All-in-one PC coming to European market

Gateway plans to bring its first all-in-one PC with desktop components to the European market in time for Christmas.

The design - which consists of a flat-panel LCD screen with a motherboard, disk drive and DVD-ROM drive built into the back - was launched in Japan just before Christmas.

Named Profile, the small-footprint PC runs on a 400MHz AMD G6-2 processor and has a 15in screen, 4Gb hard disk, 64Mb RAM and a modem.

Profile has proved immensely popular in Japan, according to the company, where it sells for £1,260. Gateway plans to replace some of Profile's portable components with desktop components and release the model in Europe in the fourth quarter for about £1,500.

Profile is aimed at business executives and those with desk space constraints.

"The success of the iMac underlines the scope for this sort of model in the home market," Terry Ernest-Jones, research manager at IDC Europe, told PC Week. "As for businesses, they can still put the workstation on the floor, so it is unlikely to take off in the near future. But there is scope for a smaller footprint."