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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (89232)	1/25/2001 6:29:05 AM
From: hlpinout	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 97611

January 25, 2001 World Economic Forum U.S. High-Tech Companies Use Opportunity to Flaunt New Gizmos By DAVID PRINGLE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Europe has long led the U.S. in mobile-phone technology, but a group of American companies aims to show off Yankee ingenuity at this year's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. All 2,200 of the high-powered delegates descending on the Swiss ski resort of Davos Thursday for the meeting will be supplied a hand-held computer worth about 600 euros ($562). Assuming there are no technical glitches, they will be able to use the gizmo to zip each other e-mail messages and download video clips of the conference sessions over a high-speed wireless network. The color screen iPaq hand-held computers, supplied by Compaq Computer Corp. of Houston, resemble Palm Inc.'s electronic organizers. When a delegate enters the Congress Center in Davos, a transmitter in the iPaq will hook up to a wireless LAN, or local area network, and the event information contained on the organizer will be regularly updated by software supplied by AvantGo Inc. of San Mateo, California. For Compaq, AvantGo and Microsoft Corp., the Redmond, Washington-based software giant that supplies the operating system used in the iPaq, Davos presents an ideal opportunity to raise their profile in Europe, a hotbed of the global wireless industry. "Europe is much further advanced [than the U.S.] in terms of wireless Internet development," said Johannes Ditterich, business consultant manager for AvantGo Germany, "It is no coincidence that we are doing it here in Europe." Rob Walker, chief operating officer of Compaq for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said the Davos delegates are free to keep the devices. AvantGo is hoping the wireless LAN at Davos will allow data to be downloaded at speeds of up to 11 megabits per second, which is almost 200 times faster than a connection over a standard telephone wire. The company cautions, however, that the speed will depend on the number of users logged on at one time. Computers typically have to remain within 30 to 40 meters of the nearest wireless LAN terminal to stay online, but Mr. Ditterich said there are enough terminals to cover the entirety of the Congress Center. Although companies have been using these kinds of networks to link up computers in offices for several years, Michael Wall, an analyst with market research firm Frost & Sullivan in London said installations of that size are quite rare. The largest wireless LAN installation Mr. Wall said he is aware of is at the New York Stock Exchange, with about 1,600 users. Besides office applications, this technology could be used in hotels, airports and shopping malls as an alternative to the third-generation mobile phone networks being built by European operators at great expense. Write to David Pringle at david.pringle@wsj.com