Frontier Technology, LLC,
doing business as
A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...
MicroAge, is a privately-held American technology products and services company founded in 1976 and based in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...
.
History
In 1976, founders Jeffrey D. McKeever and Alan Hald opened up a
franchise for one of the first hobby computer stores in the United States,
The Byte Shop, in Tempe, Arizona. The company grew quickly and, in 1979, opened the first MicroAge Computer Store at Paradise Valley Mall in Phoenix, Arizona. The store sold computers popular in the early
home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...
age, such as the
Apple II
Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...
, NorthStar Horizon, IMSAI 8080 and Altair 8800.
MicroAge had 33 franchisees, the second-most after
ComputerLand, and was the third-largest computer chain after ComputerLand and Sears. After emerging from bankruptcy with $5 million from
Docutel/
Olivetti,
MicroAge developed into a major national distributor as well as having its own chain of stores, becoming the most widely known franchiser in the computer industry with over 1,400 franchises worldwide, including locations in Europe, Japan and the USSR. Its primary competitor at the time was
ComputerLand, another well-known franchising operation. The company was listed on the
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...
list from 1995 to 2001. It employed over 6,000 people and generated revenues in excess of $6 billion at its zenith.
By February 2000, the company was composed of four subsidiary parts: MicroAge Teleservices, MicroAge Technology Services, Pinacor, and Quality Integration Services. In November 2000, MicroAge Teleservices was sold to that subsidiary's largest customer,
United Parcel Service. In December 2000, MicroAge Technology Services was sold to
CompuCom
CompuCom Systems Inc. is a technology managed services provider and product reseller headquartered in
Fort Mill, South Carolina. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Variant Equity Advisors. In business since 1987, CompuCom provides Managed Work ...
, included MicroAge's network of service and support locations. In May 2001 some assets of Pinacor were sold to ScanSource.
On October 1, 2020, MicroAge announced that it had acquired Semaphore Co., an Atlanta-based cloud services organization.
On July 15, 2022, MicroAge announced that it had acquired cStor, a cybersecurity, infrastructure, and digital transformation organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, for an undisclosed sum.
References
{{Reflist
Companies based in Phoenix, Arizona
Computer companies of the United States