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May 7-9, 2002<br />
Santa Clara, CA<br />
WBT speaks<br />
with the<br />
president<br />
<strong>of</strong> AOL<br />
Anywhere<br />
page 18 Lisa Hook<br />
THE DAWN <strong>of</strong><br />
Mobile CRM<br />
An opportunity for operators<br />
page 38<br />
THE CALL <strong>of</strong> Africa<br />
Grows Louder<br />
The most pr<strong>of</strong>itable place on Earth<br />
for <strong>wireless</strong> carriers<br />
page 44<br />
Is Canada North America’s<br />
Wireless Leader?<br />
Wireless e-mail, PKI, and even “E2B”<br />
…Canada’s at the forefront <strong>of</strong> them all<br />
page 46<br />
What has 18 WHEELS<br />
and No Wires?<br />
Rapid changes in the<br />
transportation industry<br />
page 52<br />
DISPLAY UNTIL NOVEMBER 30, 2001<br />
SAVE THE DATE! WIRELESS EDGE MAY 7-9, 2002 page 25<br />
22 42<br />
54<br />
page 26<br />
SEPTEMBER 2001 | VOLUME 1 ISSUE 7<br />
Y O U R U N W I R E D R E S O U R C E W W W . W B T 2 . C O M<br />
54
Kada Systems<br />
www.kada<strong>sys</strong>tems.com<br />
2 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
PointBase<br />
www.wbt3pointbase.com<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
3
iAnywhere<br />
www.ianywhere.com/soar<br />
4 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
iAnywhere<br />
www.ianywhere.com/soar<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
5
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1 | V O L U M E 1 I S S U E 7<br />
NSIDE<br />
FEATURES<br />
The Dawn <strong>of</strong> Mobile CRM<br />
Supporting mobile customers’ use <strong>of</strong> new and advanced products presents an opportunity for operators<br />
by Andrew Martyn<br />
WIRELESS PRIMER<br />
26<br />
Going Wireless<br />
5 points to guide you...<br />
by Kevin Wittmer<br />
WBT<br />
The Call <strong>of</strong> Africa<br />
Grows Louder<br />
The most pr<strong>of</strong>itable place on<br />
Earth for <strong>wireless</strong> carriers is<br />
also one <strong>of</strong> the least expected<br />
by Mark Turner<br />
44<br />
INDUSTRY INSIGHT:<br />
WIRELESS TELECOMS IN AFRICA<br />
EUROWIRELESS<br />
6 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
46<br />
INDUSTRY INSIGHT:<br />
WIRELESS TELECOMS IN CANADA<br />
Is Canada<br />
North America’s<br />
Wireless Leader?<br />
Wireless e-mail, PKI, and<br />
even “E2B”...Canada’s at the<br />
forefront <strong>of</strong> them all<br />
by Marta Sandén<br />
60<br />
A Shot in the<br />
Arm for WAP<br />
by Tom Hume<br />
Multi-Access Portals<br />
by Alistair Harvey<br />
38<br />
WIRELESS CRM<br />
What Has<br />
18 Wheels and<br />
No Wires?<br />
Wireless technology is rapidly<br />
changing the transportation industry<br />
by Max Stevens-Guille<br />
W-TRANSPORTATION<br />
52
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
Compaq<br />
www.compaq.com/mobile<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
7
INSIDEWBT<br />
DEPARTMENTS<br />
WAP UPDATE<br />
UMTS and Common Sense<br />
Let the buyer beware<br />
by Hans-Henrik T. Ohlsen<br />
M-COMMERCE: M-CAMPAIGN WATCH<br />
22<br />
Can Wireless Ads Work in the B2B Space?<br />
PDAs improve the potential<br />
24<br />
by David Cotriss<br />
WIRELESS E-MAIL<br />
Bye Bye POP3, Hello IMAP!<br />
by Kevin Clark<br />
W-OPINION<br />
Light Years Ahead<br />
GSM phones in Europe<br />
by Peter Zadrozny<br />
WIRELESS VC<br />
It’s All Fun and Games (and Data Mining)<br />
at JAMDAT Mobile<br />
Multiplayer games developer attracts heavy hitters<br />
by Tim Bresien<br />
WIRELESS SECURITY<br />
Playing the Smart Card<br />
Unprecedented security from both physical and logical attack<br />
by Bill Ray<br />
WIRELESS IN ACTION<br />
Mobilizing the Insurance Industry<br />
Transforming a technology laggard<br />
by Kevin Rachel<br />
WIRELESS FUTURES<br />
From Mobile Computing<br />
to Holistic Computing<br />
Smart mobile devices as life-management <strong>sys</strong>tems?<br />
by Frank Zammataro<br />
MOBILE INTERNET<br />
The Wireless Internet Industry:<br />
Serving the Information Superhighway<br />
Fast download times are key<br />
by Moshe Sheps<br />
DATELINE JAPAN<br />
Getting Ahead <strong>of</strong> the 3G Pack<br />
by Michiyo Nakamoto<br />
36<br />
42<br />
48<br />
56<br />
62<br />
66<br />
72<br />
74<br />
BOOK REVIEW<br />
Beyond Words and Wires...<br />
Recovery Begins 14<br />
Editorial by Robert Diamond<br />
Stop Selling Mobile and Wireless<br />
Technology...and start selling business benefits 16<br />
Guest Editorial by Russell M. Glass<br />
Off the Wires<br />
Keeping ahead <strong>of</strong> the W-Curve<br />
8 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
23<br />
PLUS<br />
AN OTW NEWS SPECIAL<br />
Why Are<br />
AOL Mobile<br />
Communicator<br />
Sales Stagnant?<br />
by David Geer<br />
FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY<br />
Beginning<br />
WAP, WML,<br />
and WMLScript<br />
reviewed by Hans-Henrik T. Ohlsen<br />
18<br />
Why Are<br />
AOL Mobile<br />
Communicator<br />
Sales Stagnant?<br />
by David Geer<br />
PRODUCT REVIEW<br />
70<br />
Lisa Hook,<br />
president <strong>of</strong><br />
AOL Anywhere<br />
Mobile E-Mail<br />
Access and More<br />
with Gopher King<br />
reviewed by Jim Milbery<br />
20
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
Apriva<br />
www.apriva.com/x57<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
9
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jeremy Geelan jeremy@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Robert Diamond robert@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
I N T E R N A T I O N A L A D V I S O R Y B O A R D<br />
Ron Dennis, C<strong>of</strong>ounder, Livemind, Inc. (CA) • Andrea H<strong>of</strong>fman, Editor-in-Chief, Mobile Media Japan (Tokyo) • Douglas Lamont, Visiting Pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> Marketing,<br />
DePaul University (IL) • James Ogilvy, Director and VP, Global Business Network (CA) • Anita Osterhaug, Director <strong>of</strong> Knowledge Products, Brokat Technologies (CA)<br />
Keyur Patel, Chief Strategy Officer, Brience, Inc. (CA) • James Pearce, UK Director, AnywhereYouGo.com (London) • Ian Pearson, Futurologist, C2G (Bartlesham, UK)<br />
Simon Phipps, Chief S<strong>of</strong>tware Evangelist, Sun Micro<strong>sys</strong>tems, Inc. (CA) • Bob Pinna, CEO, Mobilize, Inc. (CA) • Bruce Scott, President & CEO,<br />
PointBase, Inc. (CA) • Roger Strukh<strong>of</strong>f, President, <strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> Custom Media (CA) • Alan Williamson, CTO, n-ary (<strong>con</strong>sultancy) Ltd (Scotland)<br />
T E C H N I C A L A D V I S O R Y B O A R D<br />
Joshua Allen, Senior Developer, Ulex, Inc., and Micros<strong>of</strong>t Corporation • Carl Braga, NWSS User Interface and Game Design, Nokia • Jacob Christfort, Chief Technical<br />
Officer & VP, Product Development, OracleMobile, Inc. • Ben Forta, ColdFusion Evangelist, Macromedia, Inc. • Scott Geddes, Vice President <strong>of</strong> Mobile Commerce,<br />
Brokat Technologies • James Gosling, VP & Fellow, Sun Micro<strong>sys</strong>tems, Inc. • Rajiv Gupta, General Manager, E-Speak Solutions & Chief Architect for E-Services,<br />
Hewlett Packard Company • Larry Mittag, VP & Chief Technologist, Stellcom, Inc. • Peter Roxburgh, Mobile Solutions Developer, SecureTrading Ltd.<br />
M-COMMERCE Paul Eijkemans (Netherlands) peijkemans@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
SECURITY Bill Ray (England) bray@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
WAP Hans-Henrik T. Ohlsen (Denmark) hohlsen@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com WIRELESS JAVA Alan Williamson (Scotland) awilliamson@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
DESIGN Jake McKee (New York) jmckee@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
M-MARKETING David Cotriss (CA) dcotriss@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
WML Wei Meng Lee (Singapore) wlee@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
COLDFUSION Ben Forta (MI) bforta@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
APPLICATIONS Jim Milbery (Pennsylvania) jmilbery@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
GENERATION Y Jeremy Hill (Los Angeles) jhill@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
USABILITY Luca Passani (Denmark) lpassani@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
PRIVACY Pascal Stolz (CA) pstolz@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
EUROWIRELESS Tom Dibble (London) tdibble@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com ENTERTAINMENT/GAMING Dean Terry (San Francisco) dterry@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
<strong>CON</strong>VERGENCE Tom Hauff (Florida) thauff@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
E-DUCATION Anne Jenkins (Durham, UK) ajenkins@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
I-MODE Ori Neibach (San Francisco) oneibach@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
NEWS Margarita Strange (US) mstrange@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
BLUETOOTH Chatschik Bisdikian (New York) cbisdikian@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com TELEMATICS Douglas Lamont (IL) dlamont@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
WIRELESS LAN Ben Spero (CA) bspero@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
STOCKWATCH The Stockwatcher (San Francisco) stockwatcher@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
SHORT MESSAGING Dan Lubar (CO) dlubar@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
PRODUCT REVIEW George Spelvin (New York) gspelvin@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
A D V E R T I S I N G<br />
SR. VICE PRESIDENT MARKETING Carmen Gonzalez carmen@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
VICE PRESIDENT MARKETING Miles Silverman miles@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
EAST COAST SALES REPRESENTATIVE Gary Rhodes gary@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Robyn Forma robyn@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ADVERTISING MANAGER Megan Ring megan@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
REPRINT SALES COORDINATOR Carrie L. Gebert carrieg@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ADVERTISING ASSISTANT Alisa Catalano alisa@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
P R O D U C T I O N<br />
VICE PRESIDENT PRODUCTION Jim Morgan jim@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR Louis F. Cuffari louis@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR A. Venkataraman aarathi@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Cathy Burak cathyb@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Richard Silverberg richards@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
<strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> TV James M. Bartolozzi james@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
C I R C U L A T I O N<br />
VP CIRCULATION Agnes Vanek<br />
CIRCULATION MANAGER Cherie Johnson<br />
NEWSSTAND <strong>CON</strong>SULTANT Brian Gregory<br />
JDJ STORE MANAGER Anthony D. Spitzer<br />
D E P A R T M E N T E D I T O R S<br />
ART DIRECTOR Alex Botero alex@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
PRESIDENT & CEO Fuat A. Kircaali fuat@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
A C C O U N T I N G<br />
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Bruce Kanner<br />
ASSISTANT COMPTROLLER Judith Calnan<br />
CREDIT MANAGER Jan Braidech<br />
ACCOUNTS PAYABLE Joan LaRose<br />
EXECUTIVE MANAGING EDITOR<br />
E D I T O R I A L<br />
Jamie Matusow jamie@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
EXECUTIVE EDITOR M’lou Pinkham mpinkham@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
EDITOR Nancy Valentine nancy@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
MANAGING EDITOR Cheryl Van Sise cheryl@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Gail Schultz gail@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Brenda Greene brenda@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
ASSISTANT EDITOR Lin Goetz lin@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
EDITORIAL INTERN Niki Panagopoulos niki@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
W W W . W B T 2 . C O M<br />
WEB MASTER Bahadir Karuv webmaster@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
WEB DESIGNER Stephen Kilmurray stephen@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
WEB DESIGNER Purva Dave purva@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
WEB DESIGNER Carol Auslander carol@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
<strong>CON</strong>TENT EDITOR Engin Sezici engin@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
S Y S - C O N E V E N T S<br />
VP EVENTS Cathy Walters<br />
VP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Grisha Davida<br />
SALES EXECUTIVE Michael Pesick<br />
SALES EXECUTIVE Richard Anderson<br />
SUBSCRIPTIONS: For subscriptions and requests for bulk orders, please send your letters to Subscription Department Subscription Hotline: 800 513-7111 Cover Price: $5.99/issue: Domestic: $39.88/yr. (12 issues) Canada/Mexico: $69.99/yr. Overseas: $89.99/yr. includes<br />
airmail delivery (U.S. Banks or Money Orders). Back Issues: $10 U.S. - $15 all other countries each. OFFICES: <strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> Media, 135 Chestnut Ridge Road, Montvale, NJ 07645 Telephone: 201 802-3000. Fax: 201 782-9600. Subscribe@<strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong>.com WIRELESS BUSINESS &<br />
TECHNOLOGY is published monthly (12 times a year) for $39.88 by <strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> Media. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: WIRELESS BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY, <strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> Media, 135 Chestnut Ridge Road, Montvale, NJ 07645. ©COPYRIGHT: © 2001 by <strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong><br />
Media, All rights reserved. No part <strong>of</strong> this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy or any information storage and retrieval <strong>sys</strong>tem, without written permission. For promotional reprints, <strong>con</strong>tact reprint coordinator. <strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> Media<br />
reserves the right to revise, republish and authorize its readers to use the articles submitted for publication. WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION: Curtis Circulation Company, 730 River Road, New Milford NJ 07646-3048. ISSN #1533-6735<br />
SUN, SUN MICRO<strong>SYS</strong>TEMS, J2ME, J2SE, AND JAVA ARE TRADEMARKS OR REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF SUN MICRO<strong>SYS</strong>TEMS, INC., IN THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER COUNTRIES. BLUETOOTH IS A TRADEMARK OWNED BY TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON, SWEDEN.<br />
ALL OTHER TRADEMARKS MENTIONED ARE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.<br />
10 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
S<strong>of</strong>twired<br />
www.s<strong>of</strong>twired-inc.com<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
11
LETTERS READER FEEDBACK<br />
The Neglected Battle<br />
[“Betamax Wars Revisited,” v.1 n.3]<br />
In the article entitled “Betamax Wars<br />
Revisited,” I noticed a glaring omission by the<br />
author, C.J. Kennedy, in his analysis <strong>of</strong> the PDA<br />
Wars. One <strong>of</strong> the most important issues in the<br />
“battle” was entirely neglected: Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s sudden<br />
inclusion in<br />
May 2000 <strong>of</strong><br />
PocketWord and<br />
PocketExcel on<br />
PDAs built upon<br />
their Pocket PC<br />
platform gave that<br />
class <strong>of</strong> handhelds<br />
the true realization <strong>of</strong> Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s claims to be<br />
“more <strong>of</strong> a desktop PC in your hand” than a<br />
Personal Information Manager (PIM). This<br />
marked a turning point for the category <strong>of</strong><br />
devices in the public mind, particularly as it<br />
related to marketing positioning. This is precisely<br />
the reason why Palm and HandEra, Inc. (formerly<br />
TRG Products, Inc.), moved to bundle<br />
Word/Excel suites with their new Palm-powered<br />
devices, the Palm m500 and m505, and<br />
HandEra 330. To go to press missing this entire<br />
“battle” in such an article was a shame.<br />
Naturally, having created the very first full<br />
spreadsheet for the Palm platform back in 1996,<br />
Cutting Edge S<strong>of</strong>tware’s vision has always been<br />
that “handheld computing” needed to be robust<br />
enough to extend the desktop into the taxi and<br />
