Apple Computer on Monday cut the price of its 12-inch and 15-inch PowerBooks in a push to make notebook computers a larger part of its business.

The standard 12-inch PowerBook, which comes with a drive that can burn CDs and play DVD movies, drops in price by $200 to $1,599. A similar model with a more-capable SuperDrive, which can burn both DVDs and CDs, also takes a $200 cut to sell for $1,799.

The 15-inch PowerBook saw price drops of up to $300, depending on features. It now starts at $1,999 for the 867MHz model, rising to $2,599 for a model with a 1GHz processor. The higher-end model also includes 512MB of RAM--twice as much as the basic machine--and a larger hard drive.

Apple did not make any changes to the features of its notebooks, nor did it drop the price of its 17-inch PowerBook, which sells for $3,299 with a SuperDrive.

"We said in January (that 2003) is going to be the year of the notebook, and it is looking like that is the case," said Greg Joswiak, a vice president at the Cupertino, Calif.-based Mac maker. Company CEO Steve Jobs made that proclamation at Macworld Expo, when he introduced the 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBooks.

Joswiak said that Apple has not seen a drop in laptop sales and that the price cuts were planned.

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