SAN JOSE — Gateway, in partnership with America Online, Inc., will unveil a touch-screen device Friday, heating up the brewing battle in the user-friendly Web appliance market.
The long-awaited home Internet appliance by Gateway, called the Connected Touch Pad, is designed to offer easy but complete Web access from a kitchen counter or other high-traffic areas where space-consuming personal computers usually are shunned.
The Touch Pad, which will be for AOL subscribers, comes with a new interface called Instant AOL, complete with e-mail, instant messaging, calendar, a family "Notepad" and other Web features such as recipe or shopping information and TV listings.
It's a slim device with a 10-inch display that can stand alone or be mounted under a kitchen cabinet, according to sources close to the company. It relies on a stylus, touch screen and wireless keyboard for users to make choices or navigate.
The Web appliance market is in its infancy, but competitors already are lining up.
Compaq Computer Corp. unveiled its iPaq using Microsoft's MSN Internet service in August. Last month, 3Com Corp. unveiled the Audrey, which can connect to the Web through any Internet service provider. Competing appliances are expected also from Sony Corp. and Intel Corp.
"We haven't had a big success in this area yet, and we'll see how this goes. But with the strength of the AOL brand name, Gateway certainly has the best chance yet," said Martin Reynolds, an analyst with the Gartner Group research firm.
Gateway officials would not disclose the Touch Pad's price until they make the official product announcement Friday morning in New York. The San Diego-based company originally had planned to unveil the product next week at the big Comdex trade show in Las Vegas.
Like other Web appliances, Gateway's device will target consumers who want Web access without having to operate a PC, which for many seems too comlex or time consuming to weave into their everyday lives.
The Touch Pad simply needs to be plugged in and connected to a phone line. Bootup times will be minimized. Gateway envisions that users, for example, could check online for traffic, stock or news reports while brewing their coffee in the morning.
The device, which will use the energy-saving Crusoe microprocessor by upstart chipmaker Transmeta Corp., can use either a dial-up connection or, when networked with a PC, a broadband Internet connection.
Gateway also has a strategic partnership with chipmaker Broadcom Corp. to jointly develop products for delivering streaming audio and video content between music players, TVs, PCs, cable modems and Internet appliances.
The Touch Pad appliance, sources said, will be among the first of a series of Gateway's Connected Home products to use the Broadcom Home Phoneline Networking Alliance 2.0 chipsets, enabling all the devices to seamlessly connect via existing telephone lines.
Gateway plans to offer demonstrations of the Touch Pad, along with the Gateway Connected Music Player, at its Gateway Country stores beginning next week -- in time for the Christmas season. It will begin taking orders on Dec. 1 for shipments by Dec. 15 to customers' homes.
Market penetration will be a challenge, Reynolds said.
"The Web appliance is entering a difficult market because 60 percent of Amercian homes already have PCs and may not feel they need another device," he said. "And the homes that are left either don't want to own a PC or can't afford one, or they think a PC might be too complicated."
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