emachines Inc, the recently formed venture jointly-owned by Korean Data Systems and Trigem Computer Inc, says that advanced demand for its $499 eTower 266 and $599 eTower 300 (including monitors) has been so high that it is expanding its initial distribution channel to include major national and regional partners. emachines first announced its plans for sub $500 PCs back in September (CI No 3,494). Initially it planned to distribute the machines only through the Best Buy and Office Depot chains. Now it has added, at the national level, Costco and MicroCenter, and at the regional level, Future Shop for Canada and the Northwest, J&R Music and Nationwide Consumer Electronics in New York, and BrandsMartUSA for the southeastern US. The systems are due to go on sale this week, and by the end of the year emachines anticipates selling just about all of its capacity over the time period of 200,000 units. If it does, the company will be placed as the fifth largest supplier of personal computers in the retail channel in its first quarter of business operations. By next year’s first quarter, it plans to have upped capacity 50% to 300,000 units for the quarter.
