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Sony Unit Creates a High-Tech Notebook

When your office sits on a foundation of Michelin tires, your chair has seat belts and the company coffee pot resides under the Golden Arches, there’s a trick to getting on the Web.

Mobile professionals fall back on laptop computers and some sort of radio technology to connect them to the Internet.

The now-common way is called Wi-Fi. A computer user can go to a library or an airport or a Starbucks, find a “hot spot,” and get speedy Internet service. The downside is that this sort of coverage is limited to a relatively small area.

An alternative is buying a gizmo a little smaller than a 3-by-5 index card, which fits into a slot on the laptop. The device, called a PC card modem, lets a person tap into the Internet via a cell phone tower. Speeds aren’t as fast as Wi-Fi, but coverage is much better, extending to the open road and the more congested city streets.

Sony Electronics is betting that business users will want more of this extended-range coverage. So last week, Sony’s Vaio computer unit, which has its main U.S. office in San Diego, started shipping a notebook computer with a built-in modem. No, it’s not a PC card. It’s part of the computer’s innards.

All of Sony’s Vaio model T350 notebooks will have the capability to get on a wireless wide area network, or WWAN. It’s up to the customer whether to activate that capability.

Sony wants to sell the notebook for $2,200 , which is somewhat high. Average selling prices of notebooks are in the $1,300-$1,400 range, according to Mike Abary, the general manager of Sony’s Vaio unit.

But the company is betting that a combination of features , the computer’s size, weight, WWAN capability and the productivity this all may bring , will induce buyers to put down some extra money.

Abary said Sony’s target markets include real estate professionals, field salespeople and insurance adjusters.

While Sony manufactures several Vaio models in Rancho Bernardo, this computer is made in Japan. Its intellectual roots are in San Diego, though. Sony’s local product planning group came up with the concept, said spokesman Jon Piazza. Local engineers also worked out the specialized software called “SmartWi,” which lets users toggle between a cell phone-based modem or a Wi-Fi modem. Users select how they’ll connect to the Internet with the computer’s function keys.

Sony is bundling the computer with high-speed Internet service from Cingular Wireless , the only carrier that will work on the computers. Cingular is offering users a 30-day free trial of the service before committing them to any contract.

Abary dismissed the use of PC cards as “unelegant solutions,” citing possible problems with software. All the while, I know there is at least one local maker of PC cards that , I’m sure , would dispute those claims.

Abary also cited research saying that embedded radio modems will surpass the use of PC card modems by 2007. And he said Sony’s competitors will integrate such wireless capability in their computers by the end of this year or early next year.

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Running Commentary:

Your friend is running in a marathon and you’d like to be with him or her , at least in spirit. San Diego-based Wiggle Wireless is offering a way. Its technology takes data when runners pass certain points in a course, then forwards a text message containing that information to the wireless phones of people who have signed up for updates. Messages are free, though they carry advertising.

Wiggle Wireless offered the service at the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, and was planning to use it again for the June 5 Coca-Cola Zero Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego.


Contact Brad Graves via e-mail at bradg@sdbj.com, or call him at (858) 277-6359, Ext. 3115.

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