Kaypro Sees Little Threat in New IBM Line

Kaypro Corp. executives told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting Thursday that International Business Machines Corp.’s new line of personal computers introduced April 2 pose little threat to Kaypro’s line of IBM-compatible “clone” personal computers.

IBM’s decision to maintain an “open architecture” for its new computers and the fact that the new disk operating system software being developed for the IBM machines by Microsoft will be available in similar versions to the PC market at large mean there is little chance that Kaypro will be frozen out, John Hentrich, Kaypro executive vice president, said after the meeting.

Kaypro President David Kay said chances are good that Kaypro’s third-quarter revenues will exceed those of the second quarter during which the company sold $28.9 million in computers. Asked about the company’s relatively low-profit margins--Kaypro earned $852,000 or 2 cents per share during the second quarter--Hentrich said Kaypro is trying to reduce overhead through improved manufacturing efficiencies.

The company also introduced a video display add-in board that enhances resolution of Kaypro’s color graphics.