It’s quite impressive; the white screen ends up blacked out by `f’s.”In one Japanese broadcast, the computing team even enabled Internet observers to send e-mail messages to Sakamoto in real time. At the end of a piece, if you wanted to applaud you would hit the `f’ key, that would go through a MIDI device on to the screen, and your letter would appear. My machine has the most expensive active matrix screen, in case I want to stare at my Word document in great detail, driven to despair by failing modem handshakes.It has also a massive processor, which I will only use if I ever become a games addict. Its case is beautifully designed, with an elegant keypad and top-specification speakers. But it doesn’t get my e-mail, so it is pretty much useless.What’s the solution? Forcing the manufacturers to get their priorities right would be a good start. Since they are the ones who get the bulk of the portable industry money, the responsibility for the current portable hell rests firmly on their shoulders.

Extending the warranty to provide worldwide connectivity support would be a nice first step. I never know if the dial tone is not there because of my modem settings, wrong telephone number of the local ISP or some other magic variable. So a central help point would go a long way towards alleviating my jet-lagged struggles.But the path to consumer connectivity paradise is also blocked by other culprits, such as Microsoft, which should simplify Windows 95 modem settings. We all know that user-friendliness has never been high on Bill Gates’s agenda, but now is the time to change that and support the shift from desktops by cutting the crap from configuration nightmares. I expect many fellow notebook sufferers would appreciate a good dial-up location finder that would work for all ISPs, not just MSN.I would also expect laptop manufacturers to show mercy and throw in international modem and mains adaptors to save me the trouble of having to hunt down the right converter for each country. At present, those are available via third parties, but somehow they always lack the solution for the country I happen to visit.The real solution would be to cut down on the gizmos, excess RAM and luxurious active matrix screen and focus on making the notebook a real connectivity tool.

But then again, I sometimes think that laptop manufacturers want to steer us away from easy connectivity, to keep us coming back for more advanced (ie, expensive) upgrades in the vain hope that one day their laptop will work like a telephone.The moment things get easy on the remote Internet access front, we may stop upgrading our portable hardware. How long since you upgraded your telephone? I last changed mine at least three years ago. In the laptop manufacturer’s language that means quick death – no more mugs chasing the ultimate on-the-go solution.So until consumers unite and start boycotting the ridiculously difficult to use notebooks, the Great Laptop Conspiracy will keep us from a truly portable working environment. Meanwhile, mail me with your round-the-world- with-a-laptop stories.eva never . Compaq Computer’s takeover of Digital Equipment last week propels the company to the top of the IT tree. Stephen Pritchard assesses the impact that the $9.6bn deal will have on the industry. If you are going to spend, you might as well spend big: that could be the motto of the management of Compaq Computer.

The deal to buy Digital Equipment Corp, announced last week, broke records At $9.6bn, it is the computer industry’s largest ever. It also propels Compaq to the very top of the IT company tree.
Compaq has been courting Digital for some time. The talks that led to last week’s announcement were the third between the two, whose total business is now behind only IBM and close to or even above Hewlett-Packard, depending on the measures used. “If you take our combined revenues, we are in the top three,” says Joe McNally, managing director of Compaq in the UK.

“It makes us much stronger worldwide.”The two companies are both computer manufacturers, but they are quite different businesses. In the UK, for example, Digital employs 7,000 people, and Compaq 2,500. All but 500 of Compaq’s UK staff work in manufacturing: the company has a production plant in Scotland. Two thousand Digital staff work in manufacturing, too, but that leaves 5,000 in marketing, sales and other support functions, 10 times Compaq’s figure.Within these figures is the prime reason for the takeover. Compaq has traditionally sold its computers through the “channel”: dealers, specialist value-added retailers, and even high street stores such as Dixons. Digital has dealers, but it relies far more on its own sales teams, especially to handle large corporate accounts.Compaq wants Digital’s expertise, and its staff, to take on the market above the desktop computer. Compaq wants to be a computer company along the lines of IBM, rather than a maker of PCs alone.