Under an agreement signed with Yahoo! UK, Ireland and France, Compaq is to begin shipping this month Presario personal computers with one-touch access to the My Yahoo start page. Presario PC users will be able to press a single key on their keyboards that will launch their browser and connect them to a separate co-branded My Yahoo start page with its own URL: http://cpq-uk.my.yahoo.com. The page will contain hyperlinks to Compaq online stores and to its website, but users will be able to tailor the content to remove those hyperlinks, said Steve Boom, business development director for Yahoo! Europe.
Lisa Clark, senior marketing manager, consumer products for Compaq in UK and Ireland told ComputerWire that the move is not an estrangement of AltaVista, which Compaq gained along with its acquisition of Digital Equipment Corp, as the Presario PCs will continue to feature a æsearch buttonÆ to connect users automatically to the AltaVista search engine. Presarios previously linked users to the Compaq hosted Presario site, but this was thought to be less relevant to users who already owned the PCs. The reason for the agreement with Yahoo! is to provide users with localized content, said Clark.
Compaq shipped tens of thousands of Presarios last year. The PCs also ship with ISP connection to AOL and BTÆs ClickFree service. Clark said all the deals incorporating internet features into the Presario involved financial elements, as Compaq is effectively sending business in the way of other companies but would not give any details. Nor would Clark indicate whether this deal with Yahoo! in the UK, Ireland and France heralded similar ones in other European countries where Yahoo! has presence.
