The 3 sources I have for Philips samples are:
My local friendly Philips FAE, i think yours is Rao Raghavendra, say hey from me
Elcom
Future electronics

The local office addresses of the above for you are available on the web.

Which I use is the result of the inquiry that lead to the sample request (technical, desperation, price).

Erik

By the way many of the MAX chips that are next to impossible the get from Maxim in quantities other than samples or 10.000 are second sourced by Philips and available from Philips/Elcom/Future with the MAXnnn numbers.