ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 21, 1996 TAG: 9608210060
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
Gateway 2000 Inc. has lined up two retail chains to sell its big-screen personal computer, departing from the company's mail-order tradition to showcase the innovative machine that is also part TV and stereo.
Company officials said Tuesday their $4,000 Destination PC will be in about 200 Nobody Beats the Wiz and CompUSA stores this fall.
Gateway has become the nation's seventh-largest PC maker by selling them directly to customers, chiefly through telephone orders. Until now, its retail experience has been limited to some outlet stores near its factories.
The company will only sell the Destination PC through the store chains. It is a standard Windows-based PC with a TV tuner, wireless keyboard, modem, and a 31-inch monitor.
Since going on sale in April, Gateway has sold more than 10,000 units. The company sells about 4,700 of its other PCs daily. Sales of Destination have been hurt by unfamiliarity, executives said.
``We're creating a new product category and they need to see how the elements ... can work,'' Gateway chief executive Ted Waitt said at a news conference.
Like other direct manufacturers, Gateway has long kept track of its customers' purchases, problems they encounter and other inquiries they have. It hopes to keep doing that as much as possible with Destination, particularly because the machine is one of the first to capably demonstrate that PCs and TVs can exist in one product.
``You have to consider this to be a testing of the waters for them,'' said Richard Zwetchkenbaum, analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. ``If this thing works, they're going to want to expand these retail relationships.''
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB