InformationWeek

June 14, 1999

New Wireless LAN Push

Compaq card aimed at small and midsize businesses

By Aaron Ricadela

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ompaq this week will ship its first wireless LAN card, and has priced the product to attract small and midsize companies considering wireless alternatives to wired peer-to-peer networks.

The Compaq 2-Mbps Wireless LAN will ship in PC Card and PCI Card formats at an expected price of $199. Compaq plans to sell the card directly and through resellers. It will also be available next month as a configuration option for Compaq's Prosignia PCs.

"This is really our first big push into wireless," says Eric Shuster, Compaq's director of product marketing for small and midsize businesses. By working closely with component suppliers and hewing to the IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless LAN interoperability, Compaq was able to price its card about $100 below comparable products running at 2 Mbps, Shuster says.

Compaq says its wireless LAN card lets users network PCs and notebooks up to 300 feet apart in an office environment at a cost per node that's competitive with wired networks. In July, the vendor plans to ship a "wireless software access point" that lets notebooks up to 600 feet apart communicate via a PC placed in the middle.

David Hayden, a senior analyst at Mobile Insights, says wireless LANs have historically made sense only in environments where running cable was a problem, or for companies with highly mobile workforces. Compaq's pricing "opens up wireless networking to a new segment of customers. It's a new alternative to wired networking," he says. Hayden adds that the product's introduction also illustrates Compaq's push to expand its hardware line.