bus, and onto the sidewalk and factory floor.<br />
Though Palm Computing was very skeptical<br />
<strong>of</strong> our Quicksheet spreadsheet during the<br />
company’s early days <strong>of</strong> touting its<br />
“Connected Organizer” in 1997–1998 – even<br />
while Quicksheet was steadily moving to<br />
become the top download at PalmGear.com<br />
during that same period – they seem to have<br />
changed course in past months as competitive<br />
pressures heated up. The company’s flip-flop<br />
on the issue <strong>of</strong> business productivity file<br />
access in its latest products is entirely a reaction<br />
to Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s Pocket PC decisions. You<br />
can be assured that we will see far more<br />
actions in the Palm platform camp geared<br />
directly toward Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s PocketWord and<br />
PocketExcel capabilities in the future.<br />
Interestingly, some “basic” functionalities<br />
are still only available on the Palm platform<br />
– our own Quickchart add-in module<br />
to Quicksheet being one example, giving<br />
users the ability to create charts and graphs<br />
directly on the device.<br />
The business tools category for handhelds is a<br />
fragmented arena at present, <strong>con</strong>sisting <strong>of</strong> both<br />
small and large players throwing numerous solutions<br />
at the wall in a search for practical user-centered<br />
answers. But to the extent that such development<br />
activity is vigorous and increasingly relevant<br />
to the category, the lack <strong>of</strong> coverage <strong>of</strong> this<br />
“battle zone” was regrettable. Nonetheless, keep<br />
up the fantastic job you do covering the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
business and technology market. Your publication<br />
is a welcome addition to our monthly reading!<br />
—Michael Compeau<br />
VP <strong>of</strong> business development and planning<br />
Cutting Edge S<strong>of</strong>tware, Inc. mikec@cesinc.com<br />
Looking for Wireless Contact<br />
[“The Confusion Solution,” v. 1 n.5]<br />
I recently read your article “The Confusion<br />
Solution” in the July issue <strong>of</strong> Wireless Business<br />
& Technology magazine, and I find that its thesis<br />
<strong>of</strong> extending the business internally to knowledge<br />
workers is dead center on target. I am very<br />
interested in Michael Maas’s initial response to<br />
your question about the five biggest vertical<br />
industries in which IBM is already involved,<br />
working in the telecommunications industry<br />
myself. Moreover, the example application on<br />
which you reported Bell Canada as utilizing “in<br />
its laboratory there, 20 engineers... each<br />
equipped with a wearable IBM computer, a fully<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> device capable <strong>of</strong> <strong>con</strong>necting the user<br />
to the Internet, and <strong>of</strong> providing a <strong>wireless</strong> voice<br />
<strong>con</strong>nection” as a <strong>con</strong>nected but handsfree paradigm<br />
is intriguing. It would appear from the<br />
photos that those involved in this utilization are<br />
testing the device for use by field technicians in<br />
pursuit <strong>of</strong> their daily work tasks.<br />
I support hundreds <strong>of</strong> technicians that<br />
could have an overwhelming use for such a<br />
device, and just previous to reading your article,<br />
have been searching for a hardened,<br />
<strong>wireless</strong>ly <strong>con</strong>nected laptop device for the<br />
many and various applications that we could<br />
provide directly to these technicians while in<br />
the <strong>con</strong>struction work environments.<br />
Can you give me a lead <strong>con</strong>tact name<br />
and phone number and/or e-mail address in<br />
Bell Canada and IBM for the project quoted<br />
above? I would like to inquire<br />
further on the proposed uses.<br />
—Lynn K. Berkenbosch<br />
lb8774@sbc.com<br />
Editor’s response: You can<br />
find out more by sending an<br />
e-mail to askibm@ca.com<br />
InPhonic Has Come a<br />
Long Way Since Being<br />
WBT’s Cover Story in May<br />
[“When 2 Heads Are Better than 1,” v.1 n.3]<br />
Just thought you might be<br />
interested in the following<br />
info – if you recall, you interviewed<br />
David Steinberg and<br />
John Sculley several months<br />
ago for Wireless Business &<br />
Technology’s May cover story.<br />
Here’s an FYI, to let you know<br />
how InPhonic has been faring<br />
since then. [Editor’s note: The following is<br />
from a recent InPhonic press release:]<br />
InPhonic, the leading solutions provider in<br />
the development and management <strong>of</strong> virtual<br />
private <strong>wireless</strong> networks and branded, customized<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> communities... announced<br />
that according to Media Metrix statistics gathered<br />
in July 2001, InPhonic received more<br />
than 1.2 million unique visitors, ranking the<br />
company as the fourth most visited businessto-business<br />
site, past and present. Among the<br />
top companies listed by Media Metrix were<br />
such notables as Micros<strong>of</strong>t bCentral, Xerox,<br />
and Real Networks. In addition, the company<br />
registered nearly 100% growth over the past<br />
four months, ranking InPhonic as one <strong>of</strong> the<br />
leading traffic gainers, according to the<br />
Internet research firm. InPhonic has quickly<br />
moved from the eighth most visited businessto-business<br />
Web site to the fourth most visited<br />
in the past four months.<br />
—Julie Joung, The MWW Group<br />
jjong@mww.com<br />
CORRECTION...<br />
[WBT v.1 n.6]<br />
In the article “Good News<br />
for Wireless Entrepreneurs,”<br />
the photo on page 44 is<br />
incorrect. It shows Raj<br />
Parekh, a general partner <strong>of</strong> Redwood Venture<br />
Partners and CTO <strong>of</strong> Comstellar Technologies.<br />
The correct photo <strong>of</strong> Kanwal Rekhi (pictured<br />
here) appears on our Web site www.wbt2.com.<br />
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13
In the aftermath <strong>of</strong> the horrific events <strong>of</strong> September 11,<br />
2001, the entire nation came together to mourn the loss <strong>of</strong><br />
those who died and suffered, and to plan a way to recover<br />
as a society as best we could.<br />
No words that I could<br />
write here would be<br />
adequate to <strong>con</strong>vey how<br />
awful the atrocities were to witness<br />
or even to watch unfold on<br />
TV. Nor can mere words ever do<br />
justice to the extraordinary<br />
scenes <strong>of</strong> overwhelming human<br />
bravery and the endurance <strong>of</strong><br />
the human spirit.<br />
Along with amazing individuals<br />
like New York City area volunteers<br />
who, as you read this, will undoubtedly<br />
still be sifting through the ruins, and ordinary<br />
people who sat at home – like the<br />
160,000-plus people who donated over<br />
$6.5-million dollars to the Red Cross<br />
through Amazon.com – many industries<br />
came together to pitch in and do their<br />
parts as well.<br />
Restaurants in the area worked night<br />
and day to provide food for the rescue<br />
workers, all the TV networks put aside<br />
their ratings war to air a telethon to raise<br />
money, and companies large and small donated what they could to<br />
help out. Throughout this whole process, the <strong>wireless</strong> industry<br />
wasn’t left out: on the <strong>con</strong>trary, it came together and played a large<br />
part in both the relief and the recovery efforts.<br />
Many <strong>of</strong> the <strong>wireless</strong> news reports following the incident discussed<br />
how the <strong>wireless</strong> networks, by then missing several transmitters<br />
that had been located on the World Trade Center ro<strong>of</strong>s,<br />
were buckling under the huge volume <strong>of</strong> calls being made – calls<br />
between loved ones to assure each other that they were okay. In<br />
record time, however, additional cells were installed, and the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
networks were back up and running.<br />
EDITORIAL<br />
by Robert Diamond<br />
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF<br />
Beyond Words<br />
and Wires…<br />
Recovery Begins<br />
Robert Diamond is editor-in-chief <strong>of</strong> Wireless Business & Technology as well as <strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> Media’s ColdFusion Developer’s Journal.<br />
Named one <strong>of</strong> the “Top thirty magazine industry executives <strong>of</strong> the year under the age <strong>of</strong> 30” in Folio magazine’s November 2000 issue,<br />
Robert recently graduated from the School <strong>of</strong> Information Studies at Syracuse University.<br />
That’s just the tip <strong>of</strong> the iceberg, however, <strong>of</strong> how <strong>wireless</strong><br />
vendors were able to pitch in.<br />
A coalition <strong>of</strong> companies that normally compete with<br />
each other and worry day and night about pr<strong>of</strong>its and<br />
ROI, joined forces to try to find possible survivors in the<br />
rubble <strong>of</strong> the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Working<br />
with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management<br />
Administration) was the newly<br />
formed Wireless Emergency<br />
Response Team. Companies<br />
such as AT&T Wireless Services<br />
Inc., Verizon Wireless, Nextel<br />
Communications, VoiceStream<br />
Wireless, Motorola Inc.,<br />
Ericsson, Nortel Networks<br />
Corp., SkyTel, Telcordia<br />
Technologies, Cingular Wireless,<br />
and others joined forces in a<br />
common goal.<br />
Families and friends <strong>of</strong> suspected victims<br />
<strong>of</strong> the disaster were encouraged to<br />
call a tollfree number and provide mobilephone<br />
and pager numbers <strong>of</strong> those missing<br />
in an effort to activate the devices and,<br />
hopefully, locate survivors. Kudos to those<br />
in the <strong>wireless</strong> industry for trying their<br />
best, and for sending out their best engineers<br />
using the latest in GPS and related<br />
technology to help.<br />
In the days following the tragedy,<br />
mobile phone vendors sold a month’s<br />
worth <strong>of</strong> phones in under a week, reflecting<br />
a growing adoption <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> technology as a way <strong>of</strong> staying<br />
<strong>con</strong>nected with loved ones and friends. With that comes a growing<br />
responsibility for the industry as a whole to serve their customers<br />
– a responsibility that I believe they’re capable <strong>of</strong> handling.<br />
All in all, it’s been an unbelievably rough time, and as the USA<br />
and the wider world attempt to heal, the <strong>wireless</strong> industry will be<br />
there to help every step <strong>of</strong> the way. At WBT we’d like to hear what<br />
you think, including your thoughts on what the <strong>wireless</strong> industry<br />
can do in the future to help prevent and deal with emergencies as<br />
they happen.<br />
robert@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
@<br />
14 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
S<strong>of</strong>twired<br />
www.s<strong>of</strong>twired-inc.com<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
15
There is simply no such thing, says Russell Glass, as a<br />
“mobile and <strong>wireless</strong> problem.” There are only business<br />
problems – to which <strong>wireless</strong> apps may indeed be a<br />
powerful and effective solution.<br />
IF YET ANOTHER SALES REP WALKS INTO YOUR<br />
<strong>of</strong>fice and says, “I have the answer to your mobile and <strong>wireless</strong><br />
problem,” you should take three courses <strong>of</strong> action. First, aim<br />
squarely and throw the massive stack <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> marketing materials<br />
that have been accumulating<br />
on your desk. Then, pitch a<br />
heavy book or stapler to really<br />
emphasize the point. Finally,<br />
swiftly kick the salesperson out<br />
<strong>of</strong> your <strong>of</strong>fice.<br />
The simple fact is that you<br />
don’t have a mobile and <strong>wireless</strong><br />
problem. You never have and you never will.<br />
The <strong>wireless</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware space, however, is riddled<br />
with vendors and their sales reps trying<br />
to <strong>con</strong>vince businesses that this is their primary<br />
problem and that their competition will<br />
destroy them if they don’t act quickly.<br />
Nonsense. The competition doesn’t have a<br />
mobile <strong>wireless</strong> problem either, and spending<br />
money trying to solve it is – quite simply –<br />
money wasted.<br />
What these businesses do have, like every<br />
business, are real business problems that can<br />
be solved through some <strong>of</strong> the benefits that<br />
mobile and <strong>wireless</strong> technologies can deliver.<br />
How to Save $3.6 Million a Year<br />
For example, I recently spent time with an executive who has an<br />
interesting and expensive distribution problem. He is trying to<br />
manage the delivery <strong>of</strong> food to thousands <strong>of</strong> restaurants per day.<br />
Every day, a number <strong>of</strong> customers are past due on their accounts,<br />
forcing food shipments to be held so his company does not risk<br />
further losses from delinquent payments. Withholding shipments<br />
as a form <strong>of</strong> protection for the distributor, however, <strong>of</strong>ten causes<br />
loss in other ways. As an example, food shipments that are withheld<br />
on the docks too long will spoil, forcing the distributor to<br />
incur <strong>con</strong>siderable additional costs.<br />
The current solution to this problem involves a chain <strong>of</strong> events<br />
that begin with a notification to an accounts-receivable representative.<br />
The accounting s<strong>of</strong>tware alerts the representative that there is<br />
a delinquency and a subsequent shipment hold. The notification is<br />
passed to a call center that identifies and <strong>con</strong>tacts the field-sales<br />
representative who owns the account. The sales representative<br />
<strong>con</strong>tacts the account to rectify the situation by requesting a pur-<br />
GUEST EDITORIAL<br />
by Russell M. Glass<br />
Stop Selling Mobile and<br />
Wireless Technology…<br />
…and start selling business benefits<br />
Russell Glass is VP <strong>of</strong> strategy at AGEA Corporation.<br />
chase-order number to release the goods for shipment.<br />
Upon receipt <strong>of</strong> the purchase-order number, the sales<br />
representative sends the number to the call center. The<br />
call center relays the purchase-order number to the<br />
accounts-receivable department, and the shipment is<br />
released. This extensive information-exchange process <strong>of</strong><br />
phone calls, messages, returned calls, and research generally<br />
entails four to 16 hours <strong>of</strong> work, costing an average<br />
<strong>of</strong> $7.3 million per year.<br />
Note that this company does not have a mobile and <strong>wireless</strong><br />
problem – it has a problem that can be solved by an application<br />
incorporating mobile and <strong>wireless</strong> technologies. This is the critical<br />
distinction that <strong>wireless</strong> vendors<br />
do not recognize, and this lack <strong>of</strong><br />
recognition will kill them. Look<br />
no further than the advertisements<br />
in many business and<br />
technical <strong>magazines</strong> to see that<br />
by and large, these vendors do<br />
not know how to solve business<br />
pain. Instead they push technology attributes<br />
such as “always on,” “XML-based,” and “JMS<br />
messaging” that are irrelevant to most s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
purchasers and users. Consider, for instance,<br />
whether users really care about the type <strong>of</strong><br />
hard drive in their PCs, or care only that the<br />
hard drive actually stores what they request.<br />
Vendors Are Solving “Problems”<br />
That Don’t Exist<br />
This technology-centric approach has<br />
caused <strong>con</strong>fusion about the necessity and<br />
value <strong>of</strong> mobile and <strong>wireless</strong> technologies. As<br />
a result, business decision makers have<br />
become exceptionally wary <strong>of</strong> adopting these technologies to solve<br />
