Going cheap: a genuine Rolex
This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm, 1 April 2007, in South Africa. It’s best read in print, of course, so head here to subscribe.
How the law caught up with reality a mere twelve years later. Or, in defence of the grey market.
A long, long time ago, I can still remember, how that bunfight used to make me smile.
In the early 1990s, there was a kind of lone ranger (though short of stature and totally bald) in the IT industry. He was a useful fellow to know, not only because he could always be relied upon to supply sensational last-minute copy if you needed a blank space to fill, but also because he imported and sold cheap US Robotics modems.
There was a price on his head, of course, because he had the gall to buy them cheap from a distributor in the Far East somewhere. The exact source usually remained a closely-guarded secret, known only to the corrupt customs officials he claimed were bribed by the official agents for the products he brought in.
The practice of “parallel imports”, or buying from sources other than channels authorised by the manufacturer, became known as “grey marketeering”. The reason was that it wasn’t illegal, so it couldn’t be termed a black-market. The insinuation was clear: our lone ranger must be doing something nefarious, underhanded and wrong.
