Compaq, Starbucks to offer wireless Internet
By Jeff Franks
HOUSTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Compaq Computer Corp. and
Starbucks Coffee Co. 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
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.
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