HP Makes Third Price Cut on Laptops
Times Staff and Wire Reports
Hewlett-Packard Co. dropped the prices of its OmniBook 5500 notebook computers by as much as 21%, its third price cut on the machines in four months. The Palo Alto-based computer maker said it expects the retail price of its entry-level 5500 CS 5/100 model 810, powered by a 100-megahertz Pentium microprocessor, to fall to $2,200. The notebooks sold for about $4,140 when Hewlett-Packard began shipping them in June. HP has cut the prices of the machines every two months--most recently Sept. 9--because of lower component costs and increased competition in the market for portable PCs. Shares of HP climbed 50 cents to close at $47.875 on the New York Stock Exchange.
