Compaq Announces Sweeping Price Cuts, Launches 133 MHz Pentium Processor-Based PCs in Move To Extend Worldwide PC Market Lead.HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 16, 1995--
Editor's Summary
Compaq today moved to extend its lead in the worldwide PC market: o Announced aggressive price reductions of up to 25 percent across its commercial and consumer desktop product families; o Introduced nine new commercial desktop computers based on the 133 MHz Intel Pentium microprocessor, the fastest available today; o Raised the standard minimum hard drive size from 270 MB to 630 MB throughout its commercial desktop families, strengthening its position as the clear value leader in the PC marketplace; o Leveraged its strategic role as the Lead Systems Partner for Windows 95 to lead the way in addressing Windows 95 market opportunities. In a bold move to extend its lead in the worldwide PC marketplace, Compaq Computer Corporation (company) Compaq Computer Corporation - The largest US manufacturer and vendor of IBM PC compatible personal computers and servers. Compaq was started in 1982 by three ex-Texas Instruments employees. Quarterly sales $2499M, profits $210M (Aug 1994). http://compaq.com/. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange : CPQ CPQ Compaq CPQ Conseil du Patronat du Québec (Canada) CPQ Configure-Price-Quote CPQ Conseil de Presse du Québec (Québec Press Council, Canada) CPQ Companion Parrot Quarterly ) today made sweeping new product and pricing announcements that raise the bar for PC value and performance and position the company to leverage the strong wave of PC buying analysts expect in the second half of 1995. Compaq (Compaq Computer Corporation, Houston, TX, www.compaq.com) Compaq was the leading PC manufacturer when it was acquired by HP in 2002. Founded in 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto, one year later the company shipped 53,000 PC-compatible COMPAQ Portables, resulting in $111 announced aggressive price reductions of up to 25 percent across its commercial and consumer desktop product families, and introduced nine new desktop computers based on 133 MHz (MegaHertZ) One million cycles per second. It is used to measure the transmission speed of electronic devices, including channels, buses and the computer's internal clock. A one-megahertz clock (1 MHz) means some number of bits (16, 32, 64, etc. Pentium Pentium Family of microprocessors developed by Intel Corp. Introduced in 1993 as the successor to Intel's 80486 microprocessor, the Pentium contained two processors on a single chip and about 3.3 million transistors. chips -- the fastest microprocessor microprocessor, integrated circuit containing the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to interpret and execute instructions from a computer program. available today. Compaq also raised the standard minimum hard drive size throughout its commercial desktop families, strengthening its position as the clear value leader in the PC marketplace. "By combining quality and useful innovation with aggressive prices, Compaq is aiming to recast re·cast tr.v. re·cast, re·cast·ing, re·casts 1. To mold again: recast a bell. 2. the competitive PC landscape with a barrage of new aggressively priced products," said Compaq President and Chief Executive Officer Eckhard Pfeiffer Eckhard Pfeiffer (born August 20, 1941 in Lauban, Germany—now Lubań, Poland) is a business executive of German ancestry, and a former CEO of Compaq from 1991-1998. He joined Compaq from Texas Instruments, and established operations from scratch in both Europe and Asia. . "Compaq re-wrote the book in 1992 when it comes to value and performance, and with these aggressive price reductions, powerful new desktop PCs, and sweeping product enhancements, we're we're Contraction of we are. we're we are adding a new chapter." Building on its leadership position in the worldwide PC industry and its strategic role as the Microsoft (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, www.microsoft.com) The most successful and influential software company. Microsoft's software and Intel's hardware pioneered the PC and revolutionized the computer industry. Lead Systems Partner for Windows 95, Compaq is moving to further increase its marketshare. In the second quarter, "Compaq has outpaced all rivals by nearly 400,000 shipments and is well-positioned to lead the market at year end for the second consecutive year," according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Philippe de Marcillac, vice president and chief analyst of Dataquest, one of the industry's leading market research firms(a). "Today's announcement is another milestone in our commitment to extend