Tenchusatsu 7 Intel Investors - Celerons are Taking off in Notebook Computer market.
""We sold a ton [of Celeron systems] into large enterprises," said Marc Jourlait, director of worldwide market development for the mobile computing division at HP, in Cupertino, Calif. "
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infoworld.com
Customers clamor for mobile diversity
By Ephraim Schwartz InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 5:22 AM PT, May 1, 1999 Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and Micron this week will announce a half-dozen new notebook models with a variety of configurations, from lightweight Celeron-based systems to full-scale desktop replacements with the fastest Pentium II processors.
In part, vendors are reacting to demand by corporate customers that they offer more solutions to meet the diverse needs of different departments within a single company.
"One standard laptop for the whole company is too restrictive," said the IT manager at a major Midwestern manufacturer, who believes the role of information technology departments should be that of technology suppliers, rather than technology advocates.
Progressive companies understand the added value of mobile systems that allow employees to better balance home, family, and career, said the IT manager from the Midwest.
But some older companies are under more direct pressure to make the business case for each new system, the manager added.
"We are much too old-line, rust belt. We need a hard business case before we spend a nickel," the manager said.
Catering to these cost-conscious IT organizations, notebook systems based on Intel's low-cost Mobile Celeron processor are now being offered in the commercial space.
"The only reason it hasn't been happening sooner is that Intel positioned the Celeron as a consumer play, and that confused the commercial market," said Rob Enderle, a senior analyst at the Gartner Group, in San Jose, Calif. "Now companies are beginning to understand it and vendors have no choice."
Dell for the first time will offer a Latitude CPT with many high-end features, such as a 14-inch active-matrix display and a 4.3GB hard drive, along with the inexpensive 333-MHz Celeron processor to temper the overall costs. The unit will sell for less than $2,000.
HP will also ship a Celeron-based system, the OmniBook XE2, starting at $1,600 with a 13.3-inch active-matrix display, a 4.1GB hard drive, and 32MB of RAM.
"We sold a ton [of Celeron systems] into large enterprises," said Marc Jourlait, director of worldwide market development for the mobile computing division at HP, in Cupertino, Calif.
Besides its attractive price point, Jourlait said, the fact that the OmniBook XE2 will run Windows 2000 is a strong selling point for corporate IT.
Direct vendors Gateway and Micron are also announcing new systems for both budget and high-performance segments.
All systems will ship this month.
"The businesspeople are looking for me to be creative and to come up with a policy they can fall back on when management asks why they bought what they bought," the IT manager in the Midwest said.
Dell Computer Corp., in Austin, Texas, is at www.dell.com. Gateway Corp., in North Sioux City, S.D., is at www.gateway.com. Hewlett-Packard Co., in Palo Alto, Calif., is at www.hp.com. Micron Electronics Inc., in Nampa, Idaho, is at www.micron.com.
InfoWorld Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz is based in San Mateo, Calif.
Vendors diversify notebook offerings Four notebook vendors introduced six systmes this week in dozens of configuratins. This is a sampling of models and configurations.
Vendor/model Processor Display Memory Hard drive Price Dell/Latitude CPT Celeron 14.1-inch 32MB 4.3GB $1,899 Gateway/Solo 9150 PII 15-inch 64MB 6GB $2,999 /Solo 3150 Celeron 12.1-inch 32MB 4GB $2,099 HP/OmniBook XE2 Celeron 12-inch* 32MB 4GB $1,500 Micron/TransPort Trek2 PII 14.1-inch 32MB 14GB $2,699 TransPort Trek2 Celeron 12.1-inch 32MB 14GB $1,899 * The only display in this chart that is not active matrix
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