing its status as one of the biggest PLCs in the UK.

The firm, which owns Dixons, Currys, and PC World, admitted last month that it had overstocked laptops that failed to subsequently fly off the shelves.

Microsoft has won a seven figure sum from a distributor found guilty of selling tens of thousands of items of dodgy software.

Services and hardware company ComputerLand grew revenues by ten per cent for the six months ended 31 October 2007.

A lay preacher and law lecturer from Beeston has been jailed for six and a half years for defrauding the British taxpayer to the tune of £51m.

A leading provider of laptops and other computer services to private schools in the UK has gone into administration, leaving many with support headaches because existing warranty and support contracts are unlikely be honoured.

Dixons Store Group (DSG) blamed overstocking of laptops for poor performance at PC World, and sounded a warning for Christmas and the rest of the financial year.

The UK's top 600 retail websites will be checked by the Trading Standards officers in about 100 local authorities during December to ensure they comply with key requirements of online shopping laws, the Office of Fair Trading has said.

[Updated casualty list]

Turkeys of Black Friday

Yahoo!

Yahoo!'s payment! processing! system! is mostly exclaiming a death-rattle today, as online shoppers pound the cyber-checkout at the start of the holiday shopping season.

The company said that several retailers who depend on Yahoo for e-commerce are reporting error messages to customers when they reach checkout.

Early morning Pacific Time, Yahoo's Store System Status page acknowledged the problem, and promised to investigate the issue.

IT reseller and managed services firm Business Systems Group (BSG) saw revenue fall by two per cent to £15.8m for the six months ended 30 September 2007 due to a drop in its hardware sales.

In its ongoing crusade against IP and software piracy, FAST today said that it now has one newly-qualified barrister on the team.

FAST public and legal affairs wonk James Craig has been called to the bar, which means he is qualified to give specialist legal advice and can argue a case in both higher and lower law courts.

Software provider Novell has kicked off a new partner programme in the hope of pushing up sales and profits at the firm.

The shift in gears has been described by Novell as a new "ecosystem" approach to punt hardware, software, and servers to customers through the channel.

The US Supreme Court has been urged not to make it illegal to sell second-hand patented goods. Digital rights activists have begun a campaign to keep a buyer's right to sell on used goods.

FixITlocal received a mixed reception at the Professional Computing Association's (PCA) annual conference, with IT channel resellers questioning how they could sell the new service to customers.

The firm, created by BT reseller DMSL, is the latest in a long line of companies taking on the tricky computer repair business.

Trading Standards and the Federation Against Software Theft teamed up for the first time today to start cold calling on software resellers in Cardiff to check their stock.

Lenovo is continuing to blaze a trail across the PC market as it plans an expansion into the consumer market in Europe.

The company is planning an all-out assault on the EMEA region in the coming year, with new products and a new focus on the consumer market set to take shape.

Amazon is going for your Christmas quids by extending its "Amazon Prime" service to the UK.

Creditors owed about £6.8m by collapsed British computer maker Evesham Technology have accepted DTE Leonard Curtis’s proposals that it proceed with the administration of the company.

The decision was reached at a creditors' meeting with the Evesham administrators on 12 October, according to records filed with Companies House.

In its latest attempts to rid pirates from its shores, Microsoft has set up a new* website to help its customers spot dodgy software.

Redmond also confirmed on Wednesday that it had filed 20 lawsuits in the US against alleged distributors of counterfeit copies of Windows XP and Office 2003.

US reseller Insight Enterprises said yesterday that profit dropped by 46 per cent in the third quarter.

The giant computer distie saw earnings fall to $9.1m, or 18 cents per share, from $17.2m, or 35 cents per share in the same period a year ago.

Computerland UK sounded steady as she goes in an interim trading statement this morning.

Four people convicted last year of scamming Microsoft by reselling discounted education versions of its software have been ordered to pay $5m in fines, return $20m to Microsoft and serve up to five years in prison.

Dell is hammering yet another nail into the coffin of its original direct-only business model — or to be trite, Stapling it in.

The world's second largest PC vendor said today it is adding another retailer to the picture by flogging products at 1,400 US Staples stores.