The top two personal computer makers, Compaq and Dell each vowed that it would emerge the winner from a raging computer price war and the technology slowdown that is hitting their bottom lines.
"It's not a question of whether there's going to be a price war, we're in a price war," said Compaq chairman Mr Michael Capellas, whose company lost the No. 1 personal computer maker position to Dell during the first quarter.
"The price war will continue," Mr Capellas said at the Merrill Lynch Hardware Technology conference. "We will be as aggressive as anyone."
Compaq's rival Dell will be merciless in managing costs and will consider more layoffs, a senior Dell executive said, as it keeps the heat on in a price war to seize market share.
"We will be ruthless in how we address our cost structure going forward," said Mr Tom Meredith, Dell's senior vice president of business development and strategy.
Mr Meredith pointed to cost controls and aggressive pricing as reasons Dell was able to take market share from Compaq. Asked if layoffs could be part of that ruthless cost-cutting, Meredith said simply, "Absolutely."
The PC price war also comes as two other high-tech titans slug it out in their own price war: Intel the world's biggest chip maker and Advanced Micro Devices, Intel's principal rival for microprocessors.