Epson Will "Wait and See" Before Building EISA System
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Rumor has it that several members of the "Gang of Nine" plan to
introduce high-end PCs based on the Extended Industry Standard
Architecture (EISA) at Fall Comdex next month. But don't expect
Epson America to be one of them, even though it was among the
group of nine computer makers that came up with the EISA bus.
 
Epson is taking a "wait and see" approach with EISA, vice
president of marketing, Stephen Lapinski, told Microbytes Daily.
Epson will "wait and see" whether there's a big demand for
computers based on the recently completed 32-bit bus
specification designed to compete with IBM's Micro Channel
Architecture.
 
But don't count Epson out. The company still considers itself a
"major player" in the EISA game. (Epson was one of the original
Gang of Nine, the PC clonemakers who chose to design their own
32-bit bus rather than agree to IBM's licensing terms for using
the Micro Channel.) It's just that Epson's customers "don't
consider us to be at the forefront of technology" in the PC
market, Lapinski said. Rather, Epson is known as the "safe
choice," a reliable if unexciting manufacturer of PCs, dot-matrix
printers, and assorted peripherals, so it isn't essential for
Epson to rush to market with an EISA machine, he said.
 
Lapinski sees a future for EISA-based computers as servers in
client/server LANs. At the earliest, he said, Epson could have an
EISA machine on the market by "the first quarter" of 1990, which
is about the time HP says it will have its EISA system on the
shelves.
 
Contact: Epson America, 2780 Lomita Blvd, Torrance, CA 90505;
(213) 539-9140.
 
                              --- Jeffrey Bertolucci
 
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