By spinning out Lexmark International Inc, IBM Corp seems to have created a new competitor for its Personal Computer Co – in what is currently the hottest part of its market, portables. Lexmark has been offering its US-made notebook and subnotebook computers on the OEM market since 1991, but is now offering them direct to end-users from its Lexington, Kentucky factory. It is to sell multiple configurations of three different systems with factory-direct prices from $750 to $3,900, all under the Lexmark Lexbook logo. The AR 10, a full-featured 5.7 lbs 50MHz 486SLC/2 notebook with advanced colour or monochrone display, hot swap Smart Battery, up to 260Mb drive, internal facsimile modem and MS-DOS and Windows software. The SE 10 is a compact 4 lbs 50MHz 486SLC/2 monochrome subnotebook with disk capacity to 260Mb, PCMCIA Type II, and MS-DOS and Windows software. The MB 10 and MB 15 are a pair of 2 lbs affordable subnotebooks preloaded with word processing, spreadsheet and productivity software.All three have keyboards including integrated pointing devices.
