After
several months of negotiations, Horizons Computer Systems and
Computing Made Easy,
another local Computer Sales and Service business,
reached an agreement to merge their
businesses on December 1, 2003.
From the Horizons perspective, increased
competition from on-line marketers, the large retail outlets such as WalMart,
BestBuy and Radio Shack (to
mention only a few) and
the growing presence of Computing Made
Easy in our
community, led to a decline in our new computer sales
which
has continued for the last 4
years. Our service business, on the other hand, has stood up well and kept us
operating.
We
could have fought the sales decline by adding staff and done more aggressive
advertising but we chose instead to remain our
loveable
selves and provide high quality
technical service to our customers – a niche that has
served us well.
Computing
Made Easy
has been successfully and aggressively marketing
Dell
Computers and
is expanding into
new areas of computer support and services such as Web Page design and hosting,
on-line troubleshooting of personal computers over the Internet
and has exciting plans for the future.
The
growth and expansion that Computing Made Easy is pursuing
provides
challenges that Horizons’ technical and business experience can help them
meet. Together
we are anticipating the challenges and the attendant
exciting opportunities that
the combined company, which will be known as Computing Made Easy,
will face.
The
Horizons staff will continue to be available
through Computing Made Easy and
will provide the kind of service that their
customers are used to; the
telephone number will remain unchanged; warranties that
were provided by Horizons Computer Systems will continue with the
new Computing Made Easy.
We greatly appreciate
the
support that
Horizons Computer Systems
has received and look forward to
continuing support as we join
forces with Computing Made Easy in an alliance that will make strong companies
even stronger and a more exciting presence in our community and region of the
country.