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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Engel who wrote (130698)	3/23/2001 9:20:28 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Intel to Make 250,000 Web Gizmos for AOL Deal in Spain By Duncan Martell SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The world's biggest semiconductor company Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) Corp. will supply 250,000 Web access devices that Spain's biggest bank, Banco Santander Central Hispano (SCH.MC), is set to offer to clients with America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news), which Intel and others hope could jump-start the nascent industry. ``It's Intel,'' said AOL International President Michael Lynton on Thursday when asked in an interview who the manufacturer of the device is. He added that Intel will manufacture a first batch of 250,000 terminals, down from an earlier forecast of 500,000. AOL and Banco Santander announced they would join forces in an online partnership last October, but declined then to disclose the manufacturer of the Internet terminals. Intel, for its part, announced plans to make the device, called Dot.Station in January 2000 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the products are starting to roll out now, said Greg Welch, head of marketing for Intel's home products group. ``This is far and away the largest Web appliance deal ever announced,'' Welch said. ``I have to believe that it's going to help legitimize the category, legitimize the business model and generate more interest.'' More interest would be good for Intel and others in the nascent so-called information appliance industry, which so far has proved to show more hype than actual products and services. The first Dot.Stations will be offered to Spanish consumers later this year, Lynton said. The news comes one day after U.S. computer networking company 3Com Corp. (NasdaqNM:COMS - news) pulled a similar Web access device named Audrey, aimed at households. The $500 kitchen-countertop Internet device, aimed at people hesitant to spend more money on a more powerful personal computer, had been on the market for six months but failed to create much of a stir. But Intel's device differs from Audrey and others in that Intel has developed sophisticated software that lets the service provider, in this case AOL, push down updates so that the browsing device has the latest available tools to access Web content, Welch said. The device, about the size of a 15-inch television, is self-contained within the monitor and has a 15-inch color screen, a 4 gigabyte hard drive that will soon go to 10 gigabytes and uses an Intel Celeron processor. It can be configured for dial-up access to the Internet or for cable or DSL modems for faster connections. Intel's Welch said that the Dot.Station is expressly designed for homes that do not already have a personal computer. It's not a fully-fledged PC, but does have all the bells and whistles needed for a family to surf the Internet, manage an address book and calendar items. ``When you go out and talk to consumers who do not have a PC in the house and you talk to them about the Internet, interestingly enough the metaphor they continually bring forth in talking about the Internet is the Yellow Pages,'' Welch said. ''Then it dawned on me that if you don't have access to the Internet the biggest database you have is the phone book.'' Only 1 in 10 homes worldwide currently has a PC and room for growth in this new market is now best found not in the U.S. market, Welch said. ``We think in some ways a lot of the richest opportunities for this kind of device are actually going to come in the overseas markets where you don't have the established patterns of consumer behavior or the firmly entrenched infrastructure of service providers as you do in the U.S. market,'' Welch said. The Dot.Station, which is a blue color similar to the one Intel uses in its logo, runs the Linux (news - web sites) operating system and uses a Mozilla Web browser. It is among several consumer-oriented devices Intel now sells, in addition to digital cameras, an MP3 digital music player, a digital microscope and home networking equipment. The deal to offer Web terminals to Banco Santander's 10 million customers was part of a larger partnership between AOL and the bank. Both companies also agreed to take over a Spanish leisure portal, rebrand it AOL Avant and offer AOL-branded services to Banco Santanders banking clients.