Europe's largest PC manufacturer, Siemens Nixdorf, yesterday demonstrated its latest computer-based products aimed at the home market. The German computer company said its new products are based on but do not resemble PCs. Principal among them is the so-called PCTV, a television with an in-built computer to provide full Internet access with a digital or analogue television and video phone.

Dr Peter Page, chief technical officer of Siemens Nixdorf, predicted sales of millions of what he called "these killer applications" in the next year. He said the company is targeting the "consumer on the couch", but admitted it has still to identify a sales channel for the PCTV. He was sceptical about selling it through existing television retailers who, he said, did not necessarily understand the computer market.

The new products, which include cash registers, ATMs and mobile PCs, were described by Dr Page as "disguised PCs", since the Windows-based operating systems will be hidden from the users. He said Siemens Nixdorf is to sign a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft on February 6th to use the scaled-down Windows CE operating system in the new computer-based devices.

At its annual international trade conference in Athens yesterday, Siemens Nixdorf admitted that 20 per cent of its "older", pre-1995 products, were not year 2000 (Y2K) compliant, and said only products sold since the beginning of this year are guaranteed compliant.