Non-PCs are star attraction at trade show

May Wong

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2000 | 8:57 a.m.

Despite the excitement swirling around wireless devices at this year's Comdex, the man behind the nation's leading computer maker says he'll keep his business focused for now on the venerable PC realm.

"A lot of people might say, 'You don't do anything interesting - but we just don't do anything stupid," Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computer Corp. said Tuesday in an interview. "We do things that work."

Unlike Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who showed off a prototype of a Web "tablet" during his keynote speech, Dell altogether shrugged off the latest breed of Web appliances trying to wind their way into the consumer market and pave a new method of Internet access.

Dell instead made a point of defending the PC, which was largely absent from the giant trade show floor - overshadowed by handhelds and other wireless mobile devices. Dell echoed others in the industry who say the PC should not be counted out.

"Keep in mind that everyone who has a Palm, or a PocketPC, uses it in conjunction with another computer," Dell said in his keynote. "All these devices are basically complementary to the PC."

Emphasizing his point, Dell asked if anyone in the tech-savvy audience used a hand-held device as his only computer. Not one hand went up.

To some degree, the glitz at Comdex behind mobile devices such as hand-held gadgets reflects reality.

Worldwide sales of hand-held products, not including cell phones, jumped by 40 percent from 7.4 million in 1999 to an estimated 10.3 million in 2000, and are expected to triple to nearly 30 million units by the year 2003, according to International Data Corp.

PC shipments, on the other hand, increased by 18 percent from 113 million units in 1999 to an estimated 134 million in 2000. Sales are projected to jump only about 15 percent annually to 188 million units by the year 2003.

On Wall Street, industry bellwether Dell is taking a beating after forecasting slowed revenue growth next year of 20 percent, compared with 40 percent this year. The recent report further signaled a PC-related slowdown and pulled the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index below 3,000 on Monday for the first time in more than a year.

Michael Dell is well aware of the PC industry slowdown but said he thinks some naysayers might be underestimating the consumer attraction to new PC developments, such as Intel's new Pentium 4 chip expected to be announced next week and available for PCs soon after.

"PCs are not dead, sales have just slowed because everyone's got one, but it'll still continue to be a very large and important market," agreed Martin Reynolds, a PC industry analyst with the Gartner Group research firm.

But at Comdex, desktop computers definitely are has-beens, giving way to wireless devices and new Internet appliances that give users the kind of Web access previously existent only in sci-fi dreams. Booth after booth was scattered with laptops that now have more computing power than most PCs did a year ago.

In fact, at National Semiconductor Corp.'s booth, a performer sang "Take Those PCs Away" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Fun, Fun, Fun."

Metricom Inc. and National Semiconductor unveiled a breakthrough prototype device called the WebPad Metro that gives complete wireless Web access with Ricochet's radio technology.

Honeywell showed off its latest selling product, also called a WebPad, which gives homeowners wireless high-speed access to the Web from anywhere inside or outside a home within 150 feet of its plugged-in base station.

And Bluetooth, a radio network technological standard, was a star by default. The technology was showcased in dozens of products - for example, a small security card carried by the user that automatically locks your laptop when you step 10 feet away from it.

But ultimately, Reynolds said, "What you're seeing at Comdex is technology that is built on the foundation of PCs and that's just not going to go away."

Mobile wireless technology undoubtedly has arrived, Carly Fiorina, chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, said in her keynote, but the industry has yet to conquer the challenge of getting consumers to embrace a truly mobile lifestyle.

"A true mobile solution is not just about putting the Internet in your pocket - it's about using the Internet ... wherever you are," she said.

Americans think we're living in a mobile culture, but "if you go to Japan or Helsinki, you'll see we're not," she said.

Dell, whose sell-direct-to-consumer model launched his fame and $30 billion-a-year business, said he'll wait for the day consumers are clamoring for Web appliances before he starts to offer them.

"We'll go where we could sell in volume," he said.