H-P AND MICROSOFT JOIN FORCES
By Adnews Staff
Computer equipment maker Hewlett-Packard and software giant Microsoft Corp. will be jointly marketing a new line of personal computers for small businesses. The new PCs will bear the label Hewlett-Packard And Microsoft Small Business Centre. They will come with 10 Microsoft programs, as well as a keyboard and mouse made by the software company. The machines will appear in April as an extension of H-P's new Vectra Series 500 PCs which went on sale in the U.S. today. H-P will announce plans for the Canadian launch this week. Putting its logo on PCs is one way for Microsoft to make inroads with the small business market, a growth area for the computer industry. Small businesses don't normally have specialists on staff to take care of computers, so H-P is setting up a new support centre in Colorado that will allow technicians to work directly on customers' PCs through a modem connection. The Vectra Series 500 will use Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system and come bundled with Microsoft's Office suite and a program for browsing the World Wide Web.