On 5/25/07, K S wrote: > In my opinion distributors are now largely redundant and have been so > for a number of years. > Maybe you can do without a distributor in USA or some big countries. However it is not possible in most other countries. In these countries, the manufacturer will in general ask you to go to a distibutor (especially for sales matters, they may still support the technical side through FAEs). They simplely do not have the resources. That's why I find out life is much easier for US electronics engineers in terms of getting samples and demo boards. When I was under training in US it was so easy to get the support from all vendors. We can even get demo boards or JTAG downloaders worth several hundreds US dolloars. When I was back in Singapore, it took me two weeks just to get some samples of a common PNP transistor. Take note I am in Singapore and the electronics industry is still quite strong here. Regards, Xiaofan -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist