IBM Corp’s increasingly embattled Personal Computer Co hits back at its critics next month with a couple of new product lines it hopes will get it back into the game. The announcement will include new Thinkpads and new multiprocessor servers. The new ThinkPad 701C or butterfly is attracting some attention because it has a keyboard that opens up to full size when the machine is opened, and the design enables it to accommodate a larger screen as well. The 710C tucks an 11.5 wide keyboard into a machine that is only 9.6 wide, the trick, according to Dow Jones & Co being that when the lid is lifted, a series of levers and arms slide the left half of the keyboard to the left and the right half down and to the right until they fit together. According to PC Week, it weighs 4.3 lbs, measures 9.6 by 7.8 by 1.6 and the screen is thin-film-transistor active-matrix; a 701Cs variant has a dual-scan display. The base model is expected to cost $3,400 with 50MHz 80486DX2, 4Mb and 360Mb disk, dual-scan display and nickel-metal hydride battery, sources said. A $6,000 high-end model has 75MHz 80486DX4 processor, the active matrix screen and 24Mb memory. Both versions are said to have 115Kbps infrared port, a telephony board with speaker-phone capabilities, a 3.5 external floppy drive and two PCMCIA Type 2 slots – and IBM is planning PCMCIA cellular modems for the new machines.
