Compaq Computer Corp has streamlined its PC line for the corporate market by dumping the ProLinea, ProLinea E and Deskpro XL brands in favor of a single Deskpro series. Compaq employed a similar strategy with its notebooks in June (CI No 2,936) when it dropped the Contura name. The Texas company yesterday shipped its Deskpro […]
Compaq Computer Corp has streamlined its PC line for the corporate market by dumping the ProLinea, ProLinea E and Deskpro XL brands in favor of a single Deskpro series. Compaq employed a similar strategy with its notebooks in June (CI No 2,936) when it dropped the Contura name. The Texas company yesterday shipped its Deskpro line starting at a record low of $1,100, bundled with its administrative technology called Intelligent Manageability. Compaq has also developed a security technology for two of the new models that alerts network administrators if PC covers are tampered with, while on or off. The PCs also underwent a design change that Compaq claims will reduce service time for component repair from 20 minutes to five minutes. Expect Compaq to make an internetworking announcement at the end of July.
First up is the low-end Deskpro 2000, which replaces the phased out ProLinea and ProLinea E models (CI No 2,936) for small and medium-size businesses. The 2000 is the most basic model with no networking capability and starts with a 100MHz Pentium processor, 8Mb memory, 630Mb disk and no cache. It also has three PCI slots, one AT slot, one shared slot and four device bays and is priced at $1,100, excluding monitor; it progresses up to 200MHz Pentium Pro processor with 16Mb, 1.6Gb disk, optional eight-times speed CD-ROM drive at around $210 and 256Kb secondary cache at $65. The Deskpro 4000 is aimed at the networked corporate user and at the low end starts with a 16Mb Pentium at 120MHz and 1Gb disk at $1,600, going up to 200MHz Pentium Pro with 32M and 2.5Gb disk. The Deskpro 6000 line, replacing the Deskpro XL, is aimed at power users. It starts with 16Mb 166MHz Pentium, 1Gb disk, eight times base speed CD-ROM drive and 500Kb secondary cache for $2,800. The Deskpro 2000 and 4000 have Enhanced IDE drives and are preloaded with Windows 3.1 and Windows95, while the 6000 has an Ultra SCSI drive and is configured for Windows NT and 32-bit applications. Compaq has designed two new, enhanced keyboards with extra keys that can be adapted for easy access to some Windows95 features. The SpaceSaver keyboard is on the 2000 and is around $50 separately and the Enhanced III keyboard with an additional ‘Erase Eaze’ key is included with the 4000 and 6000 models. The Intelligent Manageability features inventory and asset management, where asset and configuration details of the machines can be accessed locally or remotely. Fault management, through Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology, SMART, is on the hard drives across the range. SMART provides warning of impending system failure up to 72 hours in advance. There is also a power supply surge protector in the 4000 and 6000 accomodating spikes in the power up to 2,000 Volts. Support management features, which enable easy upgrades and hardware and software integration, are available through a support software compact disk with device drivers, utilities and Flashable ROM images and details of changes to products and Compaq product support. The disk also contains Microsoft Internet Explorer for access to the Compaq Software Support Management Web site for other information and access to software upgrades. Other features included in the higher end Deskpros are the LS-120 120Mb floppy disk drive, a floptical disk drive backwards-compatible with 1.44Mb and 720Kb disks (CI No 2,938). In the 6000, the PD-CD drive is a 5.25 high-performance two-in-one drive that can be used either as a standard quad-speed CD-ROM drive or 650Mb rewritable optical drive. All Deskpro models are available immediately.
