Compaq Asia's push into wireless
The computer maker revealed today that it has signed "several significant deals" over the past six months in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), providing systems integration services and handhelds to corporations which have installed wireless Local Area Networks (LAN).
One such client is the New Zealand Diary Group, which Compaq helped put in place a stock-taking system using barcode scanner-attached iPaq devices, said Compaq Asia-Pacific's Mark Manners in an interview.
According to the director of Enterprise Mobility (Wireless) and Service Providers Solutions: "Enterprises are beginning to see the value in implementing wireless LAN. They are looking to get maximum ROI (Return on Investment) from it."
In fact, cost savings is the key motivational factor for deploying a wireless LAN network, he said. Other reasons include the ability to increase customer satisfaction, particularly through automating the sales force and field engineers.
For example, over the past six months, a large fast-moving consumer goods company in Australia has deployed about 100 iPaq devices where sales personnel can obtain and upload customer information immediately on the backend system.
Manners would not name the Australian firm or other customers. However, he noted that they are mostly in the manufacturing, transport and logistics industries in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines.
These customer wins, Manners claimed, are attributed to Compaq's strategy in offering a total solution. This involves bundling hardware such as the ProLiant Intel-based servers and the iPaq devices with Compaq's professional services, as well as with third-party providers' applications.
Compaq's partners include Microsoft Corp, handheld-to-PC synchronization software provider Extended Systems, security specialists Baltimore Technologies Plc and Privylink Pte Ltd and location tracking software firm Wheresoft Geocommerce Pte Ltd.
A wireless destiny
"The fact that they (Compaq) have put their offerings together will place them in a good position," said Dane Anderson, International Data Corp Asia-Pacific vice president for Internet and Computing Systems.
"Compaq has established strength in a market which is beginning to take off. iPaq has done very well and the company is also a leader in the Intel-based server market," Anderson added.
The firm, which is currently the merger target of Hewlett-Packard Co, led the PC server industry in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) last year with revenues of $705 million or about 30 percent share, according to IDC statistics.
In the personal digital assistant segment, Compaq was No. 2 in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan and China) last year, according to preliminary unit shipment figures from IDC.
With close to 10 percent market share, Palm Inc maintained "a comfortable lead" in the region, said Bryan Ma, IDC Asia-Pacific manager for Personal Systems Research. He declined to reveal Compaq's market share, except to say that a total of less than 1 million handhelds were sold in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan and China) last year.
"It is a promising future for Compaq, but it depends on the applications," said Ma. "So far, e-mail is the only killer application on the personal handheld space. The only vertical industry where handhelds took off is insurance."
However, Ma sees huge opportunities in the customer relationship management and sales force automation arena, where deployments are "minimal" at present.