HP Announces Home PC Line

Hewlett-Packard Co. will make a long-anticipated push into the fiercely competitive home personal computer market today when it announces a new line of computers to be available by the middle of this month.

Pricing will be central to HP’s head-to-head battle with International Business Machines Corp., Compaq Computer Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. The three HP multimedia PCs will be priced from $1,699 to $2,299, company officials said in an interview. They are based on Intel Corp.’s 60, 75 and 90 MHz Pentium chip. Those prices are comparable with those of brands currently on the market but are a bit higher than those of discount vendors such as Dell Computer.

HP has been making PCs for many years, but the division had been sputtering until a few years ago, when it focused on pricing to stay competitive. It has climbed to the No. 8 or No. 9 perch in the global PC market, depending on the industry research figures. But the company’s products have done best in the higher-end office market, and it has not been a leader at selling to the fast-growing home market.

Industry analysts said that the going could be rough but that if any company is armed to prosper as a new entrant, it’s HP.

“It seems to me they’re doing a lot of things right,” said Seymour Merrin, a PC industry consultant. “And they’ve got enough good things to back them up.”