Taipei, Aug 17: For globe-trotting executives who thought it would free them to work almost anywhere, the laptop computer has turned out to be a mixed blessing.

These machines do fit on one's lap, but those who carry them soon find the word `portable' to be a rather unfunny joke. So now one Hong Kong-based company hopes to free the Asian `road warrior' from his laptop computer.

Laptops are nearer in size to a college dictionary with the heft of a sizeable sack of potatoes. Slung from the shoulder as you buy tickets and queue for a plane, your productivity tool quickly and often painfully makes its presence known.

Nor have they necessarily made life easier in the many parts of the developing world where telecommunication links are non-standard, cumbersome and costly -- particularly in Asia.

Asia's savviest travellers carry home-made wiring rigs and often can be found burrowing beneath the hotel bed, stripping phone wires to hot-wire their modems. But even then, balky long-distance links to the home office or Internet easily can cost hundreds of dollars a day.

``Everyone hates to carry a laptop and all the problems that carrying a laptop creates,'' says Elizabeth Hernandez, one such laptop-lugging road warrior who finally had enough.

Hernandez is one of four partners of I-Quest Corp who founded the Hong Kong startup with a simple goal -- liberating travelling executives from their laptops.

Their solution? To equip hotel rooms with feature-packed, Internet-linked computers running a palette of business, network and information software in a package they call World Room.

World Room allows hotel guests to connect to their own e-mail accounts, surf the world wide web, use the latest versions of the Corel, Lotus and Microsoft business software `suites' and tap the Reuters business briefing database.

The system includes a laser or inkjet printer, copy and fax functions, games and even links to printshops for rush jobs -- all at a flat cost to the guest or hotel of US $20 a day.

``We're trying to be a 24-hour business centre in the hotel room,'' Hernandez said. ``No one likes business centres, the long waits, inconvenient hours, paying for every fax and copy''.

``Imagine working in the privacy of your room, at any hour, with no interruptions. It's a totally different experience''.

It's an experience Asian hotel chains are keen to offer. Just a year old on August 15, I-Quest has put World Room in executive rooms at Manila's Peninsula and Shangri-La and Hong Kong's Hyatt Regency. Installations are planned for top hotels in Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Shanghai and Seoul.

I-Quest president Anthony Blass, in an Internet interview, said the parents of both the Hyatt and Peninsula were in talks with I-Quest about establishing global World Room franchises.

Capitalised at $30 million and focused on Asia, I-Quest is aiming at 170,000 rooms at 2,500 Pacific Rim hotels, he said. Notably, World Room was designed not by hot shot cyber geeks dazzled by their own programming prowess, but by long-suffering journalists and executives who are gambling they are not the only frequent fliers who hate schlepping computers.

``We've all basically bet our life's savings on this,'' Hernandez, I-Quest's marketing chief, said during a recent sales swing through Taipei. ``We believe in the concept.''

Expecting imitators, I-Quest hopes its unusual business model will win a fast foothold in Asia's best business hotels. Much to the hoteliers' delight, I-Quest finances the US$3,000 systems it installs, leaving just the wiring to the hotel. But the hotel must make a strong commitment to promote World Room.

``The key element is marketing. That's the only obligation we ask. The hotel must market this aggressively,'' Hernandez said.

``Hotels like it because it cuts their business centre costs. And they can distinguish themselves with a premium service.'' World Room is itself a marketing tool, featuring conspicuous but unobtrusive promotions for I-Quest's corporate partners.

``We have research showing that people would be willing to spend $30-35 a day for such a package,'' Hernandez said. ``With our advertising model we can keep the cost low at $20.''

Hernandez says World Room is particularly attractive to women, citing market research showing that one in four female executives would leave their laptop at home given the choice. The rate for men was one in seven.

``Of course, we don't think all executives are going to give up their laptops anytime soon, but the more they can rely on another system, the better,'' she said.

``Here's a way to create documents and presentations, use the Internet, your own e-mail, communicate with the home office -- all without the hassle of reconfiguring in each city.

``Some people will leave their laptops at home.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.