IT SEEMS inconceivable that in just six weeks Rob Walker, the new chief operating officer for Compaq in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, should have built up such evangelistic zeal for his new employer.

For almost an hour with The Times he enthuses about a fabulous “coalescence” of technological revolution, the awakening of companies to the Internet and, crucially, the creation of a new fired-up executive team at the out-of-favour computing giant.

Since joining Compaq from Xerox on September 1, Walker says he has been drawn into a management culture, led by Michael Capellas, chief executive and now chairman, that is committed to restoring Compaq to its glory days of the 1980s and early 1990s.

“We have built a new management team in the past 18 months that is absolutely committed and focused on the strategy we have outlined, and that probably wasn’t the case 18 months ago,” he says. “What we have in Compaq are people who have a hunger and an entrepreneurial drive that will absolutely make this work.”

On November 1 British consumers will get their first taste of this new Compaq with the UK introduction of the company’s $300 million-a-year global advertising campaign. Launched in San Francisco late last month by Mr Capellas, it uses the tagline “Inspirational Technology” to position Compaq as a customer-focused company that is able to meet a wide range of customer needs in the new economy.

Compaq is also keen to present itself as a provider of all-pervasive Internet access, not just through PCs, but through devices such as palmtop computers, MP3 music players (to be launched next year) and mobile phones.

“The more we can drive demand for these ‘cool products’, the more it will drive the need for our Internet infrastructure products,” Walker says.

Rene Schuster, chief executive of Compaq in the UK and Ireland, and another new recruit, says the campaign will “make people think differently about Compaq”.

He joined Compaq in July, replacing Joe McNally, the founder of Compaq’s UK operations in 1984, who is now UK and Ireland chairman.

Schuster comes to Compaq from KPMG Management Consulting. His appointment is another sign of the nexus between computing and consulting firms as companies seek to offer customers a full range of services, from consultancy to hardware integration.

He says such alliances are becoming more important and more open. He says: “People are no longer sitting on the fence. They are saying ‘We want to work with you’.”

Compaq has undergone a troubled decade, which has cost the jobs of two chief executives. Capellas was made chief executive in July last year following the ousting of Eckhard Pfeiffer, who missed Wall Street targets and alienated one of the company’s biggest assets — its network of computer resellers.

Capellas’s appointment was criticised widely at the time because of his lack of CEO experience. He has won over Wall Street, however, by restructuring the company and returning the corporate-PC business to profits. Last week he was made chairman when Benjamin Rosen, a venture capitalist who funded the creation of Compaq in 1982, stunned investors by stepping down.

Compaq now faces a tough battle as one of many computer hardware companies — think of Hewlett-Packard and IBM — embracing the Internet infrastructure space. But Compaq remains the world’s biggest provider of computing systems (PCs, notebook computer, servers, data storage products, etc) and now generates 20 per cent away from box-shifting in the higher-margin provision of IT services.

Compaq remains the top-seller of corporate PCs in Europe, a title snatched from the company in the US by Dell.

Walker believes Compaq is “ideally positioned” in Europe. He says: “There will be four to five times the growth in Web infrastructure in the next three years compared with the past three years. We can take a leadership role in wireless, and wireless applications, and that will fuel the Web.”

He also knows that if Compaq is to rebuild investor confidence, it needs to exploit all of these factors.

His much-vaunted “coalescence” is taking shape.

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