 | |
| NCIX | |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Online retail sales |
| Founded | April 28, 1996; 28 years ago (1996-04-28) |
| Founder | Steve Wu |
| Defunct | December 1, 2017 (2017-12-01) |
| Fate | Bankruptcy AndLiquidation |
| Headquarters | Richmond, British Columbia,Canada |
| Website | www.ncix.com at theWayback Machine (archived September 20, 2018) |
NCIX Computer Inc. (formerly known asNetlink Computer Inc.) was an onlinecomputer hardware andsoftware retailer based inRichmond, British Columbia,Canada, founded in 1996 by Steve Wu (伍啟儀).[1][2][3]
The company is notably tied to the early career ofLinus Sebastian, a former NCIX employee who went on to foundLinus Tech Tips (LTT). Linus initially worked at NCIX as a product manager and later created and presented the company’sYouTube channel to market its products.
It had retail outlets inVancouver,Burnaby,Coquitlam,Richmond andLangley, British Columbia, as well asMarkham,Mississauga,Scarborough,Toronto andOttawa, Ontario. At one point, NCIX had 3 shipping facilities, one inRichmond, British Columbia, another inMarkham, Ontario, and one inCity of Industry, California. By July 17, 2017, NCIX had closed the Mississauga, Toronto, and Ottawa retail locations. NCIX declared bankruptcy with theSupreme Court of British Columbia on December 1, 2017, andliquidated all stores and processing orders.
As one of the few surviving PC retail chains in Canada, the company "invested heavily in large walk-in retail outlets… all of which were expensive to run", rather than further online sales assets to compete more effectively againstAmazon andNewegg. Furthermore, the company prioritized "sales of individual computer parts over complete systems" at a time when consumers and "millennial gamers with relatively high disposable incomes" opted for built systems from trusted brands while "the number of hobbyists who want to build their own hardware is dwindling".[2][4]
In July 2017, NCIX closed all their Ontario retail outlets in Ottawa, Mississauga, and Toronto and shortly after its Markham headquarters office.[5]
In November 2017, NCIX closed its Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam stores. Canada Computers then announced they had taken over the leases on these locations.[6]
On November 30, 2017, the last retail store located in Lansdowne Mall, Richmond closed, with only their headquarters in Richmond left.[7]
On December 1, 2017, NCIX filed forbankruptcy with the Supreme Court of British Columbia, under File Number 170816.[8][9][10]
On August 1, 2018, a Craigslist ad listed as “NCIX Database Servers - $8500 (Richmond BC)” was found by Travis Doering of Privacy Fly, indicating unerased servers and data from NCIX operations were available for sale containing user data dating back 15 years. Employee data, includingsocial insurance numbers, was also leaked. Doering stated that in one database alone there were 3.8 million Canadians' information.[11] The data was obtained from an abandoned warehouse where NCIX stored servers before their bankruptcy after the servers were sold to make up for the $150,000 rent fees owed to the owner of the warehouse.[12] This prompted an investigation by theRCMP and Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, and the police seized the servers.[13] Despite this, the data on the servers had been copied and sold multiple times before the servers were seized.[12] Software engineer Kipling Warner since sued NCIX and their auctioneer for failing to properly protect the information.[14]
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