Bonny Baby Blue

The Sun Herald

Saturday April 20, 1991

Edited by DAVID FRITH

COMPUTING giant IBM has launched a new laptop model, slashed prices of many of its desktop PCs and confirmed it plans to launch a home computer soon in Australia.

The events, a response to sales trends, indicate renewed interest in the mobile PC and home office markets by IBM.

Portable PC sales in Australia are growing at twice the rate of desktop machines.

But it is many years since the company known as Big Blue-from the colour of its corporate logo-last had a true personal laptop on the market.

That model, known as the IBM Clamshell, was plagued with problems and indifferent sales.

The company will be hoping for a better reception for its new portable, officially known as the Personal System/2 L40 SX, but informally dubbed Baby Blue.

It is pouring money into an aggressive advertising campaign to promote it but long delays in the birth have left the baby facing an uncertain childhood.

It looks slightly overweight and, at $9,300 including tax, expensive.

Built around a 20-megaHertz 386SX microchip, it is certainly one of the most powerful laptops on the market.

The 386SX chip is a hybrid design which is cheaper to produce than the full 32-bit 386 but isn't hobbled by the 640-kilobyte memory barrier of chips that plagued PC design for years.

Computers with a 386SX can run much more memory-intensive programs. They can also use the Microsoft Windows 3.0 interface, which makes learning and using a PC easier and more intuitive.

Baby Blue has a full-sized keyboard and a 60-megabyte hard disk drive-enough to store 30,000 typewritten pages.

Standard internal memory of two megabytes is double that of most portable PCs. And the memory can be expanded to 18 megabytes: more than any other laptop currently available.

The L40 SX can run for a claimed three hours off its rechargeable battery, or be plugged into normal household power.

It will compete with well-established sellers like Toshiba's T3100SX($8,499), Compaq's SLT 386s/20 ($7,595), Zenith's Supersport 386SX ($7,699), Amstrad's ALT-386SX ($4,999) and Apple's Macintosh Portable ($5,995).

These are all high-performance machines of roughly similar size or slightly bigger.

But a growing threat to all these laptops, including IBM's, is coming from a new breed of super-slim "notebook" computers, small enough to slip into a briefcase.

Texas Instruments' recently released TravelMate 3000 notebook has an equally fast version of the 386SX chip, a similar 25cm screen and up to 60 megabytes of hard disk space, all packed into a much smaller package.

The TravelMate weighs 2.6kg, against the Baby Blue's 3.5kg or the Compaq SLT's 6.4kg.

Configured with a 60meg hard disk, it sells for around $8,700.

Much lower prices may be on the way. Amstrad Australia will soon have a notebook PC on the market which managing director Bordan Tkachuk has promised will be "thousands of dollars less than its competitors".

Apple Computer will also join the battle around November with three notebook-model Macintoshes.

Lower-powered notebook models, based on the 8086 and 80286 chips, cost from$2,500-5,000.

Meanwhile, simultaneously with the Baby Blue launch, IBM has announced price cuts of 7-33 per cent on some full-sized models in its Personal System/2 family of desktop computers.

The basic model 50 286 031 drops from $4,655 to $3,800. The 55 SX F31 is down from $5,845 to $4,615.

Biggest reduction-of 34pc or almost $6,500-is earmarked for the Model 70 486 B61, a wildly powerful machine for high-end users, down from $19,090 to$12,565.

At the other end of the scale, IBM is still hoping to introduce its PS/1 home computer to the Australian market before mid-year.

No formal announcement has been made, but Pat Fuery , IBM Australia's director of channels and small business region , told The Sun-Herald he was confident this target, set last year, was still attainable.

The PS/1 has been marketed in the US since last year. It is a fully compatible PC with a megabyte of random access memory.

The American price is around $US1,000, suggesting a possible Australian price of $A1,400-1,500.