The future for ex-Apple Macintosh cloner Power Computing Inc is looking anything but rosy at the moment, following the announcement that the company is halting production of the Intel-based PowerTrip notebook on which is was to hang its brand new hat. The Round Rock, Texas company, which negotiated to sell its Macintosh cloning business to Apple Computer Inc a couple of months ago, following Apple’s decision to discontinue its Macintosh clone licensing business, has been attempting to re-invent itself as a personal computer company, as in Wintel-compatible. Having shed 150 of its 250 staff earlier this month, and faced with a $42m lawsuit from a disgruntled supplier (CI No 3,282), Power Computing started shipping the PowerTrip notebooks, in a wildly optimistic attempt to break into an extremely long and well-established, and highly competitive market. The company now says it has stopped making the notebooks while it looks for a less expensive way to produce the machines. It says it is looking for partners that will help pay the costs of making the PowerTrips. Callers to the company’s 800 sales number are simply being told we are no longer taking orders for new PowerTrip systems. We were unable to get hold of anyone at the company for comment because all lines seemed to lead to a harassed-sounding customer services recorded message, apologizing for extended holding times.
