Local assembly delivers the goods

Most people would love to have a state-of-the-art PC with all the bells and whistles and enough power to plan a Mars mission. Unfortunately, these systems cost a fortune and are really not necessary in business, as most corporate users simply require a reliable desktop PC that can handle common business applications.

"South African companies now have one, the HP CompaqBusiness Desktop d230 microtower PC, assembled locally by Matomo Technologies," says Terence Barter, HP PSG product manager at Tarsus Technologies.

The d230 was initially released as a broadly targeted low-cost PC, but Barter says Tarsus developed various options to cater for the unique needs of the retail, SMB and corporate markets. The result is that this range of PCs now covers about 80% of the desktop needs in the country at a lower price point than any competitors or even HP predecessors.

"Our planning has resulted in a growth in sales of almost 300% over the past year," Barter explains, "and we are now selling thousands each month. Our dramatic increase in sales has also had a positive add-on effect of doubling the staff on the Matomo production line."

The fact that the black-empowered Matomo assembles the PC means that buyers can select the options they require and have the product shipped to them almost immediately, instead of waiting four weeks for it to arrive from overseas.

As an additional boost to local component assembly, Barter says locally assembled Legend memory products - approved by HP internationally - are used in d230 production. "The more local components in these systems, the better our economy is supported," he adds.

All d230 PCs are built on Intel technology and industry-standard PC components, providing the highest degree of stability, user productivity and customer satisfaction. In addition, the compact microtower platform may look small, but it can be expanded as users require.

Sporting an Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron processor and the Intel 845GE chipset with integrated Ethernet port as a foundation, the d230 is able to deliver levels of performance, reliability and flexibility usually associated with high-end systems.

Each system is also configured with a multimedia optical drive, allowing users to choose a basic CD-ROM drive, a CD-RW drive or the latest CD-RW/DVD combo drive. Apart from the standard pre-loaded Microsoft operating systems, companies wanting to reduce costs even further can install Mandrake Linux 9.1.

"The d230 may come at a low cost, but its performance is definitely not low scale," adds Barter. "Users are able to effectively handle any of today or tomorrow`s basic business applications with ease, confident that their d230 microtower will provide predictably reliable service for years."