Tosh, Compaq to go head-to-head again

Toshiba UK product marketing manager Murray McKerlie said the figures were a surprise as strong government and utilities sales usually make February or March meatier months. McKerlie said that Toshiba sold around 20,000 PCs in the UK in October, including its Infinia desktops. At the Comdex US trade show in November, Toshiba is expected to show off its first PC server products to be available outside Japan.

However, old adversary Compaq is known to be readying a fresh blitz in portables. The firm will folow up its recent aggressive roll-outs with a line of new products to be announced early in the new year.

In the US, Compaq has recently been successful in grabbing back market share. Indeed, according to new figures published by Computer Intelligence, Compaq notebooks outsold Toshiba in the US in September. Compaq had released new US notebooks in August.

In the UK, as in the US, Toshiba remains a distant leader in annual notebook sales.