our lead in the global PC marketplace," said Pfeiffer. "In our quest to become the world's leading computer company, we will continue to offer even more solutions that address the needs of a wide range of customers, from the world's largest corporations to first- time PC buyers." Price Reductions Compaq has reduced prices throughout both its commercial and consumer PC product families by up to 25 percent, offering customers more power and functionality at lower prices than competing products. For example, a 75 MHz Pentium processor-based Compaq ProLinea with 8 megabytes (MB) RAM, 256 KB cache and a 630 MB hard drive now costs $1,599(b). A comparable Dell OptiPlex Dell, Inc. targets its OptiPlex™ line of desktop computers for sale into the corporate, government and education markets. These systems typically contain Intel CPUs, beginning with the Pentium and currently with the Core 2 although Dell sells some models with AMD CPUs as well. model (X500 series) with only a 365 MB hard drive is priced at $1,650(c) and Hewlett Packard Vectra VL3 with a 420 MB hard drive costs $1,799(d). In another comparison, a Compaq Deskpro The Compaq Deskpro was a line of business-oriented personal computers manufactured by Compaq, discontinued after the merger with Hewlett-Packard. The original Compaq Deskpro, available in several disk configurations, was equipped with an 8MHz 8086 CPU and Compaq's unique XL with a 90 MHz Pentium processor and 16 MB RAM, 256 KB cache and a 1 gigabyte One billion bytes. Also GB, Gbyte and G-byte. See giga and space/time. (unit) gigabyte - 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes = 1024 megabytes. Roughly the amount of data required to encode a human gene sequence (including all the redundant codons). See prefix. (GB) hard drive now costs $3,199, significantly less than Dell's comparable OptiPlex model (DGX DGX Dogfishes (FAO fish species code) series) which is priced at $3,550(e) and Hewlett Packard's Vectra XU 5/90C, which was recently reduced to $3,345(f). Compaq has also reduced pricing across all models of its popular Presario desktop product line. The Presario pricing reductions range from $200 on the Presario CDS 744 to $600 on the powerful 100 MHz Pentium processor-based Presario CDS 992. For example, the Compaq Presario Presario is a series of desktop computers and notebooks from Compaq. The Presario family of computers was launched for the consumer marketplace in September 1993. Although HP has since acquired Compaq, the Presario name was not discontinued due to its marketability. CDS 974 with a 75 MHz Pentium processor and 725 MB hard drive, formerly available at $2,199, is reduced to $1,799, a decrease of 18 percent. New Pentium Processor-based 133 MHz Models Compaq is the first manufacturer to incorporate the new 133 MHz Intel Pentium microprocessor across its entire business desktop product line, including the company's highly successful ProLinea, Deskpro and Deskpro XL desktop PCs. Nine new high-performance 133 MHz Pentium processor-based models with 16 MB of memory and 1 GB hard drives will be available in volume by the end of the third quarter. "With today's announcements, Compaq has reshaped its entire desktop product line, ramping up our transition to Pentium processors and -- more importantly -- restaking our claim as the clear value and performance leader," said Pfeiffer. Compaq's new 133 MHz desktops include two additions to the ProLinea, five additions to the Deskpro, and two additions to the Deskpro XL families of desktop PCs. The new Compaq ProLinea 5133 models, designed for mainstream customers, start at $2,899. The new Compaq Deskpro 5133 models, which deliver Intelligent Manageability man·age·a·ble adj. That can be managed or controlled: manageable problems. man -- a unique set of features that enable customers to better manage computers on their networks and lower their cost of ownership -- start at $3,099. The new Compaq Deskpro XL 5133 models, designed for the most demanding business applications such as computer aided design (application) Computer Aided Design - (CAD) The part of CAE concerning the drawing or physical layout steps of engineering design. Often found in the phrase "CAD/CAM" for ".. manufacturing". and sophisticated financial analysis, start at $3,799. Increased Minimum Hard Drive While drastically dras·tic adj. 1. Severe or radical in nature; extreme: the drastic measure of amputating the entire leg; drastic social change brought about by the French Revolution. 