On May 25, 2007, at 9:00 AM, Mike Harrison wrote:

> I wonder why anyone would want to be a Microchip distributor

Oh come on.  Distributers exist so that they can add value (usually for 
a
price) to the services provided by a manufacturer.  Putting on a "real
business" hat for a moment, there are still a lot of advantages:

1) one-stop shopping for multiple manufacturers.
2) Kitting.
3) stocking/locality (faster delivery, etc.)
4) some amount of technical expertise.
5) "Supply side management" ("I'm shipping about 100 units/month.  Make 
sure I
	don't run out of parts.!"  "ok, not I want to ramp up to 200 
units/month."
     "Please assess my 200/month history and get me the 5000unit price 
on these.")

It depends on the size and structure of your "business", of course, but 
there's
a whole philosophy of engineering business that says it's best to 
outsource
things other than engineering.  If you just want to buy 100 
microcontrollers,
there's probably not much difference between Arrow, digikey, and 
microchip direct.
If you're shipping an actual product in moderate quantities, it's 
probably worth
seeing what services a distributer can provide you for the premium that 
they
might be charging...

BillW

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