Well, it looks like it may be starting to happen:
2wire.com
Office Depot and 2Wire Announce Strategic Retail Partnership for Leading Residential Gateway Products
DELRAY BEACH, Florida and SAN JOSE, California - May 31, 2000 - Office Depot, Inc. (NYSE: ODP), the world's largest seller of office products, and 2Wire, Inc., the leading supplier of residential gateways, today announced a strategic retail partnership for 2Wire's award-winning HomePortal? family of residential gateways, which provide integration of DSL and home networking. Office Depot will offer its customers the full line of 2Wire HomePortal products and services through its 700+ superstores nationwide.
"With the explosive growth of DSL services, a rapidly increasing number of our customers are looking for products like the 2Wire HomePortal residential gateway to allow them to easily and affordably take full advantage of the benefits that broadband can provide them, throughout the home over an existing phone line," said David I. Fuente, chairman and CEO, Office Depot. "Our partnership with 2Wire will enable us to provide our customers with innovative products and services that meet their growing communications needs."
"We're pleased to partner with Office Depot, the most successful office products retailer today, to bring the complete broadband experience -- both a high-speed digital connection and the services that DSL enables -- to Office Depot customers, both business professionals and families alike," said Brian Hinman, president and CEO, 2Wire. "The availability of our HomePortal products through a major retailer like Office Depot represents the next step in bringing converged voice, data and video communication services over a single connection to consumers."
2Wire's innovative HomePortal residential gateway products combine a DSL broadband modem with several in-home networking architectures such as Ethernet, HomePNA, and USB to manage an integrated data, voice and entertainment network. Using HomePortal, everyone in the home can share up to 8Mbps of ADSL connection to the Internet. It also means that with the home networked over phone lines, household members can share information and resources with each other within the house at data throughputs of up to 10Mbps.
In addition to the HomePortal product line, Office Depot will also offer 2Wire's award-winning DSL look-up service, which will assist Office Depot customers in determining if broadband services are available to their home or office. Customers who want information about broadband service, availability, pricing, and performance can use the 2Wire look-up service at any Office Depot store to secure an extensive listing of broadband service providers offering service to their exact location.
Perry P. |
