MicroAge
MicroAge (NASDAQ: MICA) is an American technology sales company based in Tempe, Arizona, United States. It was founded in 1976 by Jeffrey D. McKeever and Alan P. Hald as a hobby computer store named The Byte Shop. It has been one of the first businesses seeing the potential in computers. MicroAge expanded from a retail storefront to the most widely known franchiser in the computer industry with over 1000 franchises world wide. Its primary competitor at the time was ComputerLand, another well-known franchising operation. The company was listed on the Fortune 500 list from 1995-2001. It employed over 6,000 people and generated revenues in excess of $6 billion at its zenith.
In 1980, MicroAge opened the first computer store located in a mall in Paradise Valley, Arizona. The store sold computers popular in the early home computer age, such as the Apple II, Northstar, Imsai and Altair computers.
In 2000 MicroAge was delisted from the NASDAQ, trading over-the-counter as MICAQ. In 2001 it filed for bankruptcy, terminated all business and liquidated all remaining assets to pay creditors.
One of the founders, Jeffrey D. McKeever, subsequently bought the rights to the name "MicroAge" and uses this as a "doing business as" name for Frontier Technology LLC. The new company organized by McKeever has a different ownership structure and legal company name from the original MicroAge.
MicroAge is currently headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and is one of the prominent IT reselling companies in the industry. With the slogan, "The IT Solutions Experts" MicroAge plays off their history in the tech world to provide companies with the right tech solutions and products to fit their various needs.