IBM offering rebates on workstations

IBM workstation buyers will receive a rebate of up to 33 percent, the company announced today.

The rebate, which applies to end-user sales of IntelliStations sold between September 22 and October 17, 1997, will be offered through authorized IBM resellers. The rebate is 25 percent without the monitor.

The rebate offer comes as IBM struggles to gain ground in the booming Windows NT workstation market. IBM's IntelliStation was its first NT workstation, and of the five companies that together command 95 percent of the NT workstation market, IBM was the last to enter when it debuted the product in March. As a result, the company is playing a game of catch-up, according to Peter ffoulkes of Dataquest.

"IBM is looking to accelerate the process," said ffoulkes. "Any incentive, anything that's going to shorten the sales cycle will help IBM."

IBM's four principal workstation competitors are Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computer, Intergraph, and Digital Equipment. But workstation competition doesn't end there: direct vendors Dell Computer and Gateway 2000 have recently entered the market, and the streamlined direct-sales approach is driving prices down.

"It could well be that IBM is responding to low-end pressure to equalize the price differential," said ffoulkes.

The IntelliStation comes with Pentium Pro or Pentium II processors and is targeted at commercial users requiring graphics- and computing-intensive performance in MCAD applications, software development, and financial services.

Estimated reseller prices for workstations purchased during the rebate period start at $2,750. For IntelliStations sold with selected monitors IBM is also offering a rebate of $500.