TA Triumph Adler AG has given up making portable computers and shut its Nuremberg factory, as predicted here (CI No 2,172). It has turned to Acer Inc to supply four machines from Taiwan, and is also selling three of parent company Ing Olivetti & Co SpA’s recently-launched Philos brand of portables. One Triumph representative said the West German labour force had priced itself out of a job. But the Nuremberg closure is also due to Olivetti’s decision to stop TA’s Walkstation brand selling against its own machines. Olivetti’s new line consists of the low-end Philos 11 and 22, based respectively on 80386SL/25 and 80486SL/25 processors from Intel Corp, and the Philos 33 and 44 based on the 80386SL/20 and 80486SL/25 chips. The 33 and 44 include a spring-mounted pop-up trackball, integrated voice management, and offer memory expansion from 4Mb to 32Mb and 85Mb, 120Mb and 240Mb removable hard disk options for enhanced upgradability. Active matrix colour comes on the top-end Philos 44. Prices start at UKP1,000, rising to UKP2,900 for the 44 with active matrix colour. At the same time, Olivetti launched Son of Quaderno, the Quaderno 33, which is a Windows version of the A5 notebook and uses an Advanced Micro Devices Inc Am386SXLV/20 processor. Its business audio system uses an integrated microphone and loudspeaker to manage speech files; it supports both digital and analogue phone lines and so can transmit data and facsimile messages.
