Amstrad - New Products Announced
Amstrad: new PCs, budget fax & bundles - Amstrad Consumer Electronics PLC - product announcement
AMSTRAD: NEW PCS, BUDGET FAX & BUNDLES BRENTWOOD, ENGLAND, 1989 SEP 16 (NB) -- Amstrad has announced a swathe of new products in the PC and fax market, coupled with bundling promotions for its older PCW1512 and PPC machines. To back up the entire ensemble, the company has announced a UKP 12 million advertising campaign which runs for the next three months.
Spearheading a price assault on the 80286 and 80386-based PC market are the 80286-based PC1286 and 80386-based PC1386 series, with both machines available with a choice of two mono and two colour monitors, or as a system unit on its own. The machines are essentially stripped-down versions of the existing PC2286 and PC2386 series.
Pricing on the PC1286 starts at UKP 750 for a 12MHz 80286-based system unit with 1MB of RAM and a single 2.5-inch disk drive. A 12-inch mono monitor adds UKP 149 to this price, with 14-inch colour, 12-inch high resolution colour and 14-inch high resolution colour monitors available for, respectively, UKP 249, UKP 249 and UKP 449 extra.
The 20MHz 80386-based PC1386 is available on a similar basis, pricing starting at UKP 1,250 for the system unit, through to UKP 1,699 for a 14-inch high resolution colour monitor package. Both machines support VGA graphics as standard.
Malcolm Miller, Amstrad's group sales and marketing director, said that the new PCs are in response to user demand. "We consider that up to 30 per cent of the market for 286/386 machines is not satisfied with highly specified models. There is a gap for the value-added market, which we aim to fill with our new PC1286 and PC1386," he said.
Amstrad's launch into the fax market centres around the UKP 599 FX9600T unit, which features a 20-page cutter and 100-number memory. The fax machine also features a 16-grey scale scanner, plus a