Monorail business PC for $849
Monorail, a start-up known for its space-saving, low-cost consumer computers, is pushing into the corporate market.
The announcement comes in the wake of news that IBM and Compaq both have sub-$800 corporate PCs in the works.
Going against such PC giants, Monorail says the expansion of its NPC line of low-end business computers is made possible by a business model that depends upon outsourcing services and tasks "that don't have a direct benefit for the customer" in the making of its computers, according to vice president of marketing Andrew Watson.
Monorail's new line of corporate computers support Intel's Wired for Management initiative, a program structured to reduce the costs of business computing by developing tools to configure, manage, and repair networked PCs. The NPCs are preconfigured with Intel's LANDesk 3.11, a suite of network management applications.
Monorail contracts with SCI to manufacture the minitowers, Federal Express for distribution, and outsources its customer support services. Watson says that by outsourcing services and leaving research and development to Intel and Microsoft, Monorail saves enough money to consistently beat its competition on the price front.