Compaq Computer Corp chief Eckhard Pfeiffer said at a press conference in New York on Thursday that his company’s new business model and aggressive price cuts will not lead to the price war among major PC makers that some were anticipating. Commenting on Compaq’s announcements, the boss said that while others will make small changes, Compaq is only comfortable with radical change. Pfeiffer sees price cuts by others in the industry to be competitors reacting ala HP, referring to cuts expected by Hewlett-Packard Co on Monday, and says all-out war will be averted because cuts by other manufacturers will come from their margins, obviously something Pfeiffer feels won’t carry too far given current market pressure. Compaq brass were quick to assure everyone listening that its price cuts on new models will not have a negative effect on its margins. Prices for the DeskPro 2000, with Pentium MMX chips from top to bottom, now stand at $1200 to $1900, while the DeskPro 4000s will go for $1400 to $2100. The company says the machines have larger hard drives, more maximum memory and larger cache than Dell’s competing OptiPlex GXI models, and that the announced prices make the DeskPros 6-8% cheaper than the comparable Dell offerings. 100,000 units have already shipped into the channel, according to Compaq.
