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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Cyberus on July 27, 2005, 02:04:58 PM

Title: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Cyberus on July 27, 2005, 02:04:58 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4719833.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4719833.stm)




I would have posted this to news, but I wasn't sure if that would be the right place for it. Besides, do we want to hear the oh so predictable {bleep}ing and moaning 'What's it got to do with Amigas?' ;-)
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: on July 27, 2005, 02:10:09 PM
See?  This is where the language barrier exists.  I had to read the article to know that "into administration" means essentially "bankruptcy", instead of what I thought.  I thought initially that "into administration" meant that some government or company had bought millions of them for their paper pushers.

Wayne
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: blobrana on July 27, 2005, 02:16:16 PM
Hum,
Tiny was synonymous with `much cheapness` and bad quality.
Just as well they went under, really.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Framiga on July 27, 2005, 02:17:45 PM
even in Italy is called "amministrazione controllata"

a sort of: "controlled administration" or "forced amministration" . . . . don't know how to translate it exactly.

Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: srg86 on July 27, 2005, 02:22:41 PM
Tiny Time, Advent, Patriot and Packard Hell, er.. Bell are both well known for poor quality.

srg
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Cyberus on July 27, 2005, 02:24:57 PM
Quote

Wayne wrote:
See?  This is where the language barrier exists.  I had to read the article to know that "into administration" means essentially "bankruptcy", instead of what I thought.  I thought initially that "into administration" meant that some government or company had bought millions of them for their paper pushers.

Wayne


:-) Yeah, I see what you mean. We do use the term 'bankruptcy' as well, 'into administration' I think means that the companies affairs are being administered by someone else in order to pay creditors etc.

Over the last few years us Brits have picked up a lot of US slang/expressions, mainly due to the TV. But because Britain's so much smaller in comparison, I think there will be a lot of words and expressions that Americans won't have heard. i.e. Brits find it easier to understand Americans than the other way round.

I'm really sorry, miles off-topic! :-o
Back on topic, yeah, they were associated with cheap PCs that used no-name parts. I know a guy who used to sell them over the phone, and he said the computers (and the company) were crap....  
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Tripitaka on July 27, 2005, 06:49:33 PM
"Into Administration" means "screwed" basically. I've seen it first hand a few years back when Touchstone Productions (not the film company but once a name in sell-through video) died a horid death. The only people who make any cash in this is the lawyers!
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: ajlwalker on July 27, 2005, 08:05:55 PM
@Tripitaka

Not only the lawyers.  Essentially from what I understand administration means a team of administrative accountants/auditors look at the books and see how best to pay the creditors.

If they can, they will sell parts of a company as going concerns as these raise the most money for creditors.  At worst they will sell all assets and wind the company up.

In doing this THEY charge huge fees!  My favourite football team went into administration a few years back and over the course of the process the administrator went from not being a creditor, to being our biggest creditor!  They were charging £5k a week to say "nope, not found a buyer yet".  You can't really sell a football club off in pieces!

Anyway, they ended up being right-royally screwed which was some comfort to me as the club eventually died

 :-(
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Darrin on July 27, 2005, 08:10:31 PM
Quote

ajlwalker wrote:
My favourite football team went into administration a few years back and over the course of the process the administrator went from not being a creditor, to being our biggest creditor!  They were charging £5k a week to say "nope, not found a buyer yet".  You can't really sell a football club off in pieces!

Anyway, they ended up being right-royally screwed which was some comfort to me as the club eventually died

 :-(


You wouldn't be a Wimbledon supporter by any chance?
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: ajlwalker on July 27, 2005, 11:20:15 PM
Quote

Darrin wrote:
Quote

ajlwalker wrote:
My favourite football team went into administration a few years back and over the course of the process the administrator went from not being a creditor, to being our biggest creditor!  They were charging £5k a week to say "nope, not found a buyer yet".  You can't really sell a football club off in pieces!

Anyway, they ended up being right-royally screwed which was some comfort to me as the club eventually died

 :-(


You wouldn't be a Wimbledon supporter by any chance?


Nope, my team was Airdrieonians.  It is now Airdrie Utd, who play at the same stadium and have the same fans! lol
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: lorddef on July 28, 2005, 12:00:11 AM
Good riddance. They were the biggest bunch of cheap assed cowboys.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: InTheSand on July 28, 2005, 12:53:59 AM
Quote

lorddef wrote:
Good riddance. They were the biggest bunch of cheap assed cowboys.


