Companies Team to Deliver Web Appliance

By Sushuma February 24, 2000 9:58 AM

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(InternetWeek)-IBM has teamed up with Fidelity Investments, Lycos and AT&T to offer Fidelity's customers a portable Internet appliance, as well as connectivity and support for accessing and managing their investments from home.?In the pilot program, IBM will supply the infrastructure and IT service, AT&T the bandwidth and Lycos the content on a customized Web site.?Fidelity, which has close to 11 million customer accounts with $534 billion in assets, plans to test new portfolio planning and monitoring tools and a new bill payment service as part of the pilot.?In cooperation with Lycos, Fidelity will offer the My Fidelity page, which is the integrated start page that mixes lifestyle and financial data in a personalized format.?The IBM appliance, which has not been named, is an Internet-enabled device with a single processor built within a pedestal that supports a monitor.?Users will be able to surf the Web and send and receive e-mail, but it has no word processor, hard drive or floppy drive.?AT&T will supply broadband access through its Digital Subscriber Line service, with speeds ranging from 128 Kbps to 768 Kbps.?The service currently is available in 50 markets, but availability will extend to more than 100 markets by year's end.?More ...

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