their real business pains. More significant, the mounting <strong>con</strong>fusion<br />
has created a misperception that mobile and <strong>wireless</strong> technologies<br />
are not feasible. This inaccurate notion has largely been spread by<br />
businesses with little understanding <strong>of</strong> how <strong>wireless</strong> technologies<br />
can be effectively used. How could they understand? These companies<br />
have been pitched again and again by vendors trying to solve a<br />
mobile and <strong>wireless</strong> problem that they do not have.<br />
The example cited above is a typical and painful business problem<br />
solved by strong s<strong>of</strong>tware that leverages the benefits <strong>of</strong> mobile<br />
and <strong>wireless</strong> technologies. The solution requires a thorough and<br />
detailed understanding <strong>of</strong> enterprise <strong>sys</strong>tems, <strong>wireless</strong> networks,<br />
and mobile devices – but it’s simply installed and used.<br />
Remove Latency from Business Processes<br />
In the food distributor scenario, with the engagement <strong>of</strong> extended<br />
technologies, the notification received by accounts payable<br />
—<strong>con</strong>tinued on page 23<br />
rglass@agea.com @<br />
16 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
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Horizon USA<br />
www.horizonusa.net/<br />
retailmarketing<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
17
AN OTW NEWS SPECIAL<br />
OFF THE WIRES >>>><br />
Why Are AOL Mobile<br />
Communicator<br />
Sales Stagnant?<br />
Is AOL Anywhere’s president missing the point?<br />
by David Geer<br />
WBT SPECIAL INDUSTRY CORRESPONDENT<br />
AOL’s Mobile Communicator is simply not selling.<br />
Demand for mobile communications from its subscribers<br />
was estimated to be in the millions, yet somehow sales <strong>of</strong><br />
the Mobile Communicator haven’t matched those estimates.<br />
What’s the most likely explanation? AOL perhaps answered<br />
that question in mid-August by dramatically lowering the<br />
per unit price by over $200, while raising the monthly fee,<br />
updating the s<strong>of</strong>tware, and adding features. But why did the<br />
majority <strong>of</strong> AOL members “just say no”?<br />
Wireless Business & Technology spoke first with Lisa Hook,<br />
president <strong>of</strong> AOL Anywhere. Asked about a recent and widely<br />
disseminated electronic interview in which Jim Balsillie (co-<br />
CEO <strong>of</strong> RIM, the maker <strong>of</strong> the Communicator hardware sold to<br />
AOL) was quizzed about the disappointing sales <strong>of</strong> AOL’s version<br />
<strong>of</strong> the BlackBerry, Hook quickly set the record straight.<br />
“First, I’d like to clarify that the AOL Mobile<br />
Communicator is not a version <strong>of</strong> the BlackBerry,” she<br />
explained. “It’s an extremely different product and <strong>of</strong>fers email,<br />
AOL e-mail, and<br />
AOL instant messaging<br />
to AOL members. So<br />
the BlackBerry product<br />
has different feature<br />
sets, different functionalities<br />
and, as I understand,<br />
is <strong>of</strong>fered to a different<br />
market <strong>of</strong> users.”<br />
“With respect to the<br />
product that we’ve built<br />
using the RIM hardware<br />
and AOL s<strong>of</strong>tware,” Hook<br />
Lisa Hook,<br />
<strong>con</strong>tinued, “we’re<br />
president <strong>of</strong><br />
extremely pleased with<br />
AOL Anywhere<br />
the product. The folks who<br />
were the early adopters <strong>of</strong> the product love it.”<br />
Huh?<br />
Poor Pricing and Marketing Strategy?<br />
Industry analysts incline to the view that any sales slump<br />
might be due to AOL’s approach to marketing and to the inaccuracy<br />
<strong>of</strong> their original revenue model. While enterprises can<br />
maybe afford to buy a $329.95 BlackBerry, <strong>con</strong>sumers are used<br />
to getting their <strong>wireless</strong> devices (i.e., cell phones) for free and<br />
then paying for the service.<br />
Asked whether in his view this was indeed what most people<br />
want, Tim Gower, coauthor <strong>of</strong> the Datamonitor report, U.S. Mobile<br />
18 www.WBT2.com<br />
Devices to 2006, agreed that this seemed to be what AOL<br />
was now attempting to <strong>of</strong>fer its subscribers.<br />
“Handset subsidization is a fairly common approach<br />
among operators,” Gower explained, “and this is a tactic that<br />
AOL now appears to be adopting. I know in the UK, most<br />
GSM mobile packages involve a fixed monthly tariff (and a 12month<br />
<strong>con</strong>tract). Operators actually market the device as “free”<br />
in the deal. This is less common in the U.S., but handsets are<br />
still heavily subsidized.”<br />
Yet the AOL Mobile Communicator still isn’t free. As David<br />
Cassel, <strong>of</strong> AOL Watch Newsletter, puts it, “How many people<br />
really need a $300 dedicated device for receiving AOL Instant<br />
Messages and e-mail? Or even a $100 device? Right now, there<br />
just isn’t an audience for the AOL Mobile Communicator.”<br />
“The market right now,” he explained, using the established<br />
demographic category for pr<strong>of</strong>essional <strong>con</strong>sumers, “is still mostly<br />
prosumers. And they’re savvy enough to want something more versatile.<br />
As an owner <strong>of</strong> an AOL Mobile Communicator, switching<br />
services would cost you $329.95 (or $99.95 for new purchasers)<br />
because you can’t take the device to another service when you go.<br />
That doesn’t sound very versatile, or flexible.”<br />
AOL Anywhere’s President Is Missing the Point<br />
So was the sudden price cut a forced correction? Asked whether<br />
this drop was anticipated from the get-go, Hook insisted to WBT that<br />
it was.<br />
“It was foreseen like any other <strong>con</strong>sumer electronics device,” she<br />
asserted. “[It] enters the market at a higher price; one captures early<br />
adopters and business users, and then brings the price down. Just<br />
remember the introduction <strong>of</strong> VCRs at $1,000, now at $150, and digital<br />
cameras now selling for $100. This is a pretty classic <strong>con</strong>sumer<br />
electronics pricing strategy that we’re following.”<br />
But the president <strong>of</strong> AOL Anywhere is missing the point. “Classic”<br />
is out; free is in.<br />
Ultimately, the question is whether AOL should have undertaken this<br />
rollout at all. Asked if AOL could realistically make a pr<strong>of</strong>it from<br />
Communicator devices by selling them at around $100 each, or whether<br />
on the <strong>con</strong>trary they would lose money on it, David Cassel was<br />
unequivocal. “It seems likely,” he stated plainly [that they’ll lose money].<br />
Datamonitor’s Gower agrees that it will be very difficult, at<br />
$99.95, for AOL to make a pr<strong>of</strong>it on the devices themselves. “They<br />
obviously tried to [pr<strong>of</strong>it from the devices] originally,” he said. “I<br />
would think that the margin there is pretty tight [now]; they’ll be<br />
making the money on the service. I think that’s the approach they’ve<br />
taken.”<br />
Commenting further on the Communicator’s original price <strong>of</strong><br />
$329.99 when it was first introduced in November 2000, Gower<br />
expanded: “Our initial reaction to that was pretty much along the<br />
same lines as RIM’s CEO. We think that’s a little overpriced.<br />
Especially if you think about some <strong>of</strong> the segments they’re interested<br />
in with <strong>wireless</strong> e-mail. Students and teenagers in particular<br />
are the types <strong>of</strong> groups that would be interested in this service.”<br />
If asked to choose between a BlackBerry and a Web-enabled<br />
cell phone, which would people prefer? Would they maybe<br />
want both?<br />
“I think in my personal view, in the enterprise space, ideally<br />
people prefer one device,” said Gower. Then, with particular<br />
reference to RIM, he added: “However, at the moment, in<br />
the U.S. market, you have issues with the phone as a device<br />
for receiving text communications and e-mail, and they’re<br />
proving to be very popular.”<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
David Geer, a journalist and computer technician, graduated from Lake Erie College in 1993 with a BA in<br />
psychology. He has worked in the computer industry and in the media since 1998. d@geercom.com.<br />
Lack <strong>of</strong> Advertising?<br />
Another question about the AOL Mobile Communicator initiative<br />
is whether AOL got the word out. Has anyone seen any display advertising<br />
for the device? Of particular note is the complete lack <strong>of</strong> any<br />
order form at the device site, http://devices.aol.com/mobile.<br />
Gower agrees that there’s a likely advertising angle to the Mobile<br />
Communicator’s poor sales performance. “I think that could be one <strong>of</strong> the<br />
issues,” he stated. “I’m unaware from a <strong>con</strong>sumer perspective, but I know<br />
about it because I’m analyzing this kind <strong>of</strong> stuff. But I haven’t seen any<br />
advertising targeted at <strong>con</strong>sumers on AOL. It could actually be an issue.<br />
That and the price would strike me as being the two main problems.”<br />
Cassel added: “I do know that in the first quarter <strong>of</strong> this year, AOL<br />
purchased 60,000 units from RIM. This is purely anecdotal, but I<br />
haven’t heard from a single person who’s actually using AOL’s<br />
Communicator – or seen anyone using it in real life.”<br />
Hook vigorously defends AOL’s advertising initiatives for the<br />
Mobile Communicator: “Well we’re fortunate because we have 23million<br />
U.S. households,” she said, “and that’s about 42-million active<br />
AOL users we can target by just talking to them on the AOL service.”<br />
Since the Mobile Communicator is available only to AOL members,<br />
that’s the most efficient marketing channel and the one on<br />
which we’re focusing. We’re doing public events as well. Last weekend<br />
we did a big event with Macy’s, the band, “Dream,” and DKNY<br />
in New York. We’ve done some television; the Mobile Communicator<br />
was featured on The Today Show. It’s been featured on The Rosie<br />
O’Donnell Show. So we’re doing that as well as some product placement<br />
in a variety <strong>of</strong> television shows.”<br />
1 When AOL originally launched the Mobile Communicator last<br />
November, the unit price was $329.95<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
SOURCE: WWW.BELLSOUTHWD.COM/COVAPP/<br />
2 Cingular coverage areas for the AOL Mobile Communicator<br />
Hook hammered her point home: “I’m sure the<br />
communications folks [at AOL Anywhere] would<br />
be happy to provide you with a list <strong>of</strong> the product<br />
placements, the shows, and the events that we<br />
have done,” she said. “And then that really creates<br />
kind <strong>of</strong> a guerrilla marketing buzz among trendsetters,<br />
and is then reinforced with online marketing, which again, the distribution<br />
channel that we own is extraordinarily efficient for us.”<br />
Poor Service Coverage?<br />
But isn’t it simply too much to ask <strong>con</strong>sumers to buy gadgets in a<br />
market decline? Hook refuted that idea: “We have not really seen any<br />
negative effect from the broader e<strong>con</strong>omy.”<br />
Well maybe then it’s the service coverage area <strong>of</strong> Cingular that’s the problem?<br />
One look at the coverage map reference on AOL’s site is enough to make<br />
anyone think that, if George Bush had won as few votes as Cingular has coverage<br />
areas for the Mobile Communicator, no one would have bothered to question<br />
whether Gore won, Bush lost, or what the vote count was in Florida.<br />
Asked if AOL is happy with the agreement with Cingular, Hook<br />
was brief and to the point. “Yes,” she replied, simply.<br />
Asked if she <strong>con</strong>siders the Cingular coverage to be broad when<br />
compared to what’s available with other services, we unfortunately<br />
lost AOL Anywhere’s president at that moment. As her colleague Kate<br />
explained afterwards, it was due to bad coverage on the cell phone<br />
Hook was using for the <strong>con</strong>ference call.<br />
Collaboration Difficulties?<br />
And what about rumors in the industry <strong>of</strong> a deteriorating relationship<br />
between RIM and AOL?<br />
“In April’s earnings call,” Cassel observed, “Jim Balsillie gushed about<br />
RIM’s ‘close working relationship’ with AOL. He was unable to provide<br />
details, but told investors that sales were ‘quite a bit stronger than maybe<br />
it’s been indicated.’ It seems clear that something’s changed.”<br />
The change Cassel was referring to is the one apparent when comparing<br />
Balsillie’s April remarks with those in the more recent interview.<br />
It was time for WBT to play devil’s advocate. We presented AOL’s<br />
Hook with a (hypothetical) scenario. Since RIM has provided AOL with<br />
hardware for the AOL Mobile Communicator, and since that hardware<br />
is now selling for much less than the BlackBerry itself is available for,<br />
might it not seem counterproductive for RIM to provide any more<br />
hardware to AOL? In which case, wouldn’t AOL probably end up<br />
sourcing its hardware for the AOL Mobile Communicator elsewhere,<br />
and in turn become a direct competitor to BlackBerry? Could that not<br />
be what’s happening now, and causing friction between AOL and RIM?<br />
Hook answered with care. “Again, our relationship is with RIM as a<br />
hardware provider not with BlackBerry, the service,” she said. “We think<br />
the world <strong>of</strong> RIM, they’re a great vendor. And beyond that we don’t<br />
comment on our vendor relationships or alternative sources <strong>of</strong> supply.”<br />
Losing Interest?<br />
Cassel <strong>of</strong>fered some final thoughts on where AOL’s focus is right<br />
now, colored by their recent announcement that they were laying <strong>of</strong>f<br />
1,200 employees. “AOL is in heavy cost-cutting mode,” he noted.<br />
“After the Time-Warner merger, they are under pressure to meet their<br />
financial targets in a very difficult market.<br />
“Maybe they figure that the millions they’d get from selling tens <strong>of</strong> thousands<br />
<strong>of</strong> BlackBerry devices – even at only $100 a pop – is better than carrying<br />
the unsold inventory on their books. And they have their hands full,” he<br />
<strong>con</strong>tinued, “trying to assimilate all the new Time Warner properties. For the<br />
time being, AOL seems to be losing interest in <strong>wireless</strong> communications.”<br />
A source close to AOL bets they are likely to drop the price a few<br />
more times on the way to rock bottom.<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
19
When Is 3G Not 3G?<br />
The world’s largest mobile-phone<br />
operator, Vodafone, has just warned that<br />
its third-generation networks won’t, after<br />
all, <strong>of</strong>fer much in the way <strong>of</strong> multimedia<br />
services when launched next year.<br />
The International Telecoms Union<br />
(ITU), the body responsible for setting<br />
common global standards, defines a<br />
third-generation mobile network as one<br />
that can provide at least 144Kbps in all<br />
environments and up to 2Mbits per se<strong>con</strong>d<br />
in certain situations. But despite<br />
spending $14.5 billion on a dozen 3G<br />
European licenses, Vodafone has been<br />
forced to admit to industry analysts that<br />
the technology remains too slow and<br />
expensive for users to receive the kind<br />
<strong>of</strong> live video or music clips that are<br />
already a reality in, for example,<br />
Korea – where a CDMA2000 1x<br />
service has been available commercially<br />
since earlier this year.<br />
Vodafone will now only guarantee<br />
Internet access at data<br />
speeds that fall below the ITU’s<br />
standard definition <strong>of</strong> 3G services.<br />
And in fact, initially, they say their service<br />
will be slower even than the minimum<br />
specified by the UK government<br />
when they auctioned Universal Mobile<br />
Telephone Service (UMTS) licenses last<br />
year.<br />
Vodafone’s share price immediately<br />
fell 4% on the news, and is still volatile.<br />
www.vodafone.com<br />
OFF THE WIRES >>>><br />
Forget Laptops,<br />
Here Come ‘Hiptops’<br />
Dump your PDA, throw away your<br />
two-way pager, and forget your laptop. All<br />
you need in life nowadays is a “Hiptop.”<br />
