Under the theme of accessing information anywhere and anytime, Compaq has launched a series of new products including thin-client products, wireless LANs and new laptop computers.
Compaq's new thin clients are designed to lower the cost of maintenance and to provide added security, Kaspar Rorsted, vice president of the commercial PC group and e-commerce for Compaq in Europe, Middle East and Africa, said.
The T1000 thin client runs on Windows CE, has a 233MHz processor and comes with 8MB of flash memory and 32MB RAM. The T1500 runs on the Linux OS, has a 233MHz processor and comes with 32M bytes of flash memory and 72M bytes of RAM. The T1500 has the Netscape 4.5 browser and therefore needs more memory than the T1000, which does not include a browser.
These products could be used by e-commerce providers to input data or for other tasks that are not very demanding, said Rorsted. Because customer data could be stored on the server, rather than on the client, these products would also increase security. The T1000 will be available in November and will be priced at $US626. The T1500 will ship in December, but the price is not yet announced, Compaq said.
Compaq also announced a new wireless LAN product that will allow employees to roam around inside their offices with their computers and still be connected to the office LAN and the Internet. The WL Series is comprised of wireless LAN cards and access points, offering an 11M-bits-per-second transmission speed. Each access point provides coverage for 300 feet in all directions, and any number of the points could be installed in order to cover an entire building. The PC cards and access points will be available in December. Prices start at $US199 for the cards and $US999 for the access points.
The WL Series complies with IEEE 802.11b High Rate standard. Compaq officials today said that the company will make some announcements about wireless home networking products in the next few months that also will use this standard.