Apple slashes cost of Powerbook 520

If exorbitant price tags have been a major deterrent in your notebook purchase plans, think again.  Apple Computer has recently made available its Powerbook 520 at what appears to be very reasonable Rs. 59,000 (excluding taxes).

The Offer comes from Apple’s distributor Tangerine Computers Et A1 executives on the move. 
Said Kaket Sharma of Tangerine: “Apple and Tangerine mutually decided to go for a promotion drive in order to get the top potential notebook users into Apple’s fold.  With Apple, price has always been a barrier to buy.  Once users buy Apple, they simply get hooked because of the technology.  We wanted to remove the price barrier.”  Sandeep Bhagi, country manager (India) for Apple Computer, said that taking the retail route for the Apple range allowed users to get a feel of the systems..  “There has been a lot of walk-in traffic at Tangerin’s shop in New Delhi and the idea is to get users familiar with our range.”

This is the second round of price cuts as far as Apple’s Powerbook 520 is concerned.  The machine, which originally carred a price tag of Rs. 1.17 lakhs, was made available to Rs. 95,000 by Apple.  The strategy however didn’t work, compelling Apple and Tangerine to consider a lower price option.
 Apple’s Powerbook 520 is a monochrome model with 50 MHz processor, 8MB RAM, 240MB HDD, built in Ethernet, built in Ethernet, built in stereo speakers and mocrophone, track pad, Mac OS 7.1.1. and built in Apple Super Drive 1.4 MB FDD.

The system is upgradeable to a PowerPC and weighs 2.8 kgs.

User reaction, meanwhile, to the Powerbook 520 announcement was mixed.  Said P.S. Srivnivasan, general manager (chemical), Dabur India Limited, who has been using a Powerbook, purchased by his company, for over a year.  “This is quite a reasonable price and I think I will go for a personal machine now.  I don’t think the fact that it is a monochrome model will deter users from buying it.  Most executives need notebooks for making repors, sending messages, and essentially working while on the move.  It really doesn’t matter to them whether the system is a monochrome or color model.”

Zafar A.Khan, assistant manager (consulting) at Holtec Engineers Pvt. Ltd., however did not find Apple’s offer lucrative or enticing.  “Buying a notebook is a one-time investment and nobody will go for a monochrome model.  While an individual may go for it, a corporate buyer will most certainly not get interested in a monochrome model.  Paying a  few thousand repess more for a colour display will certainly not affect the balance sheet of a corporation.  Besides, most IS pros today use notebooks for multifarious activities which inevitably need a color display.”
 R.Krishan, an IS executive at Esccorts Financial Services, felt that the Apple deal probably “had a catch in it..  A notebook at less than Rs. 80,000 is virtually unheard of.  There definitely will be some fine print which users are bound to encounter once they go for the machine.”

Price Wars?
Is Apple’s low-priced Power-Book 520 going to initiate some kind of a price war in the area of entry-level notebook models?

There’s no ruling out the possibility, because following Apple’s announcement, New Delhi-based PCL has also declared that this month it will be launching an array of aggressively priced notebooks.  PCL notebooks will start out with the entry-level model which will be priced at Rs. 55,000 to Rs. 60,000 for monochrome system.

According to Sameer Kochhar, national marketing manager, PCL: “India is a price-sensitive market, and the strategy of lowering notebook prices will really work.”

 Kochhar however wasn’t sure if price cutting would help the Apple cause.
 “The notebooks will be part of the PCL fold as Dell is only into the higher-end of the notebook spectrum.  Internationally, Dell sees no potential for monochrome notebooks,” Kochhar said.