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By Sally Watson, 3 February 2000 00:30

NEWS Michael Capellas, CEO of Compaq, has ruled out extending the PC giant's build to order sales strategy in the UK and Europe, just weeks after the company bolstered its US operation. At the beginning of January, Compaq acquired build-to-order PC manufacturer, Inacom, for $370m in order to beef-up its direct business model. But at a press conference in London yesterday, Capellas said the market in Europe needs a different approach. Capellas said: "We don't have any plans for the acquisition of distribution capacity in the UK. The market is serviced differently and, because of the way you service local geographies, you don't necessarily see a company that would actually do distribution across the board. "We're gearing up our own capabilities, continuing to work on our own channel partners. There's a different sort of percentage of direct business here [in the UK] and we've got long standing relationships," he added. Martin Brampton, consultancy director at Bloor Research, said he was surprised by the decision. "This is not necessarily going to stand up as a long-term decision. Compaq has its channel strategy constantly under review," he said. "It has always had a problem trying to balance its sales strategy - it wants to keep faith with its partners." Capellas also outlined his vision of the future, adding that Compaq is developing alternative forms of user interface to make computers more attractive to use. "Some of us use a keyboard well, some of us don't, but it is still a very crude way of accessing all this information." The company is developing new technology, he continued, both "on the presentation side of the user interface - being much more interactive - and also through really getting voice activation and voice recognition carried all the way forwards".