Asustek to Expand the ee Product Range

Asustek, the company most have never heard of till the release of the eePC laptop is going to provide for a whole range of products — desktop, all-in-one monitor/PC, a 42″ LCD TV/PC combo.

First out of the blocks will be a low-cost desktop computer dubbed the E-DT. It will be built around an Intel Celeron processor and will ship without a monitor to (hopefully) keep the price somewhere between $US200 and $300 dollars. No Australian pricing is yet available and units are expected to appear in April.

The company is also planning to release the E-Monitor, an all-in-one device similar in concept to Dell’s XPS One and Apple’s iMac. Details are still sketchy however it is believed the Linux-based E-Monitor will also contain a digital TV tuner card. With either a 19-inch or 21-inch screen it should retail for around $US500.

The third new product in the range will be a 42-inch LCD HD television which incorporates a Linux-based PC. Slated for a September launch, this device is likely to cost only slightly more than non-PC enabled models already on the market.

The desktop I can see as a fit, even the All-in-One as a bit of upscale. But the price point is the key component. here. At < $200 a compute device becomes possible for a much larger component of the world population. AMD knew that 3 years ago when it lauched the AMD PIC.

Sadly the PIC was a little ahead of its time, used a processor little known outside of the embedded processor world, lacked a ethernet port and was never properly marketed. But it was low power, extremely small, had a sealed case and a target price < $200. Shame.

ThirdPipe has said before that the high dollar Swiss Army knife model will come under attack by these low cost single purpose type devics. Ausutek's expansion underscores that fact. The price points will drop still further over the next couple of years to the extent that a HP or Dell PC market may not be sustainable. You don't dink with tech support when the device is a $100.

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