by Kevin Ferguson, Editor
Just how much rocket fuel is left in the low-cost PC market engine?
Enough to make several PC vendors strap on rocket boosters for the
fourth quarter. Among them is Monorail, which has seemed to fall out of
orbit, or at least off the radar screens of retailers for the past few
months as it struggled with getting enough product manufactured. Its
curious stamped sheet-metal-encased computer sold fairly well, it
seemed, but production suddenly dried up. This caused some retailers to
momentarily turn a cold shoulder to the maverick vendor. Indeed, an
inquirer calling CompUSA's toll-free number was told about a month ago
that there was no Monorail product listed, and so, it was likely that
the manufacturer had been dropped by the retailer. Monorail insists it
isn't true and that the retailer was temporarily out of Monorail
product. Apparently, what CompUSA wasn't out of was patience and high
expectations for the category, for the retailer is apparently taking
Monorail back with open arms now that full production has been resumed.
That's not an easy task for a manufacturer after you've left a retailer
high and dry. "They were very patient with us," Monorail vice president
of marketing Andrew Watson recently said of retailers .
Monorail couldn't be happier, with retail pacts signed with Circuit
City, Egghead and CompUSA. While there is much greater competition in
the category since Monorail first entered the market, the unique look
and feel of its product line should be enough to keep sales strong.
Meanwhile, IBM seems to think that the market for low-end computers
will not only be strong for this fourth quarter but for many quarters
to come. Jim Bartlett, vice president, product marketing, for IBM's
Consumer Division, said during a recent Comdex/Fall panel discussion
that the growth of sub-$1,000 computers could help double the household
penetration of PCs within a couple of years. Bartlett, it should be
noted, was responding from the hip to a from-the-hip question and was
not drawing on a recently completed IBM market report. But clearly, IBM
has been studying this thing long enough (hence, the company's late
entry in the market category) and feels that there's strong potential
for the $999 PC it began shipping a few weeks ago and for the other
sub-$1,000 PCs it will ship in the future.
---
I was surprised to find only one bizarro letter in my in-box following
my column on the latest "new" Apple. Any negative statement about Apple
usually draws fire from every frothing Mac freak out there. The only
off-the-wall one I received this time criticized me for (among other
things) speaking unkindly of ham radios. What I had said, of course,
was that Apple executives jump around with the frequency of a cheap ham
radio. For the record, I have nothing against ham radios, or ham, for
that matter. Both are fine, I'm sure. Now, please take your medication
and relax.
I did receive one letter from the owner of a New York-based Mac repair
shop who chastised me for saying that Macs were unreliable and that
replacement parts are hard to come by. He suggested that just the
opposite is true and alluded to a report in the September issue of
Consumer Reports backing him up.
Now, that I've taken my medication, I'd be willing to say that Macs
are, in fact, much more reliable than the computers found aboard the
space station Mir, but I'll be damned if finding replacement parts
hasn't been an out-of-this-world experience in the past couple of
years. |
