NEC Computer Systems Division will begin selling a new laptop computer with Windows 95 but without bundling Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.
"It's all about giving the customer choice, which is what they want anyway," said NEC spokesman D.J. Anderson on Thursday.
The new laptops, the Versa LX and SX notebooks, will include only Windows 95 and applications critical to the functioning of the system, the company said. Netscape Navigator 4.0, Internet Explorer 4.0, and anti-virus software will be provided on a separate CD-ROM.
Under an agreement between the Justice Department and Microsoft reached in January, computer-makers are free to stop bundling Internet Explorer with Windows 95.
NEC is the first company to publicly exercise that option.
However, Microsoft says that companies must bundle its Internet Explorer Web Browser with Windows 98, its newest operating system, which becomes available to consumers next month.
For now that is not an issue for NEC, because it believes that most companies will be slow to adopt to Win98, Anderson said.
A representative for Microsoft said that NEC's unbundling of IE had not removed its Web functionality but merely hidden it. Anderson said that the desktop icon is eliminated, and that is all that most companies care about.
Whatever the case, the Microsoft spokesman said, "NEC is free do to that (remove the icon)" under the agreement with the government.
NEC's new approach, first reported by Computer Reseller News, marks the second time this week that a company has declared some independence from Microsoft.
Gateway said Wednesday that it had negotiated new freedom with the Microsoft so that it could more readily publicize its services as a Web provider.
