Apple Computer Inc cut prices on its Performa home personal computers in the US by 4% to 20% yesterday, and added a new model with advanced multimedia features and built-in Internet capabilities. The new Performa 6300CD is billed as Apple’s most powerful all-in-one box for the fireside market, and uses a 100MHz PowerPC 603e processor; an upgrade board is available to provide the same capabilities on existing Performa models. The 6300CD has built-in 256Kb level-2 cache, a 28.8Mbps data, facsimile and speech modem, and a quad-speed CD-ROM drive. It has a 15 colour monitor with built-in stereo speakers; 16Mb of memory is standard, and the disk is 1.2Gb capacity. Users can set it up as an answering machine, speaker phone and facsimile machine that can both send and receive. It is expected to cost $2,800 to $2,900, but of course availability will initially be limited, but will rise as the autumn wears on.
