Companies Team Up To Deliver Web Appliance, Services

By MIKE KOLLER

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.

"This is the beginning of a set of alliances that will give all of us new routes to market, to simplify the computing experience for Internet-based users from an end-to-end point of view--the device, the connectivity, the services, the content and the applications," said Ralph Martino, vice president strategy and marketing for IBM personal Systems Group.

Tracy Curvey, executive vice president of Fidelity online brokerage, said Fidelity customers will get state-of-the-art solutions to manage and monitor their personal investments online.

"The IBM Internet appliance will allow Fidelity customers in the pilot program to have easy, high-speed access to Powerstreet, Fidelity's online trading center, and other products and services at Fidelity.com," she said.

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.

The pilot will give at-home investors 24x7 access to investment planning tools, customized content, online trading, Web surfing, e-mailing and other services.

Support for device management and technical problems will be fulfilled by IBM, but the level of support will be determined during the pilot project, IBM said.

Tom Austin, vice president and research fellow at the Gartner Group, said IBM is participating to try to increase the rate at which such appliances are adopted.

"In some ways it's missionary work on IBM's part because they're slowly converting people to IBM's vision of ubiquitous computing, with essentially disposable end-user appliances," he said. "Fidelity is motivated by a desire to offer more applications to customers, especially premium customers, and to show there's extra value available from Fidelity."

Pricing for the appliance and services has not been determined. The trial period begins in the second quarter, and wider availability is expected in the third quarter, a Fidelity spokesman said.