Value-added resellers and computer manufacturers are selling PCs bundled with more and more applications, but many home users do not know how to take advantage of the extra products.
'For the average person coming in to buy a PC, it will probably take them one or two months before they can use all the features,' Nelson Chan, general manager of System-Pro's computer products unit, said.
'If they are using the PC to connect to the Internet, they will probably tap most of the extra features, but if not they will only ever use part of what is offered,' he said.
Raymond Hui, a System-Pro systems engineer, said he sometimes received calls from frustrated consumers with an internal fax modem but no idea how to use it. On a normal PC, Windows 3.1 software users were still going to have to buy fax software or use an outside fax modem, he said.
For Windows 95 users it was a matter of configuring the fax modem, which the program could immediately detect, especially if it was internal.
Mr Chan said most home users buy a PC with a fax modem, 'but they have so many features to find, they sometimes have difficulty managing it all'.
