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To: Mang Cheng who wrote (29072)	3/19/1999 8:31:00 AM
From: Moonray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

INTERVIEW - IBM says devices battle nears Reuters - 05:08 a.m. Mar 19, 1999 Eastern HANOVER, March 19 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp, the world's largest computer maker, said on Friday that competitors in the market for Internet devices will fight a decisive battle within the next 18 months. Mark Bregman, General Manager at IBM's Pervasive Computing division, told Reuters in an interview that the winners will be the companies which can provide consumers with uncomplicated and focused devices. The losers will be companies like software giant Microsoft Corp which produce powerful but complicated devices, according to Bregman. Microsoft told Reuters on Wednesday that, on the contrary, it felt well placed to succeed in the devices segment. We will soon know the answer to these counter-claims, said IBM's Bregman. ''In five years this will get settled, in fact I think it will get settled in the next 12 to 18 months. In World War Two, in retrospect we knew when the decisive battle was, but it took a long time afterwards to get the thing finished,'' Bregman said at the annual CeBIT technology fair. Bregman said the Microsoft approach worked well in the business world, but would be less attractive in mass markets. ''The business model that Microsoft has is very suitable when you are in the platform business because then the customer wants to know it can run all these applications. But in the appliance market you dont care anymore. What's the operating system in your cellphone? You dont know because you don't care,'' Bregman said. News from CeBIT this year has been dominated by companies competing to outdo each other with new little computerised comunications devices. Companies have been setting up alliances to make sure that whoever wins, they don't lose. CeBIT has seen new palm-top computers that can surf the Internet, play audio, act as word-processors in colour, and connect with personal computers by infra-red or radio. Laptops are now being offered incorporating a telephone. Microsoft unveiled its Hermes Internet telephone powered by its Windows CE (compact edition) software on Wednesday. The world's biggest personal computer maker Compaq Computer Corp show-cased a little hand-held device - the Arrow 2100 - which boasts a colour screen and radio connectivity. 3Com Corp of the U.S., which leads the hand-held market with its best-selling Palm Pilot, announced improved products in the form of the Palm V and Palm IIIx. IBM joined in the act announcing a deal on Thursday with Finnish mobile telephone power house Nokia Oyj and travel services company SABRE for travel booking for executives on the move. Earlier this week Japanese telecommunications giant NTT announced a deal with Symbian, the consortium including Motorola of the U.S., Ericsson of Sweden, Nokia and Psion Plc which plans to market the next generation of Internet devices. NTT later announced it also planned a deal with Microsoft. At the CeBIT show Sun Microsystems announced a tie-up with Symbian. Analysts said this was an outflanking move against Microsoft. All these products aim to be the next generation of devices that can surf the Internet, and appeal to mass markets for the first time. The theory is that the first round in this battle was won by the personal computer. The next phase is up for grabs. ''The first 200 million computer owners used Wintel machines - (PCs using Intel Corp chips and Microsoft's Windows software) - the next 800 million will not,'' 3Com chief executive officer Eric Benhamou was recently quoted as saying. IBM believes that in the next five to 10 years there will be over one million businesses and one billion people using one trillion mobile and network devices to communicate world wide. ''What's happening right now is a sign of the fact that we are in a state of transition,'' IBM's Bregman said. Neil Winton 44 171 542 7975 neil+jinks.demon.co.uk Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication and redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. o~~~ O