Bill Gates unveils Internet access device

BANGALORE: At the Comdex computer trade show Microsoft Corp chairman and CEO Bill Gates unveiled a new scaled-down appliance that the company has designed just for accessing the Internet.

Gates, in his keynote address, showed an appliance called the MSN-based Web Companion, a textbook-sized device that runs Microsoft's Windows CE software, and connects to the Internet, using Microsoft's MSN Internet service.

Mr. Gates said that it would be a key component of Microsoft's overall Web strategy. The new device that Microsoft designed and others like it will play a role where homes have multiple devices accessing the Internet from every room, Gates said, showing what he called a "muscle beach" of devices, all of them using Microsoft's Windows CE software. The MSN-based Web Companion is expected to be available in the second half of 2000 and companies such as Acer, Philips Electronics, Thomson Consumer Electronics and Vestal USA, will be developing them for use with the MSN service. Gates also gave a demonstration of Windows 2000 and he also showed a Web site running on five different servers running Windows 2000, in an effort to show the stability of Windows 2000.