3 Partnerships Form to Link Wireless, Net
To help speed the day when the Internet can be accessed by mobile phones, three major wireless companies Monday unveiled separate alliances with key players in the computer industry.
The new partnerships are not the first of their kind, but they lend further credibility to a smattering of ongoing projects aimed at bringing e-mail and other data services to wireless phones.
Monday’s announcements bring together heavy hitters in technology and mobile communications, teaming Microsoft Corp. with European phone giant British Telecommunications, phone-maker Motorola Inc. with networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc., and wireless operator Nextel Communications Inc. with Internet software powerhouse Netscape Communications Corp.
The three new ventures were announced Monday at a wireless industry trade show in New Orleans, but analysts cautioned that Internet functions are likely to come to mobile phones in fits and starts over the next few years.
“All the announcements today are really laying the foundation for a wireless data world, and 1999 is probably not the year for it,” said Matt Hoffman, principal wireless analyst at Dataquest, a San Jose research firm. “This stuff is still a ways away, but we will see some incremental steps.”
For years, wireless companies have touted the coming age of mobile data communications, but demand has been slow to develop.
That’s especially true in the U.S., where existing companies could not offer enough speed, and new wireless phone companies had to start from scratch to construct cellular networks. That left companies only dabbling in the data side of the business until demand picked up and networks could provide higher transmission speeds.
In the meantime, Internet use has soared, and customers have begun to realize the potential advantages of sending and receiving data while on the go. Companies have responded by upgrading to digital networks, which are better suited to data services.
With those forces converging, wireless data users could nearly triple to 12 million customers in 2002, according to a conservative forecast from Yankee Group, a Boston-based market research firm.
“This is not going to happen tomorrow, but it is going to happen, and it is going to be important,” said Rob Norcross, a vice president and wireless consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in Lexington, Mass. “There are a whole lot of applications out there that don’t need a whole lot of bandwidth, as long as you stick to words and drawings” instead of complex graphics and multimedia.
As Hoffman and others noted, many companies have already begun offering--or will soon offer--devices and services that allow customers to view and send e-mail and to download financial, weather and other information. Also, a growing number of companies are pushing ahead with wireless gadgets that combine features from mobile phones and hand-held devices such as the Palm Pilot.
Analysts said the new wireless Internet ventures announced Monday are likely to hasten the convergence of phones and computers.
Under its deal with British Telecom, Microsoft said, the two companies will jointly develop wireless Internet and corporate data devices. They plan to begin testing services in Britain in the next few months, with commercial service planned for early next year.
The move will help the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant get a foothold in an industry that could become an important extension of the computer market. The company also recently formed a venture with wireless phone maker Qualcomm Inc. of San Diego.
Motorola’s alliance with Cisco Systems is being described as a development venture, in which the companies will jointly spend up to $1 billion over five years to design new wireless networks that can handle voice, data and video services.
Nextel, a nationwide wireless operator that offers two-way radio functions as well as standard wireless phone service, clinched a deal with Netscape that will allow Nextel to add Internet access to its offerings. Under the agreement, Netscape will develop an Internet site that Nextel customers can access to retrieve stock quotes and other information.
*
Times wire services were used in compiling this report.
*
* ANTITRUST TRIAL: Exec says Bill Gates told Intuit it had to use Microsoft’s browser. C3
