This may have a lot of the same material as Yamakita's post, but here it is anyways.
Fez
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Tuesday July 27, 12:00 am Eastern Time
Dell to unveil $959 consumer PC with Web access
By Eric Auchard
NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) - Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:DELL - news) said it plans on Tuesday to offer a full-featured consumer personal computer, with a year's free Internet service, priced at $959 in a bid to navigate the fast-changing currents of the low-cost PC market.
The new Dell's home PC offer, which come with a year's access to the company's Dellnet Internet service for U.S. customers, offers few if any sacrifices compared to subsidized PC offers that exclude key PC components like monitors or ask for a 3-year Internet commitment.
The new Dell PCs come with an Intel Celeron 400 megahertz computer chip, a keyboard, monitor, Microsoft Windows 98 and Works application software, a 3-year warranty and online technical support and a range of useful Internet services.
Established PC makers like Dell, which have traditionally focused on the power-hungry instead of the entry-level PC user, have been struggling to find ways to meet the challenge of ''free'' or ''nearly free'' $299 PC offers from new PC vendors and major Internet providers like America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news)
Dell's move, which comes after years of shunning the low-cost PC market, has been widely anticipated, and marks an effort to build profitable ties to consumers by subsidizing initial PC costs and making money back on future purchases.
''There has been a lot of hype out in the market about the 'free PC,''' Janet Mountain, Dell consumer division vice president and general manager, said in an interview Monday.
''We are not asking consumers to compromise,'' Mountain said, adding that, ''What we are looking to do is build a lifelong relationship with customers as a single-source technology provider.''
She said Dell has positioned its new home PCs to appeal to savvy PC customers who are tired of buying a PC from one place, an Internet service from another, software from a retailer and ''how-to'' technical support from someone else.
''Customers are sick of buying a PC and figuring out...they are on their own for a weekend project to put it all together themselves,'' Mountain said. ''Dell is going to help do that integration for them. We provide that one single point of accountability that customers want,'' she said.
With each PC sold, for example, Dell is looking to supply new customers with a range of follow-up products through its existing Gigabuys online store (http://gigabuys.us.dell.com).
As part of its offer, Dell has struck partnerships with several Internet services suppliers, including San Diego-based (At)Backup Inc., which offers Dellnet users 20 million bytes of computer storage online, at bank-level security protection.
Dell will offer a simple-to-use method for publishing and maintaining personal Web home pages from Homestead Technologies Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif. and a digital picture-sharing service via the Internet through Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE:EK - news)
For customers who buy more powerful PCs priced at $2,200, with at least a 32-gigabyte hard disk, Dell plans to offer innovative software from MusicMatch Inc. of San Diego that helps users translate personal music CD collections onto hard-disks for playback like a jukebox.
Dellnet is based on Internet services from MCI WorldCom Inc.'s (Nasdaq:WCOM - news) UUNET Internet access wholesale business. On Dellnet, customers gain access to the ''DellZone,'' a network of affiliated sites like Amazon.com (Nasdaq:AMZN - news) or the Wall Street Journal Interactive edition, and can buy products or services directly, and in some cases at discounts, a spokesman said.
During the latest quarter, Dell fell just shy of taking the No. 1 spot among PC makers in the United States from long-time leader Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE:CPQ - news), which still kept the top spot globally, amid turmoil in Compaq's distribution strategy.
Dell's consumer business, which represents roughly 15 percent of overall revenues, has grown more than 80 percent annually in each of the last three years, Mountain said.
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