Intel's Rich Creek 2 To Debut In Laptops Next Week

Seneca Data of Syracuse New York will be one of several system builder giants showing off preproduction of Rich Creek 2 platform notebooks at the partner conference, which starts Sunday in Las Vegas. System builders said Rich Creek 2 provides for the first time the same kind of Intel standard motherboard that powered huge growth in both the desktop and server markets for them. The new Rich Creek 2 based systems are slated to ship at the end of June or in early July. Seneca for its part is hoping to break the sub -$800 price point with a Rich Creek 2 business class system that carries a full three year warranty.

Seneca, in fact, plans to show a Rich Creek 2-based notebook at the Intel Solultions Summit powered by Intel's 2.5 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, said Steve Maser, vice president of product development and marketing for Seneca. What's more, Seneca intends to raffle off at the show the first two Rich Creek 2 platform notebooks scheduled to come off the production line, said Maser. He said that full-fledged systems are slated to be manufactured at the end of the second quarter or early in the third quarter, said Maser.

The Rich Creek 2 platform marks the first time Intel has put its own reference design muscle behind a mobile motherboard that bears its own name. System builders predicted that Rich Creek 2 combined with standards-based enclosures, multiple options for displays and drives will for the first time give system builders the ability to deliver business class notebooks with more bang for the buck than computer makers like Hewlett Packard, Lenovo and Acer.

"Rich Creek 2 gives us the ability to build custom notebooks just like we do desktops," said Maser. "This is the first time that the system builder community has been able to build a notebook from the ground up that is 100 percent build to order. Now we can compete (against larger computer makers) and build exactly what the customer wants."

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