Compaq Teams With Starbucks

Coffee retailer Starbucks has inked a five-year strategic alliance with Compaq. Under terms of the multimillion dollar agreement, the Houston-based PC vendor and technology company will become the preferred information technology provider for Starbucks’ Seattle-based corporate headquarters and provide Net access to more than 3,000 retail stores nationwide.

While Compaq will provide servers and storage technology to Starbucks, its more visible role will be at the coffeehouses themselves. Compaq laptops and PDAs will be available to provide wireless access to the Internet for customers who don’t bring their own machines to the coffeehouses.

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