Gericom

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Gericom AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1990
resolution 2008
Seat Linz , Austria
management Hermann Oberlehner
Number of employees 40 (2008)
sales 27.6 million euros (2007)
Branch Electronics manufacturer
Website www.gericom.com

The Gericom AG ( Ger one I ndustry Com puter ) was in Linz ( Upper Austria -based) Notebook - Computer Accessories and television maker. As a result of the takeover by the Taiwanese Quanmax, Inc. , the company traded as Quanmax AG from 2008 to 2012 , now as an independent S&T AG again.

history

Gericom hard drive 1.jpg
Gericom hard drive 2.jpg


Earlier mobile hard disk 20 GB with IDE connection socket

The company was founded in 1990 by Hermann Oberlehner and is based in Linz. The company operated under the name S plus S (or S + S ) until 2000 . Gericom was just a brand name used from 1993 to 2000 ; In the course of the IPO in 2000, the company was renamed to the better-known private label name.

Originally the business area was the sale of memory chips for industrial and EDP systems, shortly afterwards the company also concentrated on the sale of PC systems, computer components and peripheral devices. Thus Gericom itself acted as a distributor for well-known hardware manufacturers, but also manufactured PC systems and notebooks itself. This manufacturing process consisted of assembling components.

Initially, sales took place through the wholesale stores of Metro AG (i.e. Media Markt and Saturn ), later the company also supplied small computer retailers and large companies directly. In 1998 the trend of online trading was followed with its own web shop for end customers. In addition, a factory outlet shop was built in Linz. In addition, Gericom increased its market share by also delivering notebooks to discount supermarkets such as Aldi , Hofer , Plus and Lidl .

The products were not developed and designed in-house. The notebooks in particular were purchased as finished platforms from Taiwan and other Far Eastern countries. The final production took place in Linz. The actual manufacturers of the notebooks were, for example, Clevo , Arima , Mitac , FIC , Uniwill , MSI or Quanta . Other manufacturers such as Fujitsu Technology Solutions also produce notebooks of similar construction.

In the 1990s, Gericom was able to win customers from competing companies such as Compaq , Peacock or IBM by working with the retail giants to individually produce small series or product series for special promotions and to adapt purchasing specifically to the drop in prices of the memory and CPU manufacturers. Other OEM manufacturers such as Medion or Actebis ( Targa ) later followed this business model . In the meantime, the big brands such as Hewlett-Packard , Fujitsu Siemens Computers or IBM have adapted to changing market needs and the price differences are no longer as serious as they were in the 1990s.

After the successful years for Gericom from 2000 to 2003, sales plummeted. In 2004, Gericom AG had to look for investors to secure its existence.

In March 2004 there were plans to sell 24.9 percent of the shares held by the majority shareholder and founder of the company, Oberlehner, to the German Medion group. With this step, the imminent bankruptcy could be avoided. A few weeks after the plans were announced, however, Oberlehner refused to transfer his shares to Medion as agreed. The court case was decided in favor of Gericom.

Industry insiders associated the slump in sales with the company's poor service quality. According to various user reports, the devices were defective above average. In addition, the repair time and repair quality often leave a lot to be desired. Gericom also did not publish any service instructions. As a result, the image of the Gericom brand declined significantly.

In the 2007 financial year, sales amounted to 27.6 million euros compared to 63 million euros in 2006. The loss was reduced from 27.6 million euros to 0.9 million euros.

At Christmas 2006, sales of 100 million euros with around 100 employees were forecast for 2008. In fact, there were 40 employees with a likely turnover of around 30 million euros.

The German Protection Association for Securities Possession put Gericom in second place on its watch list of the largest value destroyers among stock corporations listed in Germany 2001-2006 with a price loss of over 96 percent. The share price at the beginning of July 2008 was around EUR 0.70 each, compared to the high of almost EUR 14 in the successful year 2003.

In August 2008, Gericom was mostly by the Taiwanese PC maker Quanmax, Inc. adopted. After the takeover, Quanmax AG emerged from Gericom AG , the Austrian subsidiary of Quanmax, Inc. Quanmax AG, however, was not a mere subsidiary, but was listed as a separate company on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Quanmax AG had its own development department and some products were also produced in Austria. Michael Jeske became CEO of the new Quanmax AG, and Hannes Niederhauser, co-founder and long-time head of the German small computer manufacturer Kontron , became the chairman of the supervisory board .

Individual evidence

  1. Medion - entry at Gericom apparently burst
  2. Archive link ( Memento from February 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. http://www.wcm.at/story.php?id=11103
  4. Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dsw-info.de
  5. https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Gericom-steigert-Umsatz-und-Gewinn-79193.html
  6. Archive link ( Memento from February 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. Linzer notebook manufacturer Gericom taken over by Quanmax. In: derStandard.at. August 14, 2008, accessed December 12, 2017 .
  8. http://newsticker.sueddeutsche.de/list/id/81893 ( Memento from September 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  9. http://www.golem.de/0808/61744.html
  10. stock-world.de - Quanmax: Ex-boss of Kontron back