Exactly! Their PC cases were so flimsy, I'm sure they were made of recycled yoghurt pots...

And the components were always the cheapest rubbish that could be found. PCs would often be poorly assembled, with PCI cards not fully pushed home, etc, and they'd always do the cheapskate thing of having a CD-ROM and HDD on the same cable, rather than spending the "extra" to place them on separate cables/controllers...

It's a blessing, really! Whenever friends or family were looking for a pre-built PC, I'd always advise against Tiny and the other brands mentioned earlier in the thread, but Tiny was the worst!

 - Ali
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: bhoggett on July 28, 2005, 02:18:48 AM
Well, administration is not quite bankruptcy... yet.

It has more in common with the US "Chapter 11", I think, except that the company is run by administrators and not the directors. The administrators' task is to get the best deal for the creditors, and sometimes that means keeping the company trading. During administration the company is protected from any attempt by the creditors to put it into liquidation (which means bankruptcy).

Sometimes companies to come out of administration as trading concerns and stronger than they were previously.

I don't expect that of Tiny though. Along with Time and a bunch of others they were just low-end boxshifters who sold cheap rubbish at low profit margins. Expect pretty much all such companies to go under in the next few years.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Tripitaka on July 28, 2005, 10:47:43 AM
It allways amazed me how Tiny managed to put components into machines that should have worked well together but somehow....didn't. They gave a new meaning to backwards engineering. Having said that, my old 486 (IBM Blue lightning) was from Time Computers and that was an ass kicking box. I gloated many times watching DX66 owners as they realised my "slower" SX50 (SX: no fpu) ran Doom noticably quicker than thier own machines. It's not what you do, It's the way you do it.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: bloodline on July 28, 2005, 02:14:00 PM
I had few friends who had Time computers about 5 years ago and they were good machines... I also had a couple of friends who had Tiny computers... the tiny ones were awful, Tiny already went bankrupt in 2002 and was bought by Time IIRC...
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: bhoggett on July 28, 2005, 02:49:31 PM
Living in the area and working in the industry, I've met a lot of people who have worked for Time at one point or another.

Suffice it to say that not one had a good thing to say about the experience or the company, and after hearing about their regular practices I wouldn't consider buying anything from them if they were the last computer manufacturer on Earth.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: HopperJF on July 28, 2005, 05:29:47 PM
The only PC I've ever owned (well was actually a family PC) was a Tiny, it will always be our first and last PC. Complete rubbish, 5 years of hell.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Red_Melons on July 28, 2005, 05:42:13 PM
Quote
Over the last few years us Brits have picked up a lot of US slang/expressions, mainly due to the TV.


Have you noticed that BBC announcers have now started expressing dates as 'July four' instead of 'the fourth of July' or 'July the fourth'? It really grates on me, and it does appear to be a deliberate attempt to 'Americanise' our language.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: Tripitaka on July 29, 2005, 03:30:52 PM
I guess I just got lucky with my "Time machine", I didn't get another anyway. To be honest It was a good machine but I had a few friends who had bad experience with Time's customer "service". Advent got my money instead and I must say I'm happy with this one so far. I'd rather see an Amiga shop in my high street though! Who knows? stranger things have happened. :lol:
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: lorddef on July 29, 2005, 04:49:55 PM
The most shocking thing is that on the day of this news, and my abnove post I went directly to the tiny ordering page. To see if they were still actually taking orders I put one through with one of the standard test numbers and it went through, so they are still taking orders I thought.

Then I was rather supprised to get a order confirmation through, bizzare as I'd expect the card to actually get authorised at the bank before getting a confirmation.
Title: Re: Tiny PCs goes into administration
Post by: wobbly on July 30, 2005, 11:37:39 AM
heh.. tiny..
i got my first pc from them.

i nupacked it, plugged it in, switched it on and it crashed.

i wiped it, installed only what i wanted to and it worked fine for years after that.
i still have the case but not many p4 atx mobo's fit comfortably in it anymore.
the greatest thing abou tit was the swivel out hard drive cages..

heh

frankly i'm surprised that they were still going up to even this point