Battle of the Bulge Comes to the Desktop as HDS Cuts NC Prices

HDS Network Systems has fired the opening shot in an NC price war by slashing up to 25 per cent off the prices of its NC product range.

The workstation NCs, which run Java, Microsoft Windows, Unix, and Web applications, will now start at #499 for the basic model, while the top of the range Supra 66 model will cost #855.

HDS executive VP Michael Kantrowitz said the market had expanded much quicker than anticipated and the company had shipped 10,000 machines since the products were first launched last June.

He added that the NC boom was driven by corporates rather than resellers. ?Resellers have become excluded from making money at the desktop. PCs are now commodity products. The NC will be a channel product for ever, but resellers are slow on the uptake. It?s a technology they had better learn about,? he said.

Joel Jervis, managing director of the vendor?s sole UK distributor Compass, said: ?We?ve got people knocking on the door wanting to sell NCs, but it?s not a big shifting operation. There?s lots of added value that goes with it.?