What’s a Hiptop? According to Palo<br />
Alto–based Danger, Inc., it’s “a live<br />
device that seamlessly <strong>con</strong>nects to <strong>wireless</strong><br />
networks providing <strong>con</strong>sumers the<br />
freedom to browse the entire Internet,<br />
exchange instant messages, and send<br />
and receive e-mail with attachments.”<br />
“The Hiptop marks a break in the<br />
evolution <strong>of</strong> mobile devices,” Andy<br />
Rubin, president and CEO <strong>of</strong> Danger<br />
told WBT. “Many <strong>of</strong> today’s devices<br />
promise the <strong>wireless</strong> Internet but none<br />
deliver the full Internet and online experience<br />
in the mobile environment. ”<br />
Whereas personal organizers, Rubin<br />
<strong>con</strong>tends, do a good job storing phone<br />
numbers and appointments, they require<br />
expensive equipment and <strong>con</strong>fusing<br />
<strong>con</strong>figurations for an Internet <strong>con</strong>nection.<br />
Cell phones, he notes, are great for<br />
FOOTNOTE:<br />
voice calls, but restrict users to less than<br />
1% <strong>of</strong> the Internet, and force them to<br />
use number keypads to interact with<br />
data. And two-way pagers, he says, may<br />
have made important <strong>con</strong>tributions,<br />
such as the BlackBerry thumb keyboard,<br />
but still fall short on usability, attachments,<br />
graphics, sound, and style.<br />
Can the Hiptop solve these shortcomings<br />
and deliver the entire Internet<br />
According to BWCS, the telecommunications at your fingertips? Danger, Inc., believes<br />
<strong>con</strong>sultancy, the U.S. Commerce Department is to it can. Aside from the standards-based<br />
formally ask Congress to postpone the sale <strong>of</strong> 3G platform using programs written in Java<br />
mobile phone spectrum until September 30, 2004. If and the innovative industrial design, the<br />
they’re successful it will mark a two-year extension key differentiator is the back-end service<br />
to the deadline set by former President Bill Clinton. that Danger is <strong>of</strong>fering to its <strong>wireless</strong><br />
The Commerce Department argues that more carrier partners to support the device.<br />
time is necessary to decide which bands to use for This live back-end service will do the<br />
next-generation mobile services. In particular heavy computing and will <strong>con</strong>tinually<br />
they’re said to be <strong>con</strong>cerned at how reallocating update the user with new services and<br />
spectrum could impact national security. To date, capabilities without the need for expen-<br />
the Department <strong>of</strong> Defense has refused to budge on sive new hardware.<br />
the spectrum they <strong>con</strong>trol. The armed forces argue This active-state<br />
that moving equipment to different bands would be technology should result<br />
prohibitively expensive and would leave the coun- in a highly flexible infratry<br />
open to security violations.<br />
structure and, therefore,<br />
The U.S. General Accounting Office reported enable service providers<br />
last month that there was as yet insufficient infor- and application developers<br />
mation on which to base a decision on this matter. to introduce products and serv-<br />
According to their report the federal government ices to market quickly.<br />
risked making onerous decisions without knowing If you’ve a yen to hold a<br />
the full extent <strong>of</strong> the risks to which they were Hiptop in your hand anytime<br />
exposing the country.<br />
soon, you’ll need to badger your<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> carrier to hook up with Andy<br />
Rubin’s team in Palo Alto.<br />
It’s not necessarily bad to flirt with<br />
Danger. www.danger.com<br />
On-Demand,<br />
Location-Aware Weather<br />
Forecasting<br />
Sensoria, a company devoted to<br />
what it calls “accelerating advances in<br />
telematics, telemetry, and locationbased<br />
services,” has turned its attention<br />
to accelerating weather forecasting, too.<br />
The beneficiaries will be drivers<br />
whose automobiles are equipped with<br />
an in-vehicle communications <strong>sys</strong>tem.<br />
The Sensoria Telematics Environment, as<br />
they call the operating <strong>sys</strong>tem, will use<br />
GPS (global positioning <strong>sys</strong>tem) technology<br />
to give location-precise weather<br />
data to drivers who subscribe to a new<br />
service called CustomWeather.<br />
Since CustomWeather won’t require<br />
making a mobile phone call (unlike the free<br />
weather updates now available from the<br />
Weather Channel that come with all the<br />
attendant risks <strong>of</strong> making a call while driving),<br />
both Sensoria and CustomWeather<br />
have great hopes for the new service. Once<br />
weather info specific to the vehicle’s location<br />
information is received <strong>wireless</strong>ly in<br />
the vehicle, CustomWeather chief executive<br />
Ge<strong>of</strong>f Flint explained to WBT, a text-tospeech<br />
application will read the weather<br />
report on demand.<br />
Sensoria Corporation’s strategic aim is<br />
to extend the Internet to the embedded<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems in high-value physical assets not<br />
only in vehicles, but also homes, factories,<br />
commercial buildings, and hospitals.<br />
If only they could use GPS to beam<br />
sunshine from San Diego, where they’re<br />
based, to wherever the CustomWeather<br />
user goes on the planet... Now that<br />
would be a killer app to give Sensoria’s<br />
investors and shareholders some serious<br />
“acceleration.”<br />
www.sensoria.com<br />
20 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
Beam Seminars<br />
www.beamseminars.com<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
21
WAP UPDATE<br />
by<br />
Hans-Henrik T. Ohlsen<br />
Hans-Henrik T. Ohlsen is WBT’s WAP editor.<br />
@<br />
wap@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
UMTS and Common Sense<br />
f<br />
rankly, I understand<br />
the frustration <strong>of</strong> the<br />
big WAP terminal<br />
and microbrowser producers,<br />
which is probably what made<br />
them decide that WAP was<br />
moving forward too slowly, and<br />
started them working on mservices<br />
instead. In theory it’s<br />
an excellent idea to get a lot <strong>of</strong><br />
players to cooperate, but if politics<br />
begin to take more time<br />
than getting standards expansions<br />
out to the developers and,<br />
<strong>con</strong>sequently, the users,<br />
something’s wrong.<br />
Yet will talking<br />
about certificates,<br />
mobile payments<br />
and fancy GUIs<br />
actually mean that mservices<br />
will make a difference<br />
in the<br />
mobile market? In a<br />
few years, when the<br />
<strong>con</strong>vergence between the<br />
Let the buyer beware<br />
Will WAP and m-services really matter in, say, two years? Will the<br />
many billions <strong>of</strong> dollars spent on getting UMTS licenses in auctions<br />
around Europe actually pay <strong>of</strong>f, or will 802.11b (<strong>wireless</strong> Ethernet)<br />
cut a corner, like it already seems to have done with Bluetooth –<br />
after that disastrous attempt at demonstrating it at CEBIT in<br />
Germany earlier this year – and become the standard? Add to that<br />
the <strong>con</strong>vergence between XHTML and WML, and what it will<br />
mean for home page/WAP service developers.<br />
“old” Internet, and the<br />
mobile ditto (and<br />
therefore the developing<br />
tools) will be the<br />
same for both fixed<br />
and mobile platforms,<br />
will m-services really<br />
be able to make more<br />
than just a dent in the<br />
mobile market? I’m not<br />
too sure. It seems a safe<br />
bet to develop<br />
using<br />
PSION REVO<br />
SIEMENS S35i<br />
XML and XSLT and then wait<br />
and see.<br />
In a previous issue <strong>of</strong><br />
Wireless Business & Technology<br />
(Vol. 1, issue 5), I ironized over<br />
the fact that some people don’t<br />
seem to trust their phone company’s<br />
integrity and, <strong>con</strong>sequently,<br />
the safety <strong>of</strong> using their<br />
WAP gateway. I have to admit<br />
that I’ve now actually experienced<br />
how a phone company<br />
can seem to be without<br />
integrity.<br />
Tiscali, which not only<br />
sponsors a bicycle team<br />
in the Tour de France,<br />
but also, among other<br />
things, <strong>of</strong>fers fixed <strong>wireless</strong><br />
access (FWA) to the<br />
Internet as well as GSM<br />
(cellular) accounts, is at<br />
present seemingly trying<br />
to get rid <strong>of</strong> their customers,<br />
through a mass<br />
mailing <strong>of</strong> unsubstantiated<br />
claims <strong>of</strong> payment without<br />
services rendered, as well as<br />
intimidation <strong>of</strong> those who won’t<br />
pay. Wireless Business &<br />
Technology <strong>con</strong>tacted the<br />
mother company to get their<br />
view (to no avail), while the<br />
local branch refuses to go<br />
on record as saying<br />
or committing to<br />
anything.<br />
Meanwhile, it’s a<br />
story that’s being<br />
picked up by several<br />
newspapers. So yes, I now<br />
agree that there are cases when<br />
“I love the machine [Psion Revo] and how it<br />
enables me to stay in <strong>con</strong>tact with the world when<br />
I’m on the move. Too bad it requires my Siemens<br />
S35i and its built-in modem to communicate”<br />
22 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
it can be necessary to have a<br />
secure line around the phone<br />
operators’ gateway. Caveat<br />
emptor seems to be the eternally<br />
sound piece <strong>of</strong> advice.<br />
Such occurrences tell us that<br />
we’re in for some changes. Big<br />
WAP terminal producers have<br />
suddenly found themselves in a<br />
declining market as they reach<br />
maturity in the industrialized<br />
countries and scramble to get<br />
out <strong>of</strong> terminal production. The<br />
market now seems to focus on<br />
value-added services and all the<br />
areas that surround them by<br />
the simple act <strong>of</strong> providing<br />
Internet access. In addition to<br />
customer relations, creating<br />
more user-friendly <strong>sys</strong>tems is <strong>of</strong><br />
key importance. What good is it<br />
to have a plethora <strong>of</strong> WAP services<br />
available, if the sales clerk<br />
at the store never mentions<br />
anything about it to the customer<br />
purchasing a terminal?<br />
Not to mention half the search<br />
engines reportedly are showing<br />
serious user-interaction problems.<br />
I recently got a Psion Revo,<br />
with a 240 x 180 pixel screen. I<br />
love the machine and how it<br />
enables me to stay in <strong>con</strong>tact<br />
with the world when I’m on the<br />
move. Too bad it requires my<br />
Siemens S35i and its built-in<br />
modem to communicate. And I<br />
had to pay an extra $25 to get a<br />
WAP browser for the PDA.<br />
What’s the business sense in<br />
that? Considering that Psion is<br />
a British company, and <strong>con</strong>sequently<br />
should know all about<br />
WAP expansion in its home<br />
market, it makes little sense to<br />
have customers go through the<br />
hassle <strong>of</strong> buying an extra piece<br />
<strong>of</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware like a WAP microbrowser,<br />
when it would hardly<br />
affect the end price to include<br />
it in the first place. The terminal<br />
producers need to get a<br />
better sense <strong>of</strong> perspective – or<br />
at least a bit <strong>of</strong> common sense<br />
– integrated into their strategic<br />
thinking.<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
BOOK REVIEW<br />
Beginning WAP,<br />
WML, and WMLScript<br />
Written by Wei Meng Lee, Soo Mee Foo,<br />
Karli Watson, and Ted Wug<strong>of</strong>ski<br />
Reviewed by Hans-Henrik T. Ohlsen<br />
Beginning WAP, WML, & WMLScript is a very complete book on<br />
what’s what, what goes where, and why. It teaches you the basics, much<br />
<strong>of</strong> the advanced stuff, and even demonstrates how you use XML<br />
(eXtended Markup Language) and XSLT (style sheets that format XML) so<br />
the same code can be used as a basis for both WML and HTML output.<br />
Some <strong>of</strong> the key chapters are on “Usability” and “Interoperability.”<br />
You <strong>of</strong>ten see books that focus on the technical aspects, and then<br />
leave the reader completely in the dark regarding these issues.<br />
This book even saves you money. The examples are, to a great extent,<br />
demonstrated on all the terminal simulators available, plus a Nokia 7110,<br />
an Ericsson R320, and a Motorola P7389, so you don’t have to do the<br />
testing yourself. It also demonstrates, in great detail that, in WAP, there’s<br />
no such thing as certainty when it comes to text formatting.<br />
There are a few problematic areas with the book. While there are<br />
normally <strong>con</strong>sidered to be three Internet years to a “normal” year, in the<br />
mobile world it’s more like seven. Consequently, a book is inherently<br />
outdated the moment it’s published. To get the latest news you have to<br />
turn to the WML e-mailing lists and technical discussion groups, that<br />
companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, and Openwave <strong>of</strong>fer to developers<br />
for free. For instance, there are now terminals such as the Nokia 6210<br />
and Ericsson R380. The book does use the R380 emulator, but, as the<br />
authors themselves demonstrate, things are <strong>of</strong>ten different from emulator<br />
to the real terminal. And there’s a <strong>con</strong>stantly growing number <strong>of</strong> terminals<br />
available, which have come out after the book.<br />
Another thing I find problematic is the choice to demonstrate only<br />
the making <strong>of</strong> dynamic WML using Active Server Pages (ASP), which<br />
is Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s way <strong>of</strong> doing things. Wrox has also published an excellent<br />
book on PHP, which I’ll review in a later issue, yet somehow the<br />
programming language for WML/HTML pages has been overlooked<br />
here. Considering how much PHP is being used to generate WML<br />
decks, I find the choice to leave out a section on PHP peculiar.<br />
Although this book covers a wide range <strong>of</strong> topics, it still manages<br />
to go into depth with each.<br />
With this title, Wrox Press<br />
demonstrates that it’s a publishing<br />
house that gives you a lot <strong>of</strong><br />
value for your money.<br />
Wrox Press Ltd.<br />
Paperback: 651 pages<br />
ISBN: 1861004583<br />
Suggested retail price: $39.99<br />
GUEST EDITORIAL<br />
—<strong>con</strong>tinued from page 16<br />
includes comprehensive <strong>con</strong>tact<br />
and payment information<br />
for the account in question.<br />
The notification is directed to<br />
the sales representative’s preferred<br />
device. If no immediate<br />
response is received, a voice<br />
application delivers the information<br />
to the representative’s<br />
PC, cell phone, or <strong>of</strong>fice phone<br />
as required. If the representative<br />
is unreachable, the voice<br />
application escalates the information<br />
to the rep’s supervisor.<br />
The escalation process <strong>con</strong>tinues<br />
until a response is<br />
received. The notification<br />
includes a one-touch option<br />
to call the account as well as a<br />
purchase-order form to capture<br />
all necessary information.<br />
After the P.O. number is<br />
entered, the representative<br />
hits “submit.” This command<br />
updates the accounts-receivable<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem immediately so<br />
the shipment may be released.<br />
The initial latency is almost<br />
entirely removed from the<br />
process, saving between three<br />
and 12 hours per shipment<br />
and over $3.6 million per year.<br />
The time and money saved<br />
in this scenario are typical for<br />
processes improved by these<br />
applications. Examples such<br />
as this exist in every enterprise<br />
around the world.<br />
Deploying business applications<br />
to remove latencies<br />
from business processes generates<br />
far-reaching value<br />
across an organization. The<br />
worth <strong>of</strong> these benefits will<br />
ensure the success and<br />
longevity <strong>of</strong> the <strong>wireless</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
industry.<br />
However, until vendors<br />
stop selling mobile and <strong>wireless</strong><br />
