The US manufacturers have succeeded in triggering a personal computer price war in Japan, and the Mitsui Bussan Digital Corp unit of Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co Ltd has launched a series of cut-price personal computers made for it by a Taipei, Taiwan firm: the cheapest of the new PCiN machines, based on the 80486SX, starts at $1,145, $500 cheaper than the machines launched by the likes of Compaq Computer Corp in Japan; Mitsui aims for sales worth $8.3m in the first year; NEC Corp has announced a range of lower-priced personal computers but refused to be drawn into a domestic price war with US firms; at $2,890, the new PC-9801NA notebook is the cheapest of its machines based on the 80486SX chip.
