NEW YORK (AP) -- Computer chip giant Intel Corp., is marketing a new gadget that easily allows consumers to create their own home computer network.
The $190 AnyPoint Home Network lets users of different machines share files, use the same printer and access the Internet through one account over existing phone lines. It plugs into the outside of the computer, easier to install than other products that require consumers to open up their machines.While a handful of manufacturers already sell such equipment at CompUSA and other computer stores, the marketing push launched Tuesday by the world's largest maker of computer microprocessors could lure mainstream consumers to the product, some analysts said.
"Their marketing might and support of this will help drive the customer to look for it and consider it," said Aaron Goldberg of ZD Market Intelligence, a high-tech research firm. "The big thing is to get the customers over the hurdle."
So far, only a small fraction of U.S. households link their computers into networks. But that should rise as consumers buy more than one PC -- up from 12.4 percent of homes at the end of last year to an estimated 17 percent by the end of 1999, according to the Yankee Group research firm. Also driving the trend is a rapid growth in high-speed Internet access, through phone and cable-TV lines, which encourages people to link their computers into networks.
In addition to CompUSA, Intel's product will be offered by computer makers Gateway and IBM.
Intel's initiative is part of a company drive to stimulate new uses for computers, key to generating demand for its more powerful microprocessors. The urgency for Intel has intensified amid a sharp drop in computer prices that threatens to shift Intel's sales to its least profitable chips.
Intel chairman Andy Grove said the idea is to encourage consumers to buy a more powerful computer as the "base station" for their home, able to run more demanding applications and easily communicate with less powerful machines in other rooms.
But consumers may balk at paying a higher price for the convenience of easy installation, some say. The AnyPoint product is nearly twice as expensive than some other offerings that also work through phone lines.
"It's pretty cheap to network your home if you know what you're doing," said David Goldstein, president of Channel Marketing Corp., a research and consultant firm.