CDW Corp.

(847) 465-6000

200 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Vernon Hills, IL 60061

www.cdw.com

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Sales

$4.7 billion

Business Description

CDW Corporation (collectively with its subsidiaries, “CDW” or the “Company”) is a leading direct marketer of multi-brand computers and related technology products and services in the United States. The Company was founded in 1984 and reincorporated in 1995 in Illinois. In May 2003, our shareholders approved changing the name of the Company to CDW Corporation from CDW Computer Centers, Inc. The name change became effective on June 18, 2003. Our extensive offering of products, including hardware and peripherals, software, accessories and other products, combined with our service offerings, provide comprehensive solutions for our customers’ technology needs. We offer customers a broad range of technology products from leading vendors such as Apple, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sony and Toshiba, among others. Our high volume, cost-efficient operations, supported by our proprietary information technology systems, enable us to offer these products at competitive prices combined with a high level of service. We provide a variety of value-added services and web-based tools to our customers, including the ability to custom configure multi-branded solutions, manage software licenses through our Software License Tracker tool and track tagged assets through our IT Asset Management Tracking Database. We also offer technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to our customers.

During September 2003, we purchased selected U.S. assets and the Canadian operations of Micro Warehouse, a reseller of computers, software and peripheral products. The U.S. transaction was completed on September 9, 2003. The purchase price of the assets acquired in the U.S. transaction, including inventory, fixed assets and customer lists, was $20.0 million. The purchase of the Canadian operations was completed on September 23, 2003, for a purchase price of $2.7 million.

Building on the Micro Warehouse transactions, we expanded our customer base, increased our penetration in the public sector and the eastern half of the U.S., and extended our growth platform into Canada.

For financial reporting purposes, we have two operating segments, corporate and public sector. Our corporate customers are concentrated in the small to medium business (SMB) category, which is generally comprised of businesses that have less than 1,000 employees at a single location. Our public sector customers are comprised of federal, state and local government entities and educational institutions who are served by CDW Government, Inc. (“CDW-G”), a wholly-owned subsidiary.

For the year ended December 31, 2003, we served approximately 416,000 commercial customers, defined as public sector and corporate customers excluding consumers, which comprised 98% of our total net sales. We focus on generating repeat sales from existing customers while also generating sales from new customers. We create a high degree of customer loyalty through our relationship-focused account managers. These account managers become knowledgeable about customer needs and assist customers by providing advice on the selection and configuration of multi-branded technology solutions.

We market to current and prospective customers through our catalogs, other direct mail programs, product advertisements in computer trade magazines and other publications, our Web sites and various Web advertising vehicles. Additionally, we promote the CDW brand on a national basis through our branding campaign, which includes television, print media and other activities. Our marketing efforts are integrated with a proactive outbound calling program by our account managers. We also focus significant efforts on developing and expanding our E-business initiatives. These initiatives include CDW.com , CDWG.com and macwarehouse.com (our Web sites), and CDW@work and CDWG@work (our extranets), which are customized Web sites for our commercial customers.

We adhere to a core philosophy known as the CDW CIRCLE OF SERVICE™, which places the customer at the center of all of the Company’s actions. The philosophy is based on the premise that “People Do Business With People They Like.” The CDW CIRCLE OF SERVICE™ is a graphic reminder to our coworkers that good service leads to good experiences and increased sales. A fundamental element of the CDW CIRCLE OF SERVICE™ is our coworkers, who are highly motivated and incented to share in the Company’s success.

We sell multi-brand computers and related technology products, including hardware and peripherals, software, accessories and other products, for use with microcomputers based on a variety of operating platforms, including Microsoft, Apple, Linux, Novel, Unix and others. Aggressive inventory management allows us to limit our on-hand inventory and ship orders generally on a same-day basis.

We continually seek to expand and improve our relationships with manufacturers as well as increase the number of products which we are authorized to sell.

Customers

We served approximately 416,000 commercial customers for the year ended December 31, 2003 and sales to our commercial customers accounted for approximately 98% of total net sales. We are not dependent on any one customer. For the year ended December 31, 2003, our largest customer comprised only .39% of net sales and our top five customers comprised approximately 1.18% of net sales. Our corporate customers are primarily small and medium size businesses that generally have less than 1,000 employees at a single location. We also serve larger corporate customers, including FORTUNE 1000 companies, as either a primary or secondary vendor. CDW-G, which conducts the Company’s public sector business, focuses on meeting the technology needs of federal, state and local governments, and educational institutions.

Our customers are located almost entirely in the United States. In 2003, approximately 10% of our net sales were to customers in Illinois, approximately 34% were to customers in the eastern United States, approximately 20% were to customers in the southern United States, approximately 20% were to customers in the western United States and approximately 15% were to customers in the midwestern United States (excluding Illinois). Approximately 1% of our sales in 2003 were to customers outside of the continental United States.

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