technology and start selling<br />
business benefits, slow<br />
adoption, <strong>con</strong>fused buyers,<br />
dying vendors, and projectile<br />
staplers will <strong>con</strong>tinue to be<br />
hallmarks <strong>of</strong> this industry.<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
23
THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 2000, I ACTUALLY<br />
enjoyed the stacks <strong>of</strong> e-business and other new<br />
media publications that showed up in my mailbox,<br />
even if some <strong>of</strong> them were 600-pages thick. Yes, they<br />
could be burdensome at times, but I always enjoyed (and<br />
still do, though not as <strong>of</strong>ten) stories about an innovative,<br />
dare I say “cool” sounding dot-com or <strong>wireless</strong> venture<br />
being undertaken by enterprising entrepreneurs.<br />
Of course, being a marketing<br />
person, I certainly enjoyed the<br />
advertising stories. But what I<br />
didn’t enjoy quite as much (and<br />
still don’t) were the B2B stories.<br />
They lack a certain “coolness”<br />
factor that a hot new B2C music<br />
start-up might have, for example.<br />
However, there are important<br />
things happening in the<br />
B2B space, even in <strong>wireless</strong> marketing. We may not hear about<br />
them as much, but B2B <strong>wireless</strong> ad campaigns have been <strong>con</strong>ducted<br />
that show promising results. Intraware, a provider <strong>of</strong> high-end<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware to businesses, falls into this camp.<br />
In April and May <strong>of</strong> 2000, Intraware ran a pioneering campaign<br />
in the United States on mobile information portal AvantGo, one <strong>of</strong><br />
the first ad campaigns on the service. The company wanted<br />
to reach IT pr<strong>of</strong>essionals to generate sales leads<br />
for its s<strong>of</strong>tware. The leads would be followed up<br />
with e-mail, phone calls, and in-person meetings.<br />
Simple text ads that would be clear on Palm PDAs<br />
were used.<br />
The strategy seems to have worked, with the ads<br />
reaching over 500,000 subscribers and generating over<br />
20,000 leads with a high <strong>con</strong>version rate (although the<br />
exact rate was unavailable). The company says recordlevel<br />
ROI results were achieved, reducing Intraware’s<br />
member acquisition costs by 97%.<br />
VINDIGO IN ACTION<br />
Choose city and <strong>con</strong>tent<br />
M-COMMERCE: M-CAMPAIGN WATCH<br />
by David Cotriss<br />
M-MARKETING EDITOR<br />
Can Wireless Ads Work<br />
in the B2B Space?<br />
PDAs improve the potential<br />
Barry Peters, director <strong>of</strong> emerging media for Lot21, the<br />
agency that created and ran the campaign, admits that<br />
part <strong>of</strong> the campaign’s success was due to the “wow” factor,<br />
since this had never been done before. But perhaps<br />
more important, there was a good penetration <strong>of</strong> IT pr<strong>of</strong>essionals<br />
with Palm PDAs, and the ads weren’t as intrusive<br />
as flashy pop-ups would have been. When asked if<br />
the same results would be possible today, Peters says yes,<br />
since more targeting is available<br />
and banners could be used,<br />
even though costs would be<br />
higher.<br />
Bill McCloskey, head <strong>of</strong> new<br />
media <strong>con</strong>sultancy Emerging<br />
Interest, notes that the PDA has<br />
much more advertising potential<br />
than a cell phone due to its<br />
size, and that ads on AvantGo<br />
and Vindigo (a similar service) are doing well in general. “The ads<br />
on Vindigo are simple text now, and most are repeat customers at<br />
standard rates,” says McCloskey. He adds that high-<strong>con</strong>version<br />
rates are possible with <strong>con</strong>text-sensitive ads, as in this case.<br />
“The total AvantGo audience isn’t huge, but advertising can be<br />
highly targeted,” explains Jupiter Media Metrix <strong>wireless</strong> analyst<br />
Joe Laszlo. “We’re also moving toward pricing based on<br />
response, which can help.” Both analysts seem to agree<br />
that venues such as AvantGo are good for B2B ads, along<br />
with other tech portals such as CNET. They do point out<br />
that not all B2B situations may be good for <strong>wireless</strong>,<br />
stressing the need to evaluate each case and pay close<br />
attention to targeting ability.<br />
So while we may not hear as much about them or see<br />
them as particularly sexy, B2B <strong>wireless</strong> campaigns seem<br />
to have promise. Anyway, now I’m <strong>of</strong>f to read that article<br />
on the new <strong>wireless</strong> entertainment venture I<br />
remember seeing…<br />
Specify location Browse <strong>con</strong>tent Listing details Directions Maps<br />
David Cotriss is WBT’s m-marketing editor. dcotriss@earthlink.net<br />
@<br />
24 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
WirelessEdge will provide the depth<br />
and breadth <strong>of</strong> education and product<br />
resources to allow companies to<br />
shape and implement their <strong>wireless</strong><br />
strategy. Developers,<br />
i-technology pr<strong>of</strong>essionals and IT/IS<br />
management will eagerly attend.<br />
Track One:<br />
Development<br />
WAP<br />
Plan INTERNATIONAL<br />
to Exhibit WIRELESS BUSINESS&TECHNOLOGY<br />
i-Mode<br />
Provide the Resources To<br />
Implement Wireless Strategy<br />
The <strong>con</strong>ference will motivate and<br />
educate. The expo is where attendees will want<br />
to turn ideas into reality. Be ready to <strong>of</strong>fer solutions.<br />
Bluetooth / 802.11<br />
Short Messaging<br />
Interactive<br />
Gaming<br />
GPS / Location-<br />
Based<br />
Wireless Java<br />
XML & Wireless<br />
Technologies<br />
WHO SHOULD ATTEND<br />
Mobile & Wireless Application Pr<strong>of</strong>essionals<br />
who are driving their enterprise’s<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> initiatives:<br />
• Program Developers<br />
• Development Managers<br />
• Project Managers<br />
• Project Leaders<br />
• Network Managers<br />
• Senior IT and Business Executives<br />
Conference Tracks<br />
Track Two:<br />
Connectivity<br />
Smart Cards<br />
Wireless LANs<br />
incl. Bluetooth<br />
UMTS/3G<br />
Networks<br />
Satellite<br />
Broadband<br />
Track Three:<br />
Wireless Apps<br />
Education<br />
Health Care<br />
Entertainment<br />
Transport<br />
Financial Services<br />
Supply Chain<br />
Management<br />
<strong>CON</strong>FERENCE & EXPO<br />
Shaping Wireless Strategy<br />
for the Enterprise<br />
Santa Clara, CA May 7-9, 2002<br />
Plan to Attend the<br />
3-DAY Conference<br />
FOR INFORMATION CALL<br />
201 802-3069<br />
Track Four:<br />
Hardware<br />
Cell Phones/<br />
WorldPhones<br />
PDAs<br />
Headphones/<br />
Keyboards /<br />
Peripherals<br />
Transmitters/<br />
Base Stations<br />
Tablets<br />
SPEAKER PROPOSALS INVITED THE<br />
Track Five:<br />
Business Futures<br />
Wireless in<br />
Vertical Industries<br />
The WWWW<br />
Unwired<br />
Management<br />
From 3W to 4W:<br />
Issues and Trends<br />
"Always-On"<br />
Management<br />
Exploiting the<br />
Bandwidth Edge<br />
Unplugged<br />
Valueware<br />
Wireless Sales &<br />
Marketing<br />
WWW.<strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong>.COM<br />
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Kevin Wittmer works as a senior s<strong>of</strong>tware engineer<br />
at Motorola in the CDMA Systems Division (CSD)<br />
located in Arlington Heights, Illinois.<br />
@<br />
kwittmer@sprintmail.com<br />
If you’re planning a <strong>wireless</strong><br />
initiative, but are <strong>con</strong>fused by<br />
the alphabet soup <strong>of</strong> acronyms<br />
such as WML, PQA, RIM, EPOC,<br />
CDMA, GPRS, and countless<br />
others, this article will help clear<br />
things up with a discussion <strong>of</strong><br />
five key points to understand<br />
now, as well as what to look for<br />
in the future.<br />
Launching a project to provide<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> access <strong>of</strong> mission-critical<br />
applications or data to mobile<br />
users can be challenging. Often<br />
there’s a myriad <strong>of</strong> requirements,<br />
technical <strong>con</strong>siderations, integration<br />
issues, field-testing trials,<br />
deployment challenges, and cost issues to<br />
address. One <strong>of</strong> the most challenging aspects <strong>of</strong><br />
developing information <strong>sys</strong>tems that employ<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> solutions is dealing with technology<br />
that’s still in its infancy. Therefore, there are five<br />
key points that should be clearly defined before<br />
moving forward with any <strong>wireless</strong> initiative:<br />
1. Customer requirements <strong>of</strong> the mobile device<br />
platform based on the type <strong>of</strong> mobile application(s)<br />
to be deployed<br />
2. The <strong>wireless</strong> coverage area <strong>of</strong> service required<br />
by the customer<br />
3. Future upgrade paths when newer <strong>wireless</strong><br />
technologies become available<br />
4. The mobile application type and associated<br />
implementation languages, APIs, and development<br />
tools for building <strong>wireless</strong> applications<br />
in an enterprise environment<br />
5. Middleware integration solutions that arise<br />
from introducing a mobile front-end or <strong>wireless</strong><br />
channel<br />
This article will touch on each point above, all<br />
<strong>of</strong> which should be <strong>con</strong>sidered carefully during<br />
the planning stages. I’ll also list a number <strong>of</strong> different<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> product <strong>of</strong>ferings that are currently<br />
available to help build enterprise <strong>wireless</strong> solutions.<br />
26 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
y Kevin Wittmer<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
27<br />
WIRELESS PRIMER
WIRELESS PRIMER<br />
1. Mobile Device Platform<br />
1<br />
Mobile device platform categories include<br />
smart phones, two-way pagers, handheld<br />
devices, pocket PC computers, and Windowsbased<br />
notebook computers, many <strong>of</strong> which now<br />
come in a variety <strong>of</strong> super-mini form factors.<br />
Each mobile device platform<br />
<strong>of</strong>fers a unique user interface display<br />
and input <strong>con</strong>trol. Palm OSbased<br />
devices, for example, <strong>of</strong>fer a<br />
stylus touch screen for navigation<br />
and data entry, while non-Palmstyle<br />
smart cell phones typically<br />
sport some combination <strong>of</strong> numeric keypad <strong>con</strong>trols<br />
along with cursor <strong>con</strong>trol keys. Two-way<br />
paging devices from Motorola and RIM <strong>of</strong>fer<br />
mini-alphanumeric keypads. Portable standard<br />
keyboards are available as an accessory option<br />
for most pocket PC PDAs.<br />
The decision as to which mobile device platform<br />
to use can be a heavily charged issue for an<br />
organization looking to implement a <strong>wireless</strong><br />
access solution into the enterprise. Therefore<br />
avoid the bias for a particular mobile platform<br />
Device Attribute Options or Criteria Points<br />
1 Common mobile-computing device attributes<br />
guide during the decision-making process.<br />
Instead, focus the discussion on the requirements<br />
<strong>of</strong> the business applications that will be<br />
deployed on the mobile platform, and the type <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>con</strong>trol and data-entry functions required <strong>of</strong> the<br />
user interface.<br />
Be sure to <strong>con</strong>sider all the possibilities. For<br />
example, the application to be accessed over the<br />
device may require the voice and interactive key<br />
<strong>con</strong>trols from the user simultaneously. In this<br />
case, a Palm OS-based smart phone with a<br />
handsfree set might be the best option. Finally,<br />
<strong>con</strong>sider the cost per unit <strong>of</strong> the mobile device<br />
and multiply that by the estimated number <strong>of</strong><br />
units that will be deployed to the field to gain an<br />
idea <strong>of</strong> how much the initial costs <strong>of</strong> field deployment<br />
will be and whether it falls within the<br />
planned budget. Understanding the type <strong>of</strong> business<br />
applications that will be accessed over (or<br />
deployed on) the mobile platform and the<br />
requirements <strong>of</strong> the user interface is critical.<br />
However, it will most likely not be the sole criteria<br />
for platform selection. Wireless coverage area<br />
will also be a significant factor.<br />
INPUT <strong>CON</strong>TROLS Alphanumeric, numeric keypad, cursor <strong>con</strong>trol, stylus, touch-screen,<br />
voice input, bar code<br />
INPUT RECOGNITION Operation (including training) <strong>of</strong> handwriting or character recognition<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
FORM FACTOR Wireless Enabled Mobile Phone, Handheld, PDA, Smart Phone, Notebook,<br />
Sub-Notebook, Tablet, Luggable, Wearable, Fixed Vehicle<br />
DISPLAY Color TFT active-matrix or grayscale LCD, bitmap pixel capability, line<br />
count, screen character-width count<br />
RAM Generally from 2MB to 64MB; generally higher with PC card expansion<br />
options<br />
I/O PORTS IrDA, USB, serial-port<br />
HOT DATA SYNC Data synchronization <strong>of</strong> PDA data over Ethernet, USB, or serial cradle<br />
withdesktop PC<br />
EXPANSION SLOTS PC card type I or II for Compact Flash high-capacity memory cards, etc.<br />
BATTERY LIFE Power usage for voice-time, data-only time, and standby time. Battery<br />
types: NiCad (cheapest and heaviest), NiMH (moderate performance and<br />
more environmentally friendly), Li-Ion (performs the best while also<br />
being the most expensive).<br />
OPERATING <strong>SYS</strong>TEM Palm OS, RIM OS, EPOC OS, Wisdom OS, Windows CE, Windows XP<br />
(super-mini)<br />
DEVICE/ACCESS COST Per unit cost for mobile device; air-time costs (circuit-switched-perminute,<br />
packet-data-flat-rate, <strong>wireless</strong> message count); volume<br />
discounts for business accounts<br />
28 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
2. Coverage Area<br />
2<br />
Part <strong>of</strong> the initial analysis during the planning<br />
stages <strong>of</strong> a <strong>wireless</strong> project is to clearly define<br />
the geographic area that the mobile user base<br />
intends to operate in. This can be as simple as<br />
the small <strong>of</strong>fice or campus area, or as challenging<br />
as requiring <strong>wireless</strong> coverage<br />
spanning multiple <strong>con</strong>tinents.<br />
Once the geographic area <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong><br />
service has been defined, the<br />
next item to determine is the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
data bandwidth needed by the<br />
business applications that will be<br />
accessed or deployed on the mobile device in<br />
the field. To do this you must identify what the<br />
bandwidth requirements will be when the application<br />
is first deployed, and what the future<br />
demands <strong>of</strong> the application might be as it<br />
evolves.<br />
Avoid getting caught up in the alphabet soup<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> air interfaces (CDMA2000 1X, PDC-<br />
D, UMTS, GPRR, EDGE, Bluetooth, IEEE<br />
802.11b, etc.) at this part <strong>of</strong> the analysis stage.<br />
Instead, focus on the coverage area that will<br />
need to be serviced, the <strong>wireless</strong> data rate<br />
required, the types <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> services being<br />
<strong>of</strong>fered (SMS, WAP 2.0, i-mode, etc.), and<br />
whether the various costs <strong>of</strong> the service will<br />
remain within the specified budget. Once coverage<br />
area, required packet data rate, service<br />
options, and associated costs have been specified,<br />
the choice <strong>of</strong> air interfaces (and hence<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> carriers if coverage is beyond an <strong>of</strong>fice<br />
or campus area) will narrow quickly, making the<br />
decision process easier.<br />
Keep in mind that everything in the world <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>wireless</strong> is subject to change. Therefore, it<br />
becomes advantageous to lay out a few upgrade<br />
paths in the analysis stage that make up an overall<br />
