HP's New Low-Price PC Should Interest Small Businesses
(Gartner's report has some interesting info on the new Athlon based HP business system.)
www4.gartner.com
Event
On 19 August 2002, HP announced it would use Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD's) Athlon microprocessors in its Compaq D315 Business PC. Computers using the new chip should sell for $549-$599.
First Take
With this move, HP becomes the first major original equipment manufacturer to offer business desktop PCs using AMD's Athlon chip. HP's market is small-to-midsize businesses and government customers, such as schools, that buy PCs solely on the basis of price. HP's targets are the so-called "white box" vendors — manufacturers of inexpensive, generic PCs. The initial marketing focus will be the United States, expanding to overseas markets within the next few months.
Enterprises have to balance the price and performance of the D315 against the costs of introducing another platform. Deployment, development, imaging and support costs can rapidly eat up any savings that might accrue from the use of a less-expensive PC. Furthermore, it will be tough for the price of the AMD platform to drop below the price of the basic Intel platform. Large buyers therefore are unlikely to shift to the AMD system. However, where higher performance is a requirement, an AMD-based system can offer a better price-to-performance ratio, and Gartner expects these business systems to be aggressively priced as AMD tries to open up the market. This is consistent with HP's plan to sell to small businesses that might otherwise buy white box products, or organizations looking for higher performance at a lower price.
Large enterprises should ignore D315 for now. Small-to-midsize businesses that are looking for product-only offerings can consider it as alternative to white box products.
Analytical Sources: Mark Margevicius and Martin Reynolds, Gartner Research
wbmw |
