Siemens clings onto Tesco with Trekkie treats

Tesco is to boldly go where no supermarket has gone before by selling Siemens PCs with a 'Star Trek' theme at selected UK stores from the end of November.

Each PC will be bundled with Star Trek software and a poster, to tie in with the release of a new film based on the popular TV series.

The PCs, which will sell for £779, will include an Intel Celeron 300MHz processor, a 3.2GB hard disk and a modem.

But Input analyst, Jamie Snowdon, was sceptical. He said Tesco faces a tough fight for high-street market share with the likes of Dixons. "They just haven't got the same expertise and infrastructure." He speculated that Tesco will offer limited choice and will not have enough trained sales assistants to cope with customer inquiries.

However, Snowdon approves of the price of the machine. "You could get a similar Dell machine for around £20 more, but for retail, it's not a bad price at all," he said.

Meanwhile, an NOP survey has identified PCs as the Christmas presents most requested by UK children, ahead of Sony and Nintendo games consoles.

Tesco was unavailable for comment.