Dell Introduces Portable Movie Projector

Dell Computer Corp., the second-largest personal-computer maker, has introduced a portable movie projector and an improved line of network servers to combat falling PC sales.

Chief Executive Michael Dell told analysts in April that the projector market may be valued at $6billion a year.

The company is broadening its product mix after industrywide PC sales fell in 2001 for the first time in 15 years.

Projectors and servers sell for more than the average $1,675 cost of a Dell computer.

The $2,499 projector weighs 3.5pounds and plugs into a PC, laptop computer, video-cassette recorder or high-definition television to display slides or videos. The device can display an image as big as 294 inches measured diagonally, or almost five times bigger than the biggest home TVs.

Dell’s PowerEdge 2650 server for businesses uses an Intel Corp. Xeon processor and starts at $2,399, senior project manager Darrell Ward said. The server, which stores and delivers data to other computers on a network, can use several operating systems, such as Linux or Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 2000.