Which Wi-Fi? IBM Offers BothWhich Wi-Fi? IBM Offers Both

IBM last week tried to give businesses a reason to spend more money on computers this year when it introduced its ThinkPad R Series, which features Wireless Fidelity connectivity based on the 802.11a and 802.11b standards. The ThinkPad R40 is not only IBM's first notebook PC to support both standards, it's one of the first notebooks from any vendor to support them simultaneously.

"Wireless is one of the more attractive incentives to upgrade in 2003 because it does a lot of things that are very positive, such as let you wander around and convene meetings spontaneously," says Roger Kay, director of client computing for research firm IDC. For this reason, all the major notebook vendors--Dell Computer, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Toshiba--offer models that are 802.11b compatible. IBM says it will extend this dual 802.11 compatibility to other ThinkPad products by year's end.

While 802.11b is more pervasive now, 802.11a will dominate in corporate environments, thanks to data-transfer speeds of up to 54 Mbps. That means wireless notebooks can be used to transfer large files and download streaming video, tasks that have been more cumbersome with the slower 802.11b. Although some vendors, Sony in particular, have offered 802.11a compatibility since early 2002, it may take awhile before most support both standards simultaneously. "The a/b combo is interesting because it allows you to use some of your existing networks," Kay says. "You're not punished for adopting early."

IBM is launching the R40 ahead of Intel's Centrino bundle of the Pentium M microprocessor, 802.11 wireless networking connectivity, and related chipsets. Centrino's appeal is that it will let PC makers develop wireless laptop technology that's powerful yet good on battery life. Kay says most of IBM's competitors are probably waiting until this summer to unveil new notebooks; Centrino is expected to be widely available by then. IBM is likely to offer a Centrino version of its ThinkPads.

Pricing for the R40 starts at $979 with an Intel Celeron 1.6-GHz processor and $1,499 with a Pentium 4 2.0-GHz processor. It also includes several other features that complement its dual-band 802.11 support. The notebook includes Access Connections 2.5, a location-manager utility that lets the R40 automatically sense a wired or wireless LAN connection and switch between them based on priority or speed. IBM also is shipping R40 notebooks with Cisco Aironet wireless LAN support and IBM's Embedded Security Subsystem for storing authentication credentials.