2. reducing prices across its PC product families, Compaq has further increased commercial desktop value by raising the standard minimum hard drive size throughout its ProLinea and Deskpro product families. These higher capacity disk drives -- widely available in September -- allow customers to easily accommodate the more robust operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. and applications that are becoming available. The 270 MB standard minimum hard drive models in both product families have been raised to 630 MB, and the highest capacity models are now at 1 GB. Windows 95 Leadership Analysts expect many PC users to upgrade their hardware as they transition to new operating systems like Windows 95. Today's aggressive product and pricing announcements -- together with Compaq's position as the Lead Systems Partner for Windows 95 -- fuel the company's drive to lead the way in addressing customer demand. Compaq and Microsoft worked closely throughout the development of Windows 95, investing more than 50 man-years in joint testing and development. Earlier this year, Compaq introduced new desktop PCs designed to take full advantage of the unique capabilities offered with Windows 95 including Compaq's Intelligent Manageability, a collection of breakthrough desktop management tools and features that dramatically reduce the total cost of PC ownership. For the past 14 months, Compaq has been shipping Windows 95-ready products and products with Plug and Play capabilities including the best selling ProLinea, Deskpro, Deskpro XL, LTE (Long Term Evolution) See 3GPP. Elite, Contura and the Presario line of consumer PCs. Company Background Compaq Computer Corporation is the world's largest supplier of personal computers, offering desktop PCs, portable PCs and servers. Founded in 1982, the company reported 1994 worldwide sales of $10.9 billion. Compaq products are sold and supported in more than 100 countries through a network of more than 38,000 Compaq marketing partners. Compaq also sells directly to customers through Compaq Direct Plus at 1-800-888-5858. Compaq provides 24-hour customer support and can be reached through the Compaq forums on America Online See AOL. , CompuServe, Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the (http://www.compaq.com), and Prodigy An online information service that provides access to the Internet, e-mail and a variety of databases. Launched in 1988, Prodigy was the first consumer-oriented online service in the U.S. , or by calling 1-800-345-1518. -0- (a) Dataquest press release, Aug. 7, 1995, "Compaq Tops Dataquest's Worldwide PC Shipment List for Sixth Consecutive Quarter" (b) All prices are estimated selling price; actual prices will vary (c) Advertisement, PC World, August 1995, back page, $1,949, less Dell's $299 credit for monitor (d) Advertisement, PC World, August 1995, page 206 (e) Dell Direct Sales price quote, 8/15/95 (f) As quoted by HP reseller, 8/15/95 Compaq, Deskpro Registered U.S Patent and Trademark Office. Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corporation (company) Intel Corporation - A US microelectronics manufacturer. They produced the Intel 4004, Intel 8080, Intel 8086, Intel 80186, Intel 80286, Intel 80386, Intel 486 and Pentium microprocessor families as well as many other integrated circuits and personal computer networking . -0- Addendum: Price(a) & Product Positioning
Configuration Compaq Hewlett Packard
Product Product
------------------------------------------------------
ProLinea Vectra VE
Processor P75 P75
Cache 256KB 0KB
VRAM 1MB 1MB
RAM 8MB 8MB
HD 630MB 540MB
Warranty 3 Year 3 Year
Price: $1,599 $1,639(b)
Configuration Compaq Hewlett Packard
Product Product
------------------------------------------------------
ProLinea Vectra VL3
Processor P75 P75 Cache 256KB 256KB VRAM 1MB 1MB RAM 8MB 8MB HD 630MB 420MB Warranty 3 Year 3 Year Price: $1,599 $1,799(c)
Deskpro Vectra XM3
Processor P75 P75 Cache 256KB 256KB VRAM 1MB 1MB RAM 8MB 8MB HD 630MB 420MB NIC Integr. 32-bit Integr. 32-bit Desktop Intelligent DMI Management Manageability Price: $1,849 $1,859(d)
Configuration Compaq Hewlett Packard
Product Product
------------------------------------------------------
Deskpro XL Vectra XU
Processor P90 P90 Cache 256KB 256KB VRAM 2MB 2MB RAM 16MB 16MB HD 1GB 1GB NIC Integr. 32-bit Integr. 32-bit SCSI Yes Yes Warranty 3 Year 3 Year Price: $3,199 $3,345(e)
(a) All pricing listed is estimated selling price; actual
prices will vary.
(b) Advertisement: PC World, August 1995, page 206.
(c) Advertisement: PC World, August 1995, page 206.
(d) Advertisement: PC World, August 1995, page 206.
(e) As quoted by HP reseller, 8/15/95.
CONTACT: Compaq Computer Corporation Yvonne Donaldson, Mike Berman, John Sweney 713-374-0484 or Miller/Shandwick Technologies Martha Papalia, Donna Ruane 617-536-0470 scollins@millercom.com |
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