Internet Access Made Easy

The road to building a successful Web appliance (barebones devices that primarily offer easy access to the Internet) is strewn with smoking wrecks. Set-top boxes, for example, were supposed to bring the Internet to millions of households via the TV set. But Microsoft-backed Venus’s device in China is a recent example of such products stumbling out of the starting blocks. Netpliance, one of the first U.S. companies to market a stand – alone device to access the Internet, last month announced it was giving up after just one year.

That hasn’t discouraged IT heavyweights in the U.S. from trying to crack the stubborn market. Among the first out of the blocks was 3Com with is an inverted-toaster-shaped appliance named Audrey, which not only provides Web surfing and e-mail through the user’s choice of internet service provider but can synchronize with 3Com’s popular Palm hand-held organizers. Also in the running is Compaq’s iPAQ Home Internet Appliance, which accesses the web through Microsoft’s MSN Network.

Both have Clear drawbacks-Audrey’s keyboards and screen are frustratingly tiny while the iPAQ has a difficult – to – manoeuvre rubber button on the keyboard to guide the screen’s cursor. A recent trip to a popular electronics store in Los Angeles found both model locked away instead of on display with the traditional personal computer, a sure sign that Web appliances aren’t exactly setting the world on fire. Research firm International Data Corp. say about 200.000 Web appliances were sold last year, but expects sales to rise sharply in coming years.

Gateway, the personal computer marker that is aggressively diversifying in to new products as sales weaken, hopes to speed up change with its new entrant in the Web appliance sweepstakes. Last month in launched the Gateway Connected Thought Pad that is part of a new line of Gateway Connected Home devices that go beyond the PC in providing in house connectivity. (One such device allows music files stored on a PC to be heard anywhere in the home). The company says the Touch Pad will be coming to Asia lather this Year.

The sleek, silver Touch Pad is designed for families that already have PC but also want to check the Web from the rest of the home – the kitchen or bedroom, for example. The Touch Pad’s sleek, silver 10 inch flat-panel screen can be placed on a countertop or mounted beneath a cabinet, perfect for those small Asian kitchens. Turn the machine on and the Touch Pad goes straight to the Internet, which users can then navigate by tapping their fingertips on the screen or by using a stylus. It can be used with normal phone lines or broadband service.

There’s a wireless keyboards for composing e-mail and surfing favourite Web sites as easily as on a PC. I found the build-in speakers offered good sound for streaming audio and video. All in all, it seemed up to the task of giving the family a quick way to check e-mail, new, weather, movie listings and other daily information, or to tune in Internet radio.

Still, the Touch Pad has some obvious limitations. It can’t yet open e-mail attachments in formats such as Microsoft Word and Excel, though that should change before it arrives in Asia. Not can it download information from the Internet, such as favorite recipes. Perhaps the most important limitation is that the Touch Pad now works only with Internet Service Provider America Online, not nearly as popular in Asia as in the U.S. That, too, may change before it arrives in Asia.

There are a few additional features thrown in – such as a notepad that allows family members to write messages to one another. Still, the Question for consumers is whether the Touch Pad is worth the hefty $599 price tag, about what it now costs for a stripped-down PC.

Much of that sticker price is due to expensive flat-panel technology. Hopefully, by the times the Touch Pad reaches Asian shores it will be a good deal cheaper and more flexible. That certainly will help it avoid becoming yet another ugly wreck on the road.

(By Dan Biers, in www.feer.com Jan 25 2001, page 42)

Re-publish by. www.tradinginfoceo.blogspot.com , March 3, 2008