By John Oates, 27 October 1998 00:20
NEWS Intel has cut the prices of its Pentium II (PII), Celeron and Xeon processors by up to 30 per cent. A 333MHz Pentium II chip now costs $181, down 23 per cent, compared with $159 for a Celeron, a 17 per cent price drop. This has led to criticism that Intel is taking its eye off the Celeron in favour of the PII. A spokesman for Intel denied this, insisting that the Celeron remains an important part of the company's plans. He claimed the reason Celeron prices were not cut any further was high demand from OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). "We don't need to drop prices any more," he said. Joe D'Elia, associate director at analyst house, Gartner Group, said: "There is some overlap at the moment, although this will fade away once the 333MHz Pentium II is dropped." He added that Celeron is selling well, mainly at the expense of Cyrix and IBM, with AMD being the only other brand that people look for. D'Elia said the lowest sensible corporate buy now is a 350MHz Pentium II - the lowest level to offer the 100MHz bus - and claimed corporates will soon be turning to the 400MHz model.
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