As expected, Umax Data Systems Inc, which last week slashed the prices of its Macintosh clones (CI No 3,413), is to withdraw from the Macintosh compatible market all together. The company, whose Macintosh operating system license agreement expires in July, is already making the transition over to Intel-based PC workstations. In a statement issued from Taiwan at the end of last week, Umax said the business was unprofitable. And Umax’s finance manager Chang Jung-huei later told Reuters that the company had lost the equivalent of $21m on the Macintosh clone business during 1997, and expected to lose around $15m this year. Almost everybody suffered losses from making computers for Apple he said. The company has been forced to cut the prices on its SuperMAc clones in order to reduce its inventory.
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