HANNOVER, Germany -- Compaq Computer is joining the list of companies that believe they can address the needs of 21st century business users by providing content and connectivity anywhere, any time.
To reach that goal -- and to drive the growth of its hardware business -- the Houston company is focusing on content partnerships and wireless applications and services. It is also extending its new iPaq brand to handheld and possibly other devices.
At the CeBIT trade show here this week, Compaq discussed a service for mobile devices called GeoBrowser, developed with Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc.
The service, currently available only in select European cities, provides users with wireless access to maps, hotels, restaurants, rental car agencies and airlines.
How it works
The plan is to add support for the Bluetooth wireless standard so that, for example, a user can click on a restaurant name stored in his or her Compaq Aero palm-size device, which calls the user's cell phone, which makes another call to a call center, such as American Express', which makes a reservation.
Compaq plans to support Bluetooth on its iPaq desktop PC, which began shipping in the United States in January and will ship this week in Europe. Compaq plans to extend the iPaq brand to handhelds and possibly notebook PCs.
The first mobile iPaq client will be a new Windows CE-based handheld due in the second quarter. The Aero name eventually will be dropped in favor of the iPaq, sources said.
Compaq is one of several PC makers targeting telecommunications companies not only as customers but as business partners. In this new, content-driven world, PC makers need to partner with telcos for the data delivery mechanism. Telcos are sometimes acting as resellers.
As a result, competition for a finite supply of premium content could be in the offing, said Antoine Barre, Compaq's director of iAppliances for European regions.