migration strategy from the existing mobile<br />
device–air interface solution to be adopted<br />
toward the newer 2.5G and 3G <strong>wireless</strong> technologies<br />
as they become available in coverage areas<br />
<strong>of</strong> interest.<br />
3. Upgrade Path<br />
3<br />
Wireless service carriers such as AT&T<br />
Wireless, Nextel, NTT DoCoMo, and Sprint PCS<br />
all have clearly defined plans for upgrading to<br />
2.5G and 3G <strong>wireless</strong> network air interfaces.<br />
Regardless <strong>of</strong> who your<br />
current or planned <strong>wireless</strong><br />
network carrier is, it<br />
will be important to<br />
understand what their<br />
upgrade path from 2G circuit-switched<br />
networks to 2.5G-hybrid<br />
circuit/packet and 3G packet <strong>wireless</strong> networks<br />
is. For example, AT&T Wireless, which currently<br />
operates the largest <strong>wireless</strong> data-packet network<br />
in North America using CDPD technology,<br />
has announced plans to deploy a network infrastructure<br />
based on GSM/GPRS technology. This<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
differs from Sprint PCS, which is planning on<br />
rolling out CDMA2000 1X technology, and NTT<br />
DoCoMo, which has committed to deploying 3G<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> network technology in Japan based on<br />
the UMTS air interface with its FOMA services<br />
rollout.<br />
The upgrade path that a particular carrier<br />
selects will determine both the types <strong>of</strong> services<br />
that will be available [including extended messaging<br />
capabilities, high-speed packet data,<br />
video-streaming, location-based services (LBS)<br />
and voice-over-IP (VoIP)] and in what time<br />
frame. The stakes for carriers such as Vodafone,<br />
Sprint PCS, AT&T Wireless, and many others are<br />
extremely high as they race to plan and deploy<br />
the next generation <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> networks through<br />
a series <strong>of</strong> upgrade paths.<br />
Table 2 is a sampling <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> service<br />
providers, their current network technologies,<br />
and future upgrades. Keep in mind that<br />
although a particular carrier may have<br />
announced plans to upgrade to a particular<br />
2.5G or 3G <strong>wireless</strong> technology by a given date,<br />
these plans may have been delayed due either<br />
to the challenge in obtaining the frequency<br />
spectrum (which has <strong>of</strong>ten been the case for 3G<br />
deployment in North America) or the tight<br />
financial <strong>con</strong>straints that nearly all carriers are<br />
operating under, given the extended downturn<br />
in the telecom sector, or both. If a particular<br />
carrier has committed to launching a 2.5G or 3G<br />
technology in a time frame that’s agreeable with<br />
your project plans, be sure to learn which markets<br />
(metropolitan or other regional areas) will<br />
be the first to have the faster <strong>wireless</strong> technologies<br />
installed.<br />
The bottom line is: it’s vital to understand<br />
exactly what current or potential <strong>wireless</strong> carriers’<br />
existing technologies are, as well as their<br />
plans to upgrade to 2.5G or 3G networks, and<br />
whether their time lines for upgrade mesh<br />
with the deployment plans <strong>of</strong> your <strong>wireless</strong><br />
business application (see Table 4 for information<br />
on CDMA2000 deployments). The<br />
demands that the <strong>wireless</strong> business application<br />
places on the <strong>wireless</strong> network interface<br />
(e.g., effective data rate) will be determined by<br />
the type <strong>of</strong> mobile application. This topic will<br />
be examined next.<br />
2G 2.5G/3G Transition 3G<br />
CDPD<br />
GSM GPRS UMTS<br />
TDMA<br />
CDMA CDMA 2000<br />
2 Common upgrade paths for major <strong>wireless</strong><br />
network technologies<br />
1 Sprint PCS coverage map<br />
for the Chicago area<br />
2 Skytel coverage map for the<br />
Boston area<br />
3 Skytel coverage map for the<br />
San Francisco area<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
29<br />
WIRELESS PRIMER
WIRELESS PRIMER<br />
AIR INTERFACE DATA RATE (MAX | RANGE) CURRENT USERS OR EARLY ADOPTERS TECHNICAL NOTES<br />
ARDIS 19.2Kbps Motient Proprietary high-speed packet<br />
data network<br />
CDMA 2000 144Kbps–2Mbps Sprint PCS, KDDI, Nextel, China Unicom Hybrid voice/packet architecture<br />
CDMA ONE (IS-95A) 8–10Kbps Verizon, Sprint PCS, KDDI, Ameritech 2G CDMA <strong>wireless</strong> technology<br />
CDMA HSPD (IS-95B) 64–Kbps KDDI 2.5G CDMA enhanced for <strong>wireless</strong> data<br />
CDPD 19.2–Kbps AT&T Wireless Based on AMPS technology<br />
EDGE 19.2–Kbps to 384Kbps — 2.5G technology that can cover<br />
GSM, TMDA, or CDMA<br />
Flex/ReFlex — Skytel Widely used in paging networks<br />
1xEV-DO (formerly HDR) 600Kbps to 2.59Mbps Sprint PCS The Evolution Data-Only technology<br />
path for CDMA2000<br />
GPRS 43Kbps–170Kbps AT&T Wireless, Vodafone (Europe) Extends GPRS technology, <strong>of</strong>fers faster<br />
data rates and enhanced interoperability<br />
GSM 9.6Kbps VoiceStream, Vodafone, British Telecom 2G technology popular<br />
in Europe and Asia<br />
iDen 9.6Kbps Nextel 2G TDMA <strong>wireless</strong> technology<br />
Mobitex 8Kbps BellSouth Widely available 1G <strong>wireless</strong><br />
packet technology<br />
PDC-D 64Kbps NTT DoCoMo 2.5G 64K data air interface<br />
used by i-mode<br />
TDMA — AT&T Wireless 2G technology popular in North America<br />
UMTS Up to 2Mbps NTT DoCoMo, J-Phone, France Telecom Couples GSM's established<br />
network infrastructure with a<br />
wideband CDMA air interface<br />
3 Wireless air interfaces, interface specifications, and current or planned adopters<br />
Country<br />
Trial/Launch Quarter<br />
Australia 3Q Trial<br />
Brazil 4Q Launch<br />
Canada 4Q Launch<br />
Japan 4Q Launch<br />
Korea Commercial<br />
Mexico 4Q Launch<br />
New Zealand 4Q Launch<br />
United States 4Q Launch<br />
Venezuela 2Q Trial<br />
(SOURCE: CDG – WWW.CDG.COM/)<br />
4 CDMA2000 worldwide trial<br />
and launch schedule for 2001<br />
DESCRIPTION OF 2.5G/3G WIRELESS AIR INTERFACE TECHNOLOGIES<br />
• Universal Mobile Telecommunications System<br />
(UMTS): A 3G broadband, packet-based <strong>wireless</strong><br />
technology that will be able to support data<br />
transfer rates as fast as 2Mbps (transfer rate will<br />
depend on proximity to the <strong>wireless</strong> base station).<br />
UMTS essentially marries GSM’s established<br />
network topology and infrastructure components<br />
with CDMA’s high-capacity wideband<br />
air interface. The frequency band range for<br />
UMTS is commonly from 1885–2025MHz,<br />
although spectrum allocation has been a problem<br />
in some countries including the U.S.<br />
Worldwide deployment is expected to start in<br />
the se<strong>con</strong>d half <strong>of</strong> 2002 (earlier in Japan).<br />
• General Packet Radio Service (GPRS): A 2.5G<br />
packet-based transitional <strong>wireless</strong> technology<br />
that <strong>of</strong>fers data transfer rates in the range <strong>of</strong><br />
56–114Kbps. GPRS is typically deployed over<br />
circuit-switched GSM or TDMA networks, and is<br />
a shared bandwidth <strong>wireless</strong> data protocol.<br />
Worldwide deployment started in late 2000 and<br />
is ongoing. An extension to GPRS is EDGE,<br />
which supports data transfer rates up to<br />
384Kbps.<br />
• Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA2000):<br />
A harmonized wideband (IS-136) 3G <strong>wireless</strong><br />
technology that supports data ranges from<br />
144Kbps–2Mbps, and comes in 1x or 3x multicarrier<br />
<strong>of</strong>ferings. This technology will be the<br />
transition path for many carriers operating<br />
CDMA networks, with worldwide deployment<br />
expected to begin in the first half <strong>of</strong> 2002.<br />
30 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
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31
WIRELESS PRIMER<br />
4<br />
4. Type <strong>of</strong> Mobile Application<br />
Technology<br />
There are essentially five technology types for<br />
mobile <strong>wireless</strong> applications:<br />
1. Interactive voice-based<br />
2. Short message delivery<br />
3. Wireless Web<br />
4. Lightweight database<br />
5. Thin client/server<br />
Each application type will have a different<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware <strong>sys</strong>tem architecture associated with it,<br />
and will generally come with a unique set <strong>of</strong><br />
implementation programming languages, APIs,<br />
and development tools. Keep in mind that the<br />
application type chosen and implementation<br />
strategy adopted will, to a large extent, determine<br />
the choice <strong>of</strong> the mobile device platform.<br />
INTERACTIVE VOICE-BASED APPLICATIONS<br />
These types <strong>of</strong> telephony applications use<br />
VoiceXML technology to enable voice-based<br />
access to Web site <strong>con</strong>tent to <strong>con</strong>struct voice<br />
portals. Information and interactive <strong>con</strong>tent is<br />
<strong>con</strong>tained in a set <strong>of</strong> XML documents linked<br />
together to form a voice navigable–menu <strong>con</strong>tent<br />
hierarchy, with voice grammars defining<br />
valid recognized voice speech input. The user<br />
interacts with a site using a voice browser to<br />
<strong>con</strong>trol navigation and access auditable <strong>con</strong>tent<br />
that’s produced using a voice-synthesis engine.<br />
This solution is especially appealing if access<br />
from all possible phone types is a business<br />
requirement, as this solution supports landline<br />
telephones, voice-only mobile phones, as well as<br />
the newest breed <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> smart phones.<br />
Products that support VoiceXML technology<br />
include Covigo, iConverse, Lutris Enhydra,<br />
Motorola Vox Gateway, Verascape, and the<br />
Everypath Mobile Application Platform. URLs to<br />
each company’s product Web site appear in<br />
Table 5.<br />
WIRELESS MESSAGING APPLICATIONS<br />
This <strong>wireless</strong> application category is the most<br />
VOICEXML PRODUCT/TOOL<br />
OFFERING WEB LINK<br />
5 VoiceXML product <strong>of</strong>ferings<br />
mature area in the world <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong>, thanks in<br />
large part to technologies such as ARDIS, FLEX,<br />
ReFLEX, Mobitex, SMS, and many other proven<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> data and messaging technologies.<br />
Numerous real-world business applications have<br />
been deployed in the field utilizing these <strong>wireless</strong><br />
communication protocols, which predominantly<br />
operate over data- or paging-based networks in<br />
North America, or GSM circuit-switched voice<br />
networks widely installed throughout Europe<br />
and Asia.<br />
One <strong>of</strong> the best indications <strong>of</strong> a mature and<br />
established <strong>wireless</strong> cellular technology is coverage<br />
area availability in metropolitan and suburban<br />
areas, as well as in areas close to interstate<br />
highways. When this is <strong>con</strong>sidered, paging technologies<br />
such as ReFLEX, used by SkyTel, and<br />
SMS, used by GSM operators such as Vodafone,<br />
score very high. On the enterprise application<br />
side, a number <strong>of</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware companies <strong>of</strong>fer<br />
mobile enterprise products that support <strong>wireless</strong><br />
message-based paging protocols like SMS. Table<br />
6 lists various messaging products including the<br />
Micros<strong>of</strong>t Mobile Information Server, Covigo,<br />
Lutris Enhydra, MobileShift, SMS Gateway from<br />
EI Group, and SMPP Developer’s Toolkit from<br />
Logic A.<br />
WIRELESS WEB APPLICATIONS<br />
Mobile applications that fall into this category<br />
utilize a markup language geared toward<br />
mobile devices for <strong>con</strong>tent delivery and navigation<br />
<strong>con</strong>trol, whether it’s cHTML (i-mode),<br />
HDML, WML, XHTML-Basic, or Palm Web<br />
Clippings. Mobile enterprise technology solutions<br />
such as IBM’s WebSphere Transcoding<br />
Publisher, Oracle’s Oracle9i Application Server,<br />
and CoolJava’s HTML transcoding services are all<br />
geared toward taking existing <strong>con</strong>tent and applying<br />
site-defined translation rules in the transformation<br />
process to generate a variety <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong><br />
markup in language formats such as WML,<br />
cHTML, HDML, MML, and XHTML-Basic on the<br />
fly. Keep in mind that this so-called Web-to<strong>wireless</strong><br />
strategy, which involves taking existing<br />
Lutris Enhydra 3.5 www.lutris.com/products/enhydra3_5/index.html<br />
iConverse www.i<strong>con</strong>verse.com/products/index.asp<br />
Mobile ADK www.motorola.com/MIMS/ISG/voice/<strong>sys</strong>s<strong>of</strong>t/vdg.htm<br />
Verascape www.verascape.com<br />
WebSphere Voice Server www.ibm.com/speech<br />
Covigo www.covigo.com/products/index.shtml<br />
V-Builder http://extranet.nuance.com/developer<br />
Tellme Studio http://studio.tellme.com<br />
VoiceGenie http://developer.voicegenie.com<br />
Everypath Mobile<br />
Application Platform www.everypath.digitalenterprises.com<br />
BeVocal Café café.bevocal.com<br />
32 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
MESSAGING TOOL/ COMPANY WEB LINK<br />
PLATFORM OFFERING<br />
IBus//Mobile 2.0 S<strong>of</strong>twired AG www.s<strong>of</strong>twired-inc.com<br />
SMS JDK Noctor Consulting www.noctor.com<br />
SMPP Developer’s Toolkit Logica www.logica.com<br />
Element SMS Server Element www.element.be<br />
Empowered SMS Gateway EIGroup www.eigroup.com<br />
6 Wireless messaging product <strong>of</strong>ferings<br />
HTML <strong>con</strong>tent and dynamically transforming it<br />
to a form that can be viewed on a <strong>wireless</strong><br />
device, can also be implemented using low-level<br />
technologies such as XSLT, JSP, and Java servlets.<br />
However, the developer effort in many cases will<br />
be significant, making an <strong>of</strong>f-the-shelf product<br />
more appealing.<br />
Whether your initial strategy involves creating<br />
a new <strong>wireless</strong> channel for existing <strong>con</strong>tent, or<br />
creating a new <strong>wireless</strong> Web site from the ground<br />
up using WML and WMLScript, for example, the<br />
choice <strong>of</strong> tools (see Table 7) is more diverse than<br />
you probably expected. All <strong>of</strong> these integrated<br />
development environments (IDEs) listed are<br />
available for Windows and generally include a<br />
visual editor, compiler, debugger, and mobile<br />
device simulator.<br />
LIGHTWEIGHT DATABASE APPLICATIONS<br />
The availability <strong>of</strong> enterprise database access<br />
over a remote <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>con</strong>nection is another<br />
challenge to developing sound mobile enterprise<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
architecture. Solutions to accessing enterprisewide<br />
databases from a mobile client include<br />
using small-footprint DBMS technologies such<br />
as IBM’s DB2 Everywhere s<strong>of</strong>tware or Sybase’s<br />
iAnywhere technology. Both s<strong>of</strong>tware DBMS<br />
packages allow mobile applications to insert,<br />
modify, or delete information stored in a smallfootprint<br />
DBMS using a CLI implementation<br />
such as embedded SQL, or a JDBC or ODBC<br />
interface. Any changes are then synchronized<br />
with the master database when enterprise network<br />
access over a <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>con</strong>nection becomes<br />
available. These mobile database technologies<br />
are key to integrating a <strong>wireless</strong> solution into<br />
enterprise database farms, thus allowing roadwarriors<br />
to access corporate information<br />
resources remotely, over a <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>con</strong>nection,<br />
without dialing in or having to find a coaxial or<br />
TP <strong>con</strong>nection.<br />
THIN CLIENT/SERVER WIRELESS APPLICATIONS<br />
This mobile technology involves developing<br />
MOBILE DEVELOPER TOOL COMPANY WEB LINK<br />
.NET Mobile Web SDK Micros<strong>of</strong>t http://msdn.micros<strong>of</strong>t.com<br />
RIM Java SDK Research In Motion http://developers.rim.net<br />
