"Microsoft spends three per cent of its UK sales revenue on
marketing funds given to distributors and resellers, said Rod
Baptie, managing director of sales consultancy Baptie & Co, "It
would be a foolish distributor who took a product if it wasn't
marketed for them."
"In the late 1990s competition was so keen that distributors
were said to sell at or below cost and take their profit direct
from the marketing funds they received from vendors."