To: Petz who wrote (30410 ) 3/6/2001 1:16:50 AM From: Joe NYC Read Replies (4) | Respond to Here is an interesting message from a guy who supposedly works at CompUsa. It confirms my impression of disappearance of HP Athlon systems. He has more to say:As a sales person at CompUSA and an AMD stockholder, I recently read an internal CompUSA e-mail that stated CompUSA is not going to offer the Hewlett-Packard PC's with Athlon processors, only PIV. A week later I saw the HP rep and mentioned it to him. He confirmed it and expressed disappointment in the fact because AMD has the better processor. He also stated that he thought the Compaq line was going to be under the same "guidelines" soon. I then asked the CompUSA regional merchandising manager about this "fact" and he seemed surprised. He fired off an e-mail to a CompUSA buyer. A few days later he forwarded the response to me. The response from the buyer stated that "the PIV had been outperforming the Athlon 1.2 gig in sales in CompUSA and that was what the decision was based on. That was crap because for one, I have been there 2 and 1/2 years and since the Athlon came out it has out sold the PIII and PIV. Second, we have onlyr had one shipment of 1.2 gig Athlon in a box to sell and we couldn't keep it on the shelf, but most of the PIV's just sat until there wasn't any Athlon's to sell. I have notified the AMD investor relations site about this and they are checking on the information. Also, I have been sending customers to Best Buy or Sam's Club (they both offer the HP with the 1.2 gig Athlon). We can do a build-to-order in the store for a Compaq with the Athlon, but nothing already in the store in a box. I can put two and two together and see that Intel is "buying" the market in the CompUSA chain, since it can't compete on performance, reliability and price. I refuse to sell a PIV because of the price, lack of performance and unreliability. That's only my $.02, but if you know someone looking for the best performance out there in a PC, tell them to stay away from CompUSA until they realize their mistake. But since the new owners have cut every budget possible, I don't see them refusing a kick--back from Intel either. We did have one shipment of 1.2 gig Athlons in the Compaq line when they were first released, and sold out immediately. We also have the AMD Duron equipped machines which we push highly over the Intel Celeron stuff. Supposedly, we will keep the Duron's in boxes in the store, but can only offer Athlon's in the build-to-order kiosks in the store (they are putting in an HP kiosk soon). clearstation.com