CodeWarrior (J2ME, Palm) CodeWarrior www.codewarrior.com<br />
Nokia WAP Toolkit Nokia www.nokia.com/wap<br />
development.html<br />
WapIDE-WAP Ericsson www.ericsson.com/WAP/<br />
products/tools.shtml<br />
Motorola Motorola ADK http://developers.motorola.com/<br />
developers/<strong>wireless</strong>/#<br />
Openwave SDK 4.1 Openwave http://developer.openwave.com/<br />
download/index.html<br />
Wireless Web Builder C<strong>of</strong>fee Cup www.c<strong>of</strong>feecup.com/<strong>wireless</strong><br />
WHITEboard J2ME SDK Zucotto www.zucotto.com<br />
WAPobjects framework WAPObjects www.wapobjects.com/<br />
wapobjects/en<br />
WAP Developer Toolkit Dynamical Systems Research www.dynamical.com/<br />
wap/index.html<br />
CardOneII Perfect Solutions www.peso.de/wap_en<br />
AppForge Pr<strong>of</strong>essional Edition AppForge www.appforge.com<br />
VisualAge MicroEdition IBM www.embedded.oti.com<br />
Cool::Plex IDE Computer Associates www.ca.com<br />
JBuilder Handheld Express Borland www.borland.com/<br />
jbuilder/hhe<br />
@Hand Mobile Solution @Hand www.@hand.com<br />
7 Mobile client development toolkits<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
33<br />
WIRELESS PRIMER
WIRELESS PRIMER<br />
MOBILE DEVELOPER WEB RESOURCES<br />
www.allnetdevices.com/developer/<br />
www.anywhereyougo.com/<br />
http://javamobile.org/<br />
www.idendev.com/<br />
http://mix.motorola.com/<br />
www.symbiandevnet.com/<br />
http://java.sun.com/products/j2mewtoolkit<br />
www.palmos.com/developers/<br />
http://developers.rim.net/<br />
www.nttdocomo.com/i/java/index.html<br />
8 Mobile developer resource links<br />
thin client-side applications to communicate<br />
with an external application server. Communication<br />
techniques include using raw TCP or<br />
UDP datagram transports, or, in some instances<br />
an HTTP session, to transfer data to and from an<br />
application server. The J2ME, Palm, and<br />
Windows CE programming models all support<br />
TCP and UDP as well as higher-level HTTP sessions<br />
over TCP/IP. If the particular mobile device<br />
platform supports HTTP or SMTP, this opens the<br />
door to possibly employing application-level<br />
transport such as SOAP.<br />
Unfortunately, many <strong>of</strong> these network technologies<br />
are designed to operate over tethered<br />
Internet <strong>con</strong>nections where <strong>con</strong>tinuous, highspeed,<br />
reliable data links are generally assumed,<br />
and therefore have not been adapted to the specific<br />
characteristics <strong>of</strong>ten experienced over <strong>wireless</strong><br />
data <strong>con</strong>nections such as on-again, <strong>of</strong>f-again<br />
link <strong>con</strong>nections based on the distance from the<br />
local <strong>wireless</strong> base station.<br />
The lack <strong>of</strong> application-level transports geared<br />
toward <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>con</strong>nections is a reflection <strong>of</strong> a<br />
much larger void that currently exists. At this time,<br />
there are no common application programming<br />
interfaces geared toward <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>con</strong>nectivity that<br />
have been developed, standardized, and adopted<br />
across major platforms such as EPOC, J2ME,<br />
Palm, RIM, and Windows CE. As a result, s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
developers find themselves having to build applications<br />
for smart phones and PDAs using vendorspecific<br />
SDKs and APIs, many <strong>of</strong> which have been<br />
more closely optimized to work with the unique<br />
characteristics <strong>of</strong> a particular <strong>wireless</strong> technology<br />
type or mobile device platform.<br />
Vendor-specific SDKs will typically support a<br />
particular carrier’s air interface for which that<br />
mobile device is commonly deployed on, as will<br />
be the case with RIM’s Java SDK support <strong>of</strong> GPRS<br />
when it becomes available this fall. J2ME, with<br />
platforms for Palm, RIM, and Windows CE, might<br />
be the best hope for standardization <strong>of</strong> an API for<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> network access across various mobile<br />
platforms. However, this will probably not occur<br />
until the newer 2.5G and 3G technologies have<br />
been deployed and are operating, which will<br />
pave the way for rapid growth in the field <strong>of</strong><br />
mobile platform s<strong>of</strong>tware technologies.<br />
MOBILE SERVER PLATFORM OFFERING COMPANY WEB LINK<br />
iConverse Mobility Platform iConverse www.i<strong>con</strong>verse.com<br />
MobileShift Platform & IDE MShift www.mshift.com<br />
AIRIX Wireless Platform Nextair www.nextair.com<br />
ThinAir Server & SDK ThinAirApps www.thinairapps.com<br />
4thpass Mobile Application System 4thpass www.4thpass.com<br />
Mobile Application S<strong>of</strong>tware Suite Ellipsus Systems www.ellipsus.com<br />
Everypath Mobile Application Platform Everypath www.everypath.<br />
digitalenterprises.com<br />
Air2Web Mobile Internet Platform Air2Web www.air2web.com<br />
Internet Rapid Adaptive Mobile Platform mobileID www.mobileid.com<br />
Vaultus Delivery Platform Mobile Logic www.mobilelogic.com<br />
Covigo Mobile Application Platform Covigo www.covigo.com<br />
2Roam Platform & Toolset 2Roam www.2roam.com<br />
Aether Intelligent Messaging Aether Technologies www.aether.com<br />
Oracle9i Application Server Wireless Edition Oracle www.oracle.com<br />
AirBoss Application Platform Geoworks www.geoworks.com<br />
ColdFusion 5 Allaire www.coldfusion.com<br />
GateWave 2.2 PassCall www.passcall.com<br />
Zy-MobileServer Zyglobe www.zyglobe.com<br />
WebSphere Translation/Transcoder Products IBM www.ibm.com/websphere<br />
Infinite Mobile Delivery Server Infinite www.infinite.com<br />
AirDoc Enterprise Server Arizan www.arizan.com<br />
Mobile Information Server Micros<strong>of</strong>t www.micros<strong>of</strong>t.com/miserver<br />
NarrowCast Server MicroStrategy www.microstrategy.com<br />
Continuum Engine Curious Networks www.curiousnetworks.com<br />
AvantGo Mobile Solution AvantGo www.avantgo.com<br />
9 Mobile application platform product <strong>of</strong>ferings<br />
34 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
5. Enterprise Integration<br />
5<br />
The level <strong>of</strong> integration into the enterprise IS architecture will be<br />
determined by which corporate information <strong>sys</strong>tems and resources<br />
will be linked to a <strong>wireless</strong> front end or channel. Email,<br />
calendaring, employee data, expense reporting,<br />
corporate directory services, databases, and application<br />
servers are all candidates for mobile access. Which<br />
type <strong>of</strong> mobile application is used to implement <strong>wireless</strong><br />
access, whether it’s voice-based, message-based, <strong>wireless</strong> Web,<br />
thin client/server, or small-footprint RDBMS, will quickly define the<br />
enterprise application architecture required for implementation.<br />
One <strong>of</strong> the most important factors to <strong>con</strong>sider when choosing a<br />
mobile application platform is the number <strong>of</strong> data sources (HTTP<br />
or HTML, XML, database, etc.) that it supports out-<strong>of</strong>-the-box.<br />
Other critical points to <strong>con</strong>sider include how much legacy information<br />
will need to be accessed by the mobile user, and what format<br />
this information is in. As noted earlier in this article, a number <strong>of</strong><br />
vendors including Covigo, iConverse, and Mobile ID (see Table 7)<br />
have mobile application products to perform <strong>con</strong>version <strong>of</strong> HTMLbased<br />
material and make it suitable for display on <strong>wireless</strong> devices.<br />
Features commonly found in mobile application platforms include<br />
sub<strong>sys</strong>tem components to generate mobile device markup such as<br />
cHTML, HDML, MML, Palm PQA, and WML; component services for<br />
WAP push; sub<strong>sys</strong>tem interface support to existing database <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
or XML sources; interfaces to mail servers such as Micros<strong>of</strong>t Exchange<br />
Server or Lotus Domino Server; HTML translation services to repurpose<br />
existing <strong>con</strong>tent for display on mobile devices; VoiceXML browsing<br />
and voice-synthesis services; <strong>wireless</strong> messaging support such as<br />
SMS; and in some cases, Java 2 Mobile Edition (J2ME) application provisioning.<br />
Other features in a mobile application platform that can<br />
prove to be important include tools for mobile s<strong>of</strong>tware distribution<br />
and mobile device network management functions, such as those<br />
found in the 4thpass Mobile Application System (MAS).<br />
The type <strong>of</strong> enterprise information sources that are going to be<br />
made available to the mobile user, the type <strong>of</strong> mobile applications<br />
that will be distributed to the mobile user base, and the selection <strong>of</strong><br />
mobile <strong>sys</strong>tem platforms and associated <strong>wireless</strong> technologies are<br />
all key factors to <strong>con</strong>sider when attempting to formulate a <strong>wireless</strong><br />
solution that will work within an existing enterprise. However, there<br />
are many others that are beyond the scope <strong>of</strong> this article including<br />
security (LDAP, SSL, WTLS, etc.), administrating the <strong>wireless</strong> channel/access,<br />
and field trial testing, just to name a few.<br />
Conclusion<br />
Planning and then deploying a solution to provide <strong>wireless</strong><br />
access <strong>of</strong> mission-critical applications or data to mobile users is<br />
challenging. The process <strong>of</strong> researching and developing an architecture<br />
that will fit into an existing enterprise can be made easier if<br />
the project plan is guided initially by the following:<br />
• The mobile device platform and the business applications to be<br />
deployed on or accessed over the device<br />
• The coverage area required by the user base – <strong>of</strong>fice, campus,<br />
national, international<br />
• The upgrade path <strong>of</strong> possible carriers to GPRS, CDMA2000, or<br />
UMTS if a local <strong>wireless</strong> technology is not to be used<br />
• The mobile application technology type – voice, messaging,<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> Web, thin client/server, or small footprint DBMS<br />
• Integration into the enterprise – data sources, legacy <strong>con</strong>tent,<br />
mobile application platform features<br />
Other factors to <strong>con</strong>sider include implementing security over <strong>wireless</strong><br />
<strong>con</strong>nections and field-testing <strong>of</strong> mobile applications. Both topics will be<br />
discussed in a follow-up article to appear in a subsequent issue.<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
35<br />
WIRELESS PRIMER
TRYING TO FIND THE RIGHT WIRELESS E-MAIL<br />
service is <strong>con</strong>fusing. With so many options and features,<br />
how do you make the right choice? Messaging,<br />
broadly defined, includes SMS, instant messaging, paging,<br />
e-mail, voice mail, and faxes. They are essentially communications<br />
between people on many different mediums.<br />
E-mail is the undisputed “king” <strong>of</strong> Internet applications.<br />
For most computer users, checking e-mail has<br />
become a daily routine. With the<br />
advent <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> technology,<br />
checking e-mail while away<br />
from your computer is rapidly<br />
becoming a reality. Millions<br />
today use <strong>wireless</strong> e-mail; it will<br />
be one <strong>of</strong> the most widely used<br />
applications for the <strong>wireless</strong> Internet. However, there are many<br />
different <strong>wireless</strong> e-mail <strong>of</strong>ferings on the market with varied<br />
levels <strong>of</strong> capability. Here’s an overview <strong>of</strong> the basic<br />
classes <strong>of</strong> e-mail service.<br />
Standards for E-Mail<br />
E-mail revolves around two major standards:<br />
POP3 and IMAP. Although POP3 is the most widely<br />
used protocol today, it has some limitations. IMAP<br />
was designed and introduced as a superset <strong>of</strong><br />
POP3, and enhances both message retrieval and<br />
management. In addition to the two standards, Lotus<br />
Notes and Micros<strong>of</strong>t Exchange implement their own<br />
protocols to communicate between client applications<br />
and their proprietary servers.<br />
Wireless POP3 Mail<br />
There are many free solutions for <strong>wireless</strong> POP3 e-mail. Most<br />
major e-mail portals allow you to read POP3 mail from another<br />
server, and many have <strong>wireless</strong> access through phones and PDAs.<br />
You have to put up with annoying advertising, potential solicitation<br />
to you and your correspondents, and lots <strong>of</strong> junk mail. Most ISPs<br />
<strong>of</strong>fer POP3 e-mail, so any open portal like Yahoo!, Excite, Hotmail,<br />
or NotWired can provide you with POP3 e-mail access with a WAP<br />
phone or PDA (e.g., a Palm or PocketPC).<br />
Accessing <strong>wireless</strong> e-mail with your WAP phone can get expensive,<br />
especially when you’re paying for air time. Alternatively, there are e-mail<br />
clients on more advanced devices, such as Palm and PocketPC, that can<br />
read POP3 directly. Device limitations <strong>con</strong>strain the size <strong>of</strong> e-mail that<br />
can be read and stored on the device, but these applications allow you<br />
to work on e-mail even when dis<strong>con</strong>nected from the Internet.<br />
Using POP3 has an inherent limitation. E-mail that’s “popped”<br />
<strong>of</strong>f the mail server resides in a client machine/device, so people<br />
who read e-mail from work and home can have e-mail in two<br />
places. Therefore, most people <strong>con</strong>figure se<strong>con</strong>dary readers such as<br />
a <strong>wireless</strong> device or HTML e-mail access to leave e-mail on the<br />
POP3 server. Then when they get to their primary workstation, email<br />
can be fetched from the e-mail server, and managed locally<br />
with e-mail s<strong>of</strong>tware such as Outlook, Eudora, Notes, Netscape<br />
WIRELESS E-MAIL<br />
by Kevin Clark<br />
Bye Bye POP3,<br />
Hello IMAP!<br />
Mail, or others. Once e-mail is fetched from the e-mail<br />
server, it’s no longer accessible from <strong>wireless</strong> devices<br />
without some creative solutions.<br />
WIRELESS E-MAIL WITH DESKTOP COMPONENTS<br />
Some interesting solutions arose to access e-mail on a<br />
workstation from a <strong>wireless</strong> device. One is that you can<br />
install a s<strong>of</strong>tware component on your desktop that will<br />
periodically read your e-mail<br />
and then forward the new e-mail<br />
to your <strong>wireless</strong> device. Any<br />
actions on your device will also<br />
forward changes to be updated<br />
on your desktop. This solution<br />
works great as long as your desktop<br />
is not a laptop that travels with you, which is the case with<br />
most mobile pr<strong>of</strong>essionals.<br />
CORPORATE WIRELESS E-MAIL<br />
Point solutions using desktop components made<br />
their way into the corporate environment.<br />
Organizations <strong>con</strong>sider enterprise solutions that<br />
allow users with laptops to manage e-mail even<br />
when their laptops are “in the bag.” Solutions are<br />
installed onto corporate servers and allow external<br />
users to access e-mail with a <strong>wireless</strong> device. RIM<br />
and Motorola are well-known brands for this marketplace.<br />
This solution works well for corporate<br />
clients, but not for the majority <strong>of</strong> users accessing e-mail<br />
through an ISP.<br />
Wireless IMAP E-Mail<br />
What if you could store all your e-mail in one place and manage it<br />
with multiple devices, through the Internet, using native desktop<br />
applications such as Outlook or Netscape and/or using a simple WAP<br />
phone or a PDA? No more synchronization or s<strong>of</strong>tware to install!<br />
Enter NotWired’s IMAP e-mail service. Introduced in beta in<br />
August, NotWired is a large-scale public IMAP server with added value<br />
applications called groupware. It allows you to centralize all POP3 and<br />
IMAP e-mail into one location and utilize standard IMAP e-mail readers<br />
