Toshiba Corp is to start developing notebook personal computers that will be as thin as magazines and will go on sale in Japan by March next year. The company has decided to focus on the mini-notebooks and turn its attention away from desktop PCs designed for use in the home. The Japanese company wants to grab the domestic market for PCs, having failed to achieve its aim of selling the same PC models in Japan, the US and Europe. The company told Nikkei Personal Computing that it has to produce PCs that will satisfy the needs of its Japanese customers. The machines should hit the market just before the end of Toshiba’s fiscal 1998. It intends to boost domestic output of notebook PCs to 100,000 units a month, which is three times higher than production rates in 1997. The company hopes to ship 3.2 million PC units across the world in fiscal 1998.
