PC Briefs
Staff -- TWICE, 6/11/2001
Sony's Digicam Shipments Ahead Of The Rest, IDC Says
SAN JOSE, CALIF. — International Data Corp. placed Sony as the top selling digital camera vendor for the first quarter of 2001. Sony, with 17 percent of the market, topped Polaroid (12 percent), Hewlett-Packard (11 percent), Kodak (10 percent) and Olympus (9 percent). IDC data indicated that digital camera shipments grew more than 50 percent, compared to the same period in 2000, with about 1.3 million units shipping. These numbers have the digital camera category on a healthy track for the year, despite the recent economic down turn. Chris Chute, IDC's worldwide digital imaging analyst, expects the $299 price point to be the next area for contention amongst the camera vendors.
Maxtor Ships Multi-Purpose Hard Drive To Manufacturers
MILPITAS, CALIF. — Maxtor has started shipments to manufacturers of the Maxtor 541DX, a 5400 RPM Ultra ATA/100 hard drive that targets the industry's capacity sweet spot of 20GB. These are intended for use in entry-level PCs and emerging product categories like game consoles, set-top boxes and digital audio players. The 20GBs of storage are contained on a single-platter, which takes up less space inside a device and costs less to produce. Pricing was not available.
Kinyo Boosts Speaker Line
LA PUENTA, CALIF. — Multimedia speaker maker Kinyo is continuing its plan to introduce value-added product into the channel with the introduction of the SA-705 and P-3 speaker systems. The former is a three-piece system whose compact design is intended to make maximum use of available space. The subwoofer features a 3-inch driver and the satellite speakers push out two watts per channel. The SA-705 is available with a suggested retail price of $34.95. The P-3 is a two-piece system, suggested retail price $19.95, that features a 2.5-inch driver in each speaker. In addition to working with a PC, the P-3 and SA-705 are compatible with CD and MP3 players.
Addonics Ships Pocket Drive
FREMONT, CALIF. — Addonics Technologies has started shipping the Pocket SuperDisk 240. The drive, which can fit into a shirt pocket, attaches to a PC or notebook computer via a USB port and carries a $199 suggested retail price. SuperDisk is a next-generation floppy diskette technology that can hold 240MB of data. The SuperDisk drive is backward compatible with 1.44MB floppies, but the SuperDisk media cannot be read in a conventional floppy drive.
Scanner Rebates Proliferate
LA JOLLA, CALIF. — Several retailers are attempting to boost scanner sales through a variety of in-store promotions, according to ARS. Best Buy is offering a $25 gift card with the purchase of any advertised scanner and has rebates with purchases of Microtek 4600 and the Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 3300sce, J&R Computer World is promoting Office XP with a free Epson scanner, CompUSA has rebates with the Epson Perfection 640U.
Bundling Takes Off With Peripheral Vendors
LA JOLLA, CALIF. — A new study from the market research firm ARS has found that more peripheral manufacturers (companies like Epson, Canon, Agfa and Microtek) are seeking to bundle their products to compete in the tightening PC marketplace. "A number of peripheral companies have started their own version of the PC bundle, the peripheral bundle," the study said. "The popularity of peripheral bundles is due to a number of reasons, primarily value, ease of use, style, and color consistency. Bundle value can be created through combination purchase rebates, or by products being available in the same box, saving customers time and money vs. purchasing peripherals individually."
