All: It doesn't look like PB is defecting from the Intel ship:
joey
News
Industry News
Packard Bell To Hit $799 With Intel
Chip
By Roger C. Lanctot
New York
5:00 p.m. EST Thurs., Jan. 29, 1998
Packard Bell has notified retailers of a Feb. 15 price cut that will make
$799 a reasonable target price for its model R515, a system based on
an MMX-enhanced 200MHz Intel Pentium processor. Retailers
contacted by CRW said the R515 will compete head-to-head with
Compaq's Presario 2240, which is based on a 200MHz AMD K6
processor and is priced at $799 without a monitor.
Retailers said it was the first $799 PC from Packard Bell in more than
a year and would help the company challenge the introductory price
point for Compaq's Presario. The Packard Bell R515, built in a tower
configurations, comes with 32MB of RAM, a 3.2GB hard drive, a 20x
CD-ROM drive and a 56K-bps modem. The Presario unit, a desktop
system, has 32MB of RAM, a 2.1GB hard drive, a 20x CD-ROM
drive and a 56K-bps modem.
Packard Bell's move reflected its decision to address the $799 price
point with an Intel-based PC instead of introducing a Cyrix-based
model at that price. Retailers said the previously proposed Cyrix PC
was a negotiating device to convince Intel to lower its prices.
"Three out of the last five years Packard Bell has talked about
introducing a Cyrix-based PC and I haven't seen piece one," said one
retailer who asked not to be named. "All they wanted was some
leverage with Intel."
Retailers contacted by CRW were unsure as to how many accounts
are carrying Packard Bell's R515. CompUSA advertised the unit with
a printer and monitor bundle at $1,199 several weeks ago, and some
wondered whether the retailer would jump the gun on the price cut and
offer the system at $799 in its biweekly circular this weekend.
Neither Packard Bell nor CompUSA had a comment on the price
change. |
