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WiMAX Is Here, HP and Dell Choose to Play It Safe

Still need to offer WiMAX as an option for their notebooks

Oct 9, 2008 09:08 GMT  ·  By
HP and Dell decide to play it safe as WiMAX is becoming a reality
   HP and Dell decide to play it safe as WiMAX is becoming a reality

While Toshiba, Acer and Lenovo, three of the leading PC vendors, have already introduced their support for the recently launched WiMAX wireless network in Baltimore, the two biggest names in the field, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, are yet to come forth with WiMAX support for their own notebooks. The two companies have decided to play it safe for the time being, and wait to see how the market is evolving.

 

As we reported earlier today, major systems makers, including Toshiba, Acer and Lenovo have been quick to announce their support for WiMAX. However, the two leading companies, HP and Dell, are taking an entirely different approach to this market opportunity, or so if we’re to judge by the fact they are yet to unveil their own WiMAX-enabled products. The news is even more significant if we’re to consider that both companies are two of the largest supporting companies of WiMAX technology and its deployment on a wider scale.

 

In a recently released statement, the Palo Alto, California-based HP has revealed that WiMAX, in its currently available state, doesn't meet the requirements of the company's customers. However, HP did say that was testing WiMax technology for its laptops, which it intended to make available later on. In the meantime, HP users have to buy a separate WiMAX-enabled PC card, ExpressCard or USB dongle to enable WiMAX on their notebooks.

 

“HP views mobile WiMAX as an emerging technology and may integrate it into notebooks as the technology matures and the commercial availability of mobile WiMax networks increases,” reads an excerpt of the statement coming from HP. “However, at this time, it is premature to integrate mobile WiMAX into HP notebooks due to the limited scope of commercially available networks and uncertainties around interoperability, roaming and quality of service.”

 

As far as Dell is concerned, the Round Rock, Texas-based PC vendor said that it had no plans of offering the technology as an option just yet, despite the fact that several notebooks in its Latitude E lineup are WiMAX-enabled.