RadioShack has inked a multi-year service and sales deal with Compaq Computer Corp that will make Compaq’s Presario line the only PCs sold by the electronics retailer. Under the agreement Compaq and RadioShack will jointly market a line of specially configured Presarios and accessories beginning in March. Compaq has also authorized RadioShack as an official service provider for its entire line of PCs. The deal with Compaq marks the end of a similar arrangement with IBM Corp that had seen Big Blue’s machines exclusively offered in RadioShack’s 7,000 stores for the past three years. A spokesman for RadioShack says the deal with IBM had come to an end and the company felt that hitching up with Compaq was the best way forward. Neither company would comment on the financial arrangements of the deal, but both will invest in the development of a Compaq store within a store similar to the ones that CompUSA has set up for Apple Computer Inc in its retail locations (CI No 3,283). Implementation of that part of the plan should come some time during the third quarter of the year.
