X-traWeb turns up the deep-fryer from miles away.

• Author: ANDERSEN, KRISTIN
• Position: Brief Article

Greenwood Village-based X-traWeb has been generating headlines recently for technology that allows consumers to control everything from a dishwasher to their home security system over the Internet.

MAX, X-traWeb's home-management system, had its debut at the November 2000 Comdex. It allows someone to log on to the Internet and do everything from checking on whether he left the iron on at home to setting the VCR to record "Survivor: The Australian Outback."

MAX undoubtedly may one day be a big retail winner for X-traWeb, but for now, the company's focus is different. X-traWeb is targeting businesses.

Specifically, the company sees immediate markets among major suppliers in several industries -- fast-food, vending machines, facilities management, utilities and security. Using X-traWeb systems, for example, a building manager in Denver could monitor environmental controls at a factory in Tokyo. A restaurant owner could turn up the temperature on fryers at locations all over the country. The company has had a test site monitoring environmental controls at a Wendy's in Columbus, Ohio, for almost two years now.

David Singer, president and CEO of X-traWeb's parent company, World Wireless Communications (also of Greenwood Village) said he expected to ink deals with some big industrial customers in the near future.

"It's probably taken a little longer than we originally anticipated but everything new does. ... Nobody's ever done this before."

Locally, X-traWeb has teamed with another company to put some of its...