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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DRBES who wrote (52642)	3/15/1999 2:13:00 PM
From: Kevin K. Spurway	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1575620

Re: "I am taking it under advisement." I wouldn't. Going to Yousef for guidance on mental health is like going to Jerry Sanders for guidance on AMD. Kevin

To: DRBES who wrote (52642)	3/15/1999 2:15:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 1575620

derebwwrsw - AMD's 400 MHz K6-2 makes it into the $699 PC ! I guess ASP's must have stopped "climbing" for this to happen ! The speedy Cyrix MII 300 populates the $299 PC ! Lots of money being made by AMD and Cyrix on these sales. pAUL {==============================} Seattle company offers $299 PC By Brooke Crothers Staff Writer, CNET News.com March 15, 1999, 9:20 a.m. PT URL: news.com update A small, Seattle-based company has lowered the PC price bar with a box that sells for only $299. The PC is being offered by Microworkz, a relatively unknown direct seller of PCs. Founded in 1991, Microworkz began as an independent custom software vendor but has been selling PCs directly since February of last year, according to Rick Latman, the company's president. Emachines, another company that was unknown only six months ago, is considered one of the leaders in this, the lowest end segment of the sub-$1,000 PC market. PCs in this segment cost less than $599. Emachines made a splash when it announced a $399 PC in September of last year. Both iDOT.com, another start-up, and Packard Bell NEC have also been pushing sub-$600 PCs. Microworkz PCs are bundled with a year of unlimited Internet access, provided by ISP Earthlink, Latman said. The WEBzter line of PCs is the "flagship product...which aims to bring PCs and the Internet to the 55 percent of U.S. households which are still without computers," according to a company statement that echoes what Emachines and others have been saying for some time. "The goal is not to make money on the $299 PC. This is an outreach product and our partners pay us to include their products with our PC," Latman said. He said that both Microsoft and National Semiconductor's Cyrix arm are strategic partners. The $299 WEBzter Jr. has a Cyrix 300 MII processor, 32MB of memory, a 3.2GB hard drive, a 56-kbps modem, Windows 98, and Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, in addition to the year of unlimited Internet access. Microworkz also announced two other products--a $499 WEBzter and the $699 WEBzter Sr. At $499, the WEBzter includes a faster Cyrix 366 MII chip and a larger 4.3GB hard drive. It also adds more graphics memory--8 MB based on AGP technology--and a CD-ROM drive. The WEBzter Sr., at $699, includes all of the WEBzter's features but boosts the processor speed to 400 MHz with an Advanced Micro Devices K6-2 chip. The hard drive capacity is increased to 6.4GB and the memory is upped to 64MB. WEBzter PCs will all be assembled in the United States at Microworkz manufacturing facilities in the Seattle area, the company said. The company can make 200,000 computers per month and it goes into "pre-production" later this month and will go into full production in mid-April, 1999, the company said. The company currently has 45 employees and will be adding another 36, Latman said. The new computers will be demonstrated at Spring Comdex in Chicago.