Tiny Computers was a British computer manufacturer based in Salfords,

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, England. The company went into administration due to substantial losses in January 2002 and was subsequently purchased by rival OEM Time Group.

History

Tiny Computers enjoyed great success during the latter half of the 1990s, having retail units throughout the United Kingdom as well as launching in the United States and the Far East. The company claimed to have sold 400,000 units in 2000, and signed a contract worth £40m with

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

manufacturer Fullarton Computer Industries in August 2001.

Customer Service Issues

Tiny Computers acquired the rather dubious acronym "Tough It's Now Yours" which was based around their customer service once a product had been sold. Calls to a premium rate 0906 number (50p per minute back in the 1990s) were frequently answered by staff with an apathetic attitude to the customer's issue. Tiny cited reduced air freight fees and a shorter, more efficient

supply chain In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, acti ...

as their reason for choosing a firm based in the United Kingdom over Asian OEMs who had lower base costs. However, due to increasing competition in the consumer PC market, their profits eventually began to fall, and in the beginning of 2002, they went into administration and were subsequently purchased by rival TIME.

Innovations

Home theater PC

In March 2001, the company released one of the first home theater PCs, called the ''Takami'' system. The PC was contained in a flat case with a similar form factor to a VHS player, and was intended to be placed under a television rather than at a computer desk as was typical during the 1990s. Bundles including a plasma television and other home cinema equipment were also sold. Despite its innovative nature, the ''Takami'' was not a commercial success, with only 5,000 units being sold during 2001.

Tiny Trainer

In 2000, in an attempt to make computing easier for those who had little to no experience with PCs, Tiny commissioned e-learning company VSI Communications Group to create a 'virtual mentor' named Tiny Trainer. An interactive animation ran automatically when the PC first booted up and gave users a brief introduction to computers in general, the Windows operating system as well as Tiny's own online services. Tiny Trainer was based on the same technology platform as VSI's ''Mentor'' interactive help series, and was tightly integrated with a Tiny specific Windows ME version of ''Mentor'' that also came bundled on Tiny's computers.

Sponsorship

Tiny sponsored Wimbledon F.C. shirts between 1999 and 2000.

References

Defunct companies based in Surrey Defunct computer companies of the United Kingdom Computer companies disestablished in 2002 Computer companies established in 1990 Companies that have entered administration in the United Kingdom Defunct computer hardware companies {{ict-company-stub