Ingram Micro to offer home and commercial PCs

Ingram Micro has announced a strategic initiative to offer full range of home

and commercial PCs for the Indian market.

According to the company, the new Magix and Vesta are aggressively priced and

are available for the home and the corporate segments respectively. A formal

announcement of the prices will be made by February this year.

As a move towards offering these new product lines off the shelf, Ingram will

adopt the traditional channel network by tying up with 150 retail outlets across

the country. Formerly, the company followed a ‘bill-to-order’ model and this

new strategy is seen as a major initiative by Ingram to tap five percent of the

60 percent assembler market. With the latest PC strategy in place, Ingram plans

to distribute its PCs both through channel and bill-to-order models.

According to the recent study by IDC India, the current PC market is sized at

1.95 million units and as per Ingram, assemblers enjoy a share of 60 percent of

this market. NY Prasad, COO, Ingram Micro India, states that this new initiative

is to offer Indian consumers a wider range of choice backed by qualitative

performance and reliable after-sales service. He says,

"Today the requirements of the PC users are extremely diverse and

demanding. The environment, applications and the expanding consumers in the PC

market have thrown up a great challenge and opportunity to the PC makers.

Understanding this need, Ingram Micro has decided to tailor its product

offerings to cater to as many diverse users as possible."

The Magix Range of home PCs is targeted towards the budget-conscious home PC

users as well as demanding power-users by offering the digital multimedia and

gaming experience. The range shall incorporate the latest Pentium processors,

DVD and CD RW drives, higher storage capacity of up to 80 GB HDD. "Magix

will turn the PC into a home entertainment center.

There will be convergence of entertainment in music, movies, wide variety of

games, multimedia and Internet features designed for use in family environment

with a host of applications, utilities and plug-ins and security features,"

says Prasad.

According to Ingram, the Vesta range of commercial PCs will be priced

aggressive targeting the sweet spots in the pricing structure and will be backed

by a strong post-sales service. The range would offer Intel Celeron, and the

latest Pentium 4 processor-based products. This according to the company, is a

natural extension of the existing popular Vesta range of IT products such as

motherboards, keyboards and other IT components that Ingram Micro markets

currently.

Ingram Micro has also launched after-sales services across its branch

offices. "We are launching the service network to take care of post-sales

service requirements. Initially, this will be offered in 30 locations across

India. By the end of 2003, we are planning to expand this network to more than

50 cities," says Ganesh, Business Manager for Magix and Vesta PCs.

SUNILA PAUL