rse for these companies. Amid falling margins and a price war in the industry, all PC makers are finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate their products.
Unlike consumer electronics, Asian companies do not drive the PC business. Thus, to get a feel for where the PC is heading, it's important to look at what Intel and Microsoft, the dominant forces in the industry, are planning. By the end of the year, Microsoft will unveil its PC 97 Design Guide, a set of guidelines for designers of future PCs and peripherals -- which, of course, must be compliant with Windows 95 and NT.
For Intel, "the driving force for the Pentium Pro will be the acceptance of Microsoft's Windows NT 4.0," a 32-bit OS with the Windows 95 interface that takes full advantage of the superpipelined architecture of the microprocessor unit (MPU), sa
ys Takahiko Umeyama, senior PC analyst at IDC Japan. In fact,
Acer,
Compaq, NP, IBM, and others are rushing to release their Pentium Pro-based NT servers.
As a result, Pentium Pro-based system prices are dropping. In the middle of this year, for example, NEC's PC-9821Ra20, which sold for $3980 in Japan, came with a 200-MHz Pentium Pro processor, 16 MB of RAM, a 1.2-GB hard drive, 64-bit PCI graphics, and a 100-Mbps LAN controller. And Dell's Optiplex GXPro 200 Pentium Pro-based machines cost $2899 for the entry-level 180-MHz system, about $5000 for a midrange 200-MHz desktop, and $7990 for a dual-CPU system.
By the end of this year, however, you will get much more for your money, according to people familiar with Intel's systems road map for OEM customers. For example, an entry-level Pentium Pro-based desktop with roughly the same features as NEC's PC-9821Ra20 could go for only $1800 or less -- nearly the same price as a 133-MHz Pentium-based PC in the middle of this year. A midr
ange desktop based on a 200-MHz Pentium Pro may cost $2000 to $3000.
A full-blown box will include 32 MB of RAM, a 1.2-GB hard drive, 64- or 128-bit (or 3-D) graphics, an eight-speed (or faster) CD-ROM drive, a 10-/100-Mbps LAN card, full-duplex audio, videoconferencing capabilities with a charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera, a 15-inch monitor, and the universal serial bus (USB), which connects up to 127 peripherals over a 12-Mbps network. (Intel is still wavering about support for a competitive technology endorsed by Apple and Sony, called IEEE-1394 or Firewire, a bus that offers 100- to 400-Mbps transfer rates.)
A high-end 200-MHz Pentium Pro desktop could go for $3200 or less. It has features similar to midrange desktops, but the high-end box supports NT 4.0 and other OSes, as well as 3-D graphics controllers that provide z-buffering, color interpolation, texture mapping, rendering, and arcade-game-like functions. There is support for 3-D APIs such as OpenGL, Direct3D, and others. (In 1997, Intel wi
ll implement its Accelerated Graphics Port [AGP], a memory bus that provides a 200-Mbps link between the graphics accelerator and the chip set, bypassing the overtaxed 133-Mbps PCI bus.)
Intel's road map implies that a key for all desktops is connection to the Internet. "The 14.4-Kpbs modems are being phased out," says T. G. Wang, vice president of Taiwan's GVC, the world's second-largest modem maker as well as a major supplier of PC boards, notebooks, and monitors. "Faster modems or ISDN will become necessary for many applications." GVC will enter several new modem markets by the end of the year: Digital Simultaneous Voice and Data (DSVD), Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ASDL), cable modems, and others. The most promising one is DSVD, which simultaneously transmits data and voice signals over a single dial-up phone line using V.34 modulation.
1997 and Beyond
Early next year, PC makers will begin to offer systems based on the next-generation Pentium chip, the long-awaited P55C
, a 200-MHz device with multimedia extensions, dubbed MMX. MMX will boost performance on many audio and video applications. Intel will also have a new-and- improved Pentium-level chip set. Called the 430TX, it supports extended-data-out (EDO) and synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), USB, AGP, and other functions.
In early to mid-1997, look for desktops and servers based on Intel's next-generation Pentium Pro, code-named Klamath. It's a 200-/234-MHz MPU with a larger L1 cache than the current MPU but no internal L2 cache. Next year, Intel will also talk about the code-named Deschutes, a low-power version of Klamath, reportedly for use in notebooks. Both Klamath and Deschutes will include MMX. By then, Intel will also have a new chip set for its Pentium Pro, called 440LX, which supports multiprocessing, SDRAM, USB, AGP, and other features.
In the next year or two, PC makers may offer fast accelerators based on Microsoft's Talisman project, an effort that hopes to put high-end workstation graphics on inexpensive PC
s. In theory, Talisman displays 3-D objects by using a highly intelligent chip called a
compositor
, which picks up and textures polygons on the fly.
"Next year, we will offer a home PC based on a Pentium Pro," says Arthur Pai, director of product management at Acer, which is also reportedly looking at the P55C for the home market. "We will also offer [Klamath] for our entry-level and midrange servers."
You shouldn't expect the P7 -- a 64-bit 787-based processor currently being codeveloped by Intel and HP -- until 1998. The P7, code-named Merced, is for high-end Unix servers. Contrary to popular belief, though, Merced won't use a very-long-instruction-word (VLIW) design; instead, it will use a modified superscalar architecture with instruction-level parallelism, sources say.
New Japanese Push
Japan's PC industry is gearing up for a renewed push into the U.S. With the exception of Toshiba, which is the world's largest notebook maker, most Japanese computer suppliers hav
e mainly focused on the domestic market.
As mentioned earlier, NEC, Japan's largest PC maker with more than 40 percent of the market share, has merged its international PC operations with Packard Bell. Meanwhile, Toshiba will sell in the U.S. a new line of PCs that are geared for the home market. Earlier this year, Fujitsu entered the notebook field. This fall, it will launch a line of desktops and servers for the international markets with its U.K.-based subsidiary, ICL.
Still, the question lingers: Will the Asian PC vendors dominate going into the next century? They have an advantage in their closer geographical and sometimes ethnic ties to some of the faster-growing markets in the region, including China, India, and Indonesia.
It will take vast resources to survive the cutthroat PC business, a market that favors the big conglomerates in Japan
and Korea
. Not all will survive. Hong Kong's PC vendors have nearly disappeared, while companies in Singapore are focusing on niche
markets. China's PC vendors are not a factor outside their country.
The shakeout in the PC business has already taken place in Taiwan. Acer is the only vendor remaining with worldwide brand name recognition. Most of the remaining PC players in Taiwan build products for OEMs.
The survivors in the PC business have some common traits, including strong technology, distribution, and brand name recognition. Says IDC Japan's Umeyama: "To be successful, a company needs to be strong in all three areas."
Where to Find
Acer, Inc.
Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C.
Phone: +886 2 545 5288
Fax: +886 2 545 5308
Internet:
http://www.acer.com/
The Rise of Asian PCs
