Compaq Computer Corp has announced its Internet strategy for 1996 and beyond, and says it wants to bring Internet entry costs down dramatically by reducing the traditionally high Internet server margins. The company says it is looking at a huge potential market, not just in the Internet, but particularly with the growth of inter company Intranets, and its aim is to provide lower cost, Internet-ready servers with the best of breed software. To this end, the company has announced a long-term strategic partnership with Netscape Communications Corp, in which the two companies will work together to optimize their products to work with each other. Compaq says it will bundle Internet server capability with every new server shipped, including Netscape Commerce Server. It will also include support for Netscape Commerce Server in Compaq SmarStart release 2.50A, its integration tool for optimizing and simplifying server configuration and installation, which is shipping now. Netscape also says future Windows NT-based Netscape products will be designed and engineered to support Compaq SmartStart. In addition to Netscape, Compaq is also bundling Microsoft Corp’s Internet Information Server, and Novell Inc’s NetWare Web Server. The company says it will provide Internet capability across its whole server range, from the ProSignia 300 to the ProLiant 4500. It says it will particularly begin to target the small to medium sized business and will work with value-added resellers. It estimates that it will add around 1,000 of these to its European network. Compaq announced turnover for Europe, the Middle East and Asia up 40% to $5,500m for the year to December 31 1995, which it said accounted for 36% of its worldwide turnover. President and chief executive Eckhard Pfeiffer also warned that the alliance between Packard Bell Electronics Inc, Zenith Data Systems and NEC Corp would fail in the marketplace, saying that the partners would be money-losers separately or allied.
