Zenith Data Systems, Buffalo Grove, Illinois, was able to ship a new series of Pentiums PCs yesterday priced 20% to 41% less than its current two lines because it has sourced cheaper parts through its new owner, Packard Bell Electronics Inc, the company claims. The less expensive, more powerful Z-Station GT 500 line may be a sign that ZDS will rebound. The company’s future has been uncertain since Packard Bell acquired it, cut 920 jobs and closed some ZDS sites (CI No 2,906). The new Z-Station desktops replace the Z-Station VP and Z-Station GT lines and is priced 20% to 25% lower than the VP series and 29% to 41% lower than the old GT series. The company claims its machines will be faster and less expensive than comparable offerings from rivals AST Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co. ZDS would not say how long it will take to phase out the current lines. ZDS also revealed that it will move its headquarters from Illinois to Packard BellUs Sacramento base on June 30. All Z-Station GT 500 models come with Intel Corp’s Pentium CPU and 430HX PCI chipset and 16Mb RAM. Multimedia models have a Creative Labs 16-bit sound card and CD-ROM drive. The 100MHz model with a 1.2Gb hard drive and ATi Mach 64 VT graphics costs $1,550. A 166MHz mini-tower with 2.1Gb storage costs $2,160 and the multimedia 166MHz system with 2.1Gb hard drive costs $2,370. All models ship with Windows for Workgroups/Windows 95 and Netscape Personal Edition Internet Browser. ZDS will add a Picture Tel Z-Live 5000 video conferencing feature in June.
