Toshiba Unveils Slew of Notebooks at CES

Armed with a new line of notebooks, look for Toshiba to broaden its Preferred Partner Program in the form of discounts and MDFs in the coming month.

Toshiba launched a slew of new notebooks and projectors here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, while previewing systems to come that support Intel's new Centrino Core Duo processor and notebooks that will support the HD-DVD recording format.

Having grown its notebook business by 42 percent last year -- about double the overall industry growth -- Toshiba is looking to keep that momentum growing in 2006, executives said during a meeting at CES. The plans are still under development and should firm up within 30 days, said Darren McGeorge, Toshiba's senior marketing communications and programs manager.

"We're looking to make sure the balance is correct among our gold, silver and platinum levels," McGeorge said. "We are doing some things that haven't been finalized on improving the discount structures."

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McGeorge pointed to the success of its QuickStart program, launched in August, which gives 3 percent discounts up-front to new Preferred Partner Program participants (up to $15,000). "That really moved the needle," McGeorge said, in terms of growing sales coming from new participants in the program.

Toshiba is earmarking more funds for silver and gold partners. Silver partners are those who sell up to $100,000 of Toshiba products in six-month periods, gold are those that sell up to $250,000, and platinum are those who sell more than that. Currently, there are 6,000 members in the program.

In addition, the company unveiled a slew of new notebooks from its Tecra, Satellite and Qosmio lines.

Like other vendors that have unveiled notebooks based on Intel's new Centrino Core Duo processors (formerly known as Napa), Toshiba previewed the next version of its Portege convertible tablet. Toshiba will officially launch the dual-core Portege M400, which replaces the current M200 ,in the coming weeks.

The M400, on display at CES, includes the features offered by Intel's new mobile dual-core Centrino Core Duo Processor, said Craig Marking, product manager for Toshiba's computer systems group. That includes the new 667-MHz front-side bus, which offers significant performance improvements and support for addressable memory, and the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously without programs freezing up.

Marking said the system will support 120-GB drives, up to 4 GB of RAM, 802.11a/b/g wireless connectivity, BlueTooth and biometric authentication, among other features.

"This is optimized for productivity," Marking said.

Meanwhile, Toshiba, one of the key proponents of the HD-DVD format, demonstrated a version of its Qosmio AV multimedia notebooks, with an HD DVD-ROM drive. HD DVD-ROM will support up to 30 GB of storage on a DVD disk. The Windows Media Center Edition Qosmio will also come with a Centrino Core Duo mobile processor. Pricing and availability will be announced later this quarter.

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