Intel Corp’s plans for a major new round of price cuts on Pentium chips this year could be blown off course by the company’s volte face on replacement on demand of all existing Pentiums, the San Jose Mercury News reports. If the replacement rate is low, prices will continue to drop, Martin Reynolds, Dataquest Inc analyst, told the paper; If it is high, then chip prices will stay higher for a quarter. In previous free 80386 and 80486 replacement programmes the return rate was less than 10%, Intel says – but those did not receive the blanket publicity accorded the Pentium, so Reynolds believes the return rate could be as high as 50%. Intel had been planning to cut the 100MHz Pentium to $660 in 10,000-up quantities next month, from $917 now, and to $580 in May. The 90MHz was to have gone to $535 from $575 in February and to $455 in May, and the 75MHz to $390 from $475 now, and to $340 in May. The bargain basement 60MHz part was to have gone to $350 next month from $375 now and to $340 in May. Pentiums clocked at 155MHz and 120MHz were in the plan for early this year, and the P6 is slated to start shipping in volume in the third quarter of this year, with some parts available before mid-year. The likes of Unisys Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and AT&T Global Information Solutions are reportedly planning four-way multiprocessor servers built around the forthcoming chip.
