Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: tonyt who wrote (91038)	5/1/2001 3:39:28 PM
From: tonyt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Compaq, Starbucks to offer wireless Internet By Jeff Franks HOUSTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Compaq Computer Corp.(NYSE:CPQ) and Starbucks Coffee Co. (NASDAQ:SBUX) offered up a yuppie's vision of paradise on Tuesday when they announced a joint project to provide high-speed wireless Internet access at Starbucks stores. Beginning this summer, some Starbucks customers will be able to surf the net on their handheld or laptop computers while sipping coffee. And by 2002, customers in nearly three-fourths of the 4,150 Starbucks stores around the world will have Web access, said Compaq's chief executive Michael Capellas and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz. "This is a perfect marriage," Schultz told reporters at a Starbucks in Houston, where Compaq is based. "Despite the fact we're in very different businesses, we're in the same business...to try as much as possible to enhance the experience of our customers' lives," he said. As if to illustrate how the future might look at a Starbucks store, the two executives, neither wearing a tie, sat a table set with two cups of coffee and two iPAQs, Compaq's popular handheld computer. "If you come in with your iPAQ, you'll be able to do connectivity inside. There'll be special content delivery...but you'll also be able to access your e-mail, access your calendar and while you're doing that you can put a pair of headphones on and listen to some great music," Capellas said. He said there may also be non-wireless Internet connectivity, but Schultz emphatically made the point that Starbucks stores will not become cybercafes. "It will be nothing like a cybercafe. That's a very important distinction for me," he said. "What we're going to do is the antithesis of that." Capellas said the two companies agreed to a five-year strategic partnership in which Compaq would provide broadband Internet infrastructure powered by Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) software. He said Compaq's chief gain would be "brand extension," but that the Internet link would be usable on all types of portable computers, not just Compaq. Schultz said the Internet connections should start showing up in stores this summer, with a goal of having 70 percent of all Starbucks connected by the first quarter of 2002. Starbucks is based in Seattle, Wash. Copyright 2001, Reuters News Service