Red faces all round in NEC-PB Intel chip fiasco

NEC Direct, a subsidiary of Packard Bell, slammed the use of non-Intel chips today as it introduced a sub-£500 Celeron based PC.

Colwyn Munro, general manager of NEC Direct, said: "Basically people want entry-level PCs but they don't want non-Intel processors, 14-inch monitors and tiny hard drives - and they are extremely wary of buying from unknown manufacturers." But that is likely to cause fury over at Packard Bell.

Earlier this year, as reported here, they made a very deliberate decision to dump Intel processors and use Cyrix and AMD parts instead. Later, Munro attempted to rescue the situation. He explained: "Packard Bell and NEC are run as entirely separate entities. PB looks after consumers and NEC looks after the business side." Ahem. ®