At a time of year when business tends to slow to a crawl, Compaq Computer Corp. showed that it's keeping the competitive fires burning as the Houston-based firm Thursday said it had penned IT service and technology deals with defense contractor Raytheon and mobile phone maker Ericsson to the tune of $250 million and $200 million, respectively.

In its new, three-year deal with Lexington, Mass.'s Raytheon Co., Compaq will supply the firm with custom configurations for desktops, notebooks, servers, and workstations, as well as enterprise and business-class storage at 196 sites in the U.S. The deal is an extension to a previous agreement; Compaq has provided standard solutions to Raytheon since 1998.

For the Ericsson pact, an extension of an existing agreement good for the next five years, Compaq will manage Ericsson's existing IT resources and provide additional Compaq Computing on Demand services at a number of Ericsson sites in Sweden. Computing on Demand combines the firm's strengths in technology -- servers, storage, wireless handheld devices, and PCs -- with Compaq Global Services and support capabilities.

Compaq's Executive Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Services Peter Blackmore said the deals are indicative of a strategy outlined by CEO Michael Capellas last June. Compaq isn't going to stop making computers -- it's just going to offer a whole lot more functions that people can perform with them.

"We are gaining tremendous momentum in the marketplace, proving that our strategy to lead with services and provide end-to-end IT solutions is working," Blackmore said. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating -- our enterprise customers are endorsing our strategy by voting with their business.