to manage your e-mail. If you delete something on your <strong>wireless</strong><br />
device, it will be removed from your laptop after invoking a quick<br />
update command that all IMAP mail client s<strong>of</strong>tware applications provide.<br />
Therefore, the same e-mail you deleted or moved on your cell<br />
phone will be synchronized automatically on your laptop. Powerful<br />
group features such as scheduling, calendars, and task and <strong>con</strong>tact<br />
management enable you to handle all your <strong>con</strong>tact communications.<br />
IMAP e-mail overcomes the basic limitations inherent with<br />
POP3 e-mail, and provides a standard means for all compliant email<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware programs. Since all e-mail is stored initially on the<br />
server, it will free you from keeping multiple e-mail on different<br />
machines. Various services will allow you to manage e-mail anytime,<br />
anywhere, with all the advantages <strong>of</strong> desktop s<strong>of</strong>tware and all<br />
the mobility <strong>of</strong> cell phones and PDAs. The best <strong>of</strong> both worlds!<br />
Kevin Clark is president and CEO <strong>of</strong> NotWired, Inc. kevin.clark@notwired.com @<br />
36 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
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M-COMMERCE: WIRELESS CRM<br />
by<br />
Andrew Martyn<br />
Illustrations by<br />
Lars Vegas Nielsen<br />
Andrew Martyn is director <strong>of</strong> business<br />
development for WorldManuals.<br />
@<br />
andrew.martyn@worldmanuals.com<br />
As mobile-communications<br />
markets<br />
mature, the nature <strong>of</strong><br />
competition between<br />
mobile operators is changing from a focus on<br />
attracting new customers at any cost, to competing<br />
for the same customers. This calls for an investment<br />
in customer education and support.<br />
Operators in many Western mobile phone<br />
markets are changing their business focus<br />
as a result <strong>of</strong> fundamental changes in the<br />
mobile communications landscape – a slowing in<br />
new customer growth and increased local market<br />
competition. In most Western mobile markets,<br />
new customer acquisition has significantly slowed<br />
as penetration levels for mobile phone ownership<br />
in some countries climbs above 70%. In many<br />
competitive markets, operators are currently faced<br />
with a decline in average revenue per customer.<br />
Prices for traditional products such as voice and<br />
simple messaging are being eroded as new competitors<br />
enter local markets.<br />
These market characteristics require new strategies<br />
from operators. New focuses include retaining<br />
high-value customers,<br />
increasing sales<br />
<strong>of</strong> value-added services,<br />
improving customer service, and adopting CRM<br />
processes and technologies. In order to maintain<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>it margins in the sluggish market, operators are<br />
also focused on reducing operating costs.<br />
There’s a hope that new technologies will enable<br />
a broader gamut <strong>of</strong> products and services, expanding<br />
the size <strong>of</strong> the telecommunications market. The<br />
development <strong>of</strong> new products and services (based<br />
on improved mobile Internet, positioning, and<br />
device <strong>con</strong>vergence) provides an opportunity for<br />
operators to expand their share <strong>of</strong> the <strong>con</strong>sumer’s<br />
wallet. The 2.5 and 3G licensing and infrastructure<br />
investments being made around the globe are evidence<br />
that operators are betting on the potential<br />
revenue growth from these new products and services.<br />
Operators are not certain to secure all <strong>of</strong> this<br />
growth, as third-party service providers can provide<br />
mobile Internet–based services that are operator<br />
independent – such as the new generation <strong>of</strong><br />
mobile-enabled Internet portals.<br />
In this environment operator success will<br />
depend on achieving some key outcomes:<br />
• Deploying successful and timely new technology<br />
38 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
• Improving<br />
operational<br />
efficiency in the<br />
short term<br />
• Retaining the primary<br />
service-provider relationship<br />
with high-value customers<br />
• Getting customers to use more<br />
services more <strong>of</strong>ten<br />
What About the Customers?<br />
Operator strategies to introduce more sophisticated<br />
services make good business sense, but an<br />
assumption is that mass-market customers will<br />
demand and use new products and services. Given<br />
the financial commitments to network upgrades and<br />
spectrum licensing, operators have a limited time to<br />
introduce and achieve mass-market adoption <strong>of</strong> the<br />
new services they’re betting on. In previous planned<br />
technology revolutions, forecasts <strong>of</strong> new service takeup<br />
have, in hindsight, always been highly optimistic.<br />
The most direct comparison is the wireline broadband<br />
Internet market, where slow customer uptake<br />
has caused the majority <strong>of</strong> providers to significantly<br />
change their business plans or go out <strong>of</strong> business.<br />
This presents a challenge for mobile operators<br />
as the speed <strong>of</strong> customer uptake could mean business<br />
success or failure. The challenge for operators<br />
– given that they succeed in launching their new<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
technology platforms (which is<br />
already looking difficult) – is<br />
to overcome the normally<br />
lengthy “early-adopter”<br />
phase <strong>of</strong> new-product life<br />
cycles to achieve faster<br />
returns on their already committed<br />
investments.<br />
With the new market forces and<br />
impending technological revolution<br />
in the industry, the success<br />
<strong>of</strong> mainstream mobile operators rests on<br />
customers using their new value-added services<br />
more <strong>of</strong>ten.<br />
There are three major challenges to operators<br />
successfully stimulating customer take-up <strong>of</strong> new<br />
and complex products and services:<br />
1. Development and provision <strong>of</strong> valuable products<br />
and services to drive demand: Changing customer<br />
behavior requires moving them from their<br />
current product comfort zone into new territory.<br />
People are by nature resilient to change, and<br />
mass-market customers are reluctant to try new<br />
products unless they feel compelled through<br />
personal benefits. The challenge for operators is<br />
not to develop or provide all new value-added<br />
services themselves, but to bundle available services<br />
in a way that customers find valuable.<br />
Gone are the days when the operator had a<br />
monopoly on providing services on their network.<br />
With the mobile Internet, the ability for<br />
SUPPORTING<br />
MOBILE<br />
CUSTOMERS’<br />
USE OF<br />
NEW AND<br />
ADVANCED<br />
PRODUCTS<br />
PRESENTS AN<br />
OPPORTUNITY<br />
FOR<br />
OPERATORS<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
39<br />
M-COMMERCE: WIRELESS CRM
M-COMMERCE: WIRELESS CRM<br />
“...the success <strong>of</strong> mainstream mobile<br />
operators rests on customers using their<br />
new value-added services more <strong>of</strong>ten”<br />
anyone to provide mobile applications directly<br />
to end users becomes easier. To bundle services<br />
for customers requires an understanding <strong>of</strong><br />
their needs, and skill in enabling access to<br />
these services. To attain the greatest value<br />
from customers, operators need to be the preferred<br />
mobile applications aggregator competing<br />
with other aggregators <strong>of</strong> Internetbased<br />
services (such as the traditional<br />
Internet portals). Operators are in a good<br />
competitive position to achieve this, provided<br />
they can actively migrate their customers<br />
from traditional products as they upgrade to<br />
Internet-enabled devices.<br />
2. High degree <strong>of</strong> product and service usability<br />
to eliminate barriers to use: The products and<br />
services described also need to deliver the<br />
value they claim. There has been a great deal<br />
<strong>of</strong> commentary about the hype and early disappointment<br />
<strong>of</strong> WAP. This type <strong>of</strong> experience<br />
can be damaging for operators, as customers<br />
may be reluctant to invest their time and<br />
money in trying other new services. Operators<br />
need to screen products and services from<br />
suppliers and providers, and bundle the highest<br />
quality ones for their customers.<br />
An added degree <strong>of</strong> complexity that creates<br />
usability barriers is the interdependence <strong>of</strong><br />
different elements in the product bundle –<br />
hardware, s<strong>of</strong>tware, access, and services. For<br />
example, the <strong>con</strong>figuration process to access<br />
WAP services is different on each device and<br />
for each operator. Only an experienced user<br />
will feel comfortable enough to attempt this<br />
<strong>con</strong>figuration. This type <strong>of</strong> complexity<br />
demands personalized customer support, and<br />
requires operators to make their product and<br />
service <strong>of</strong>ferings simple for customers to<br />
understand.<br />
3. Active customer education and support when<br />
using new products and services: Customer<br />
education and support are essential for products<br />
and services. The required customer<br />
behavioral shift is as important as the technology<br />
paradigm shift for operator success. It’s<br />
helpful to reflect on how product organizations<br />
deal with the challenges <strong>of</strong> customer<br />
education and support now. Marketing and<br />
support material is generally distributed<br />
together with products, allowing customers to<br />
teach themselves how to use the devices, and<br />
as a reference for product support. Given the<br />
large numbers <strong>of</strong> possible new services,<br />
reliance on this methodology is limited.<br />
Customers are faced with multiple sets <strong>of</strong><br />
printed instructions written from single product<br />
perspectives and different product support<br />
help desks. This nonintegrated approach<br />
will only add to customer <strong>con</strong>fusion.<br />
Operators should strive to provide integrated<br />
support for the range <strong>of</strong> products and services<br />
they bundle – from a customer perspective.<br />
Here’s where the opportunity for operators lies.<br />
Mass-market customers see support from operators<br />
as important, and buy from organizations they’re<br />
satisfied with. Providing a higher level <strong>of</strong> product<br />
education and proactive support will increase the<br />
use <strong>of</strong> services and maximize the success <strong>of</strong> customers<br />
who trial value-added products and services.<br />
To provide a higher level <strong>of</strong> support, operators<br />
must simplify the complex view <strong>of</strong> product-support<br />
information and account for the interactions<br />
between different products. This is essential for not<br />
only their customers to use self-help support, but for<br />
their support staff to provide assistance to customers.<br />
Providing Better Product Support<br />
Operators have the opportunity to develop a<br />
better support infrastructure based on their existing<br />
channels (but also using mobile devices),<br />
paving the way for a paradigm shift in the wider<br />
product-support industry. References to other<br />
products including the s<strong>of</strong>tware industry are helpful,<br />
given the similarity <strong>of</strong> challenges faced and the<br />
solutions provided to customers.<br />
The remainder <strong>of</strong> this article focuses on some<br />
<strong>of</strong> the opportunities to improve the way the mobile<br />
industry supports its customers, based on technology<br />
that enables the following principles:<br />
• Proactive education <strong>of</strong> customers: Using many<br />
commercial voice-mail <strong>sys</strong>tems is easy. Why?<br />
When you first access the <strong>sys</strong>tem, it knows that<br />
you’re a new user and have not <strong>con</strong>figured the<br />
service. The <strong>sys</strong>tem provides an audio guide<br />
that steps you through <strong>con</strong>figuration, then<br />
<strong>of</strong>fers a tutorial on general use. When using the<br />
product, help is accessible within the <strong>sys</strong>tem.<br />
Mobile devices with increasing display capabilities<br />
provide the opportunity for quick-start<br />
tutorials and stepped <strong>con</strong>figuration for products<br />
and services (including the device, customized<br />
to include the interaction with the specific<br />
operator’s services).<br />
Device manufacturers and operators should<br />
seek to integrate their support information into<br />
a common product-support architecture that<br />
allows the presentation <strong>of</strong> basic <strong>con</strong>figuration<br />
and tutorials. Customers will then have access<br />
to a more sophisticated product-education <strong>sys</strong>tem<br />
than today’s numerous nonintegrated<br />
instruction manuals.<br />
• Self-help support should be better than printed<br />
manuals: Using the same support infrastructure,<br />
operators have the opportunity to provide<br />
a sophisticated self-help channel accessible on<br />
the mobile device. Product manuals and user<br />
guides are currently distributed as printed material,<br />
adding a huge cost to the industry. Digital<br />
production <strong>of</strong> product-support information provides<br />
a number <strong>of</strong> benefits over printed material.<br />
It allows search capability such as that provided<br />
within many s<strong>of</strong>tware products – “press F1<br />
for help.” It also allows interactivity (important<br />
in self-help), as it creates a higher level <strong>of</strong><br />
40 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
engagement for the customer. And effective selfhelp<br />
provides immediate support, without having<br />
to find a printed manual or wait on a call<br />
center line. Internet-based mobile-product support<br />
that’s interactive, with visual references, can<br />
be provided as a first level <strong>of</strong> support on mobile<br />
devices. Integrated access to se<strong>con</strong>d-level assisted<br />
support when escalation is required can be<br />
provided using voice or instant messaging.<br />
• Intelligent support integrates dependencies<br />
between products and services: Supporting a<br />
customer’s access to a WAP portal or <strong>con</strong>figuring<br />
mobile e-mail requires information about<br />
the device they have, the operator they use, and<br />
their portal or e-mail service provider. Digital<br />
product-support information management<br />
allows easier integration <strong>of</strong> product-support<br />
material. For example, the customer’s personalized<br />
online handset support guide can incorporate<br />
all <strong>of</strong> the operator’s specific settings and<br />
services – relieving the need to refer to multiple<br />
information sources. The dependencies in traditional<br />
user manuals are not integrated. In a<br />
device user guide, for example, the instructions<br />
might read: “refer to your local network operator<br />
for voice mailbox number.”<br />
• Use customer-support feedback: Logging customers’<br />
inquiries, whether through self-help as<br />
described above, or in assisted support channels,<br />
will help product development groups<br />
understand how to improve products, leading<br />
to a higher degree <strong>of</strong> customer satisfaction.<br />
Support organizations can also use information<br />
to provide preemptive support for customers in<br />
situations shown to be problematic. When support<br />
information is digital, it becomes easy to<br />
track details such as which customer accessed<br />
which help topic for a certain product.<br />
• Support should be personalized based on product<br />
and service ownership/use: Many operators<br />
have inadequate records <strong>of</strong> the products and<br />
services their customers use – particularly<br />
devices or other third-party supplied products.<br />
As the computer industry has found, interaction<br />
between products is important in providing<br />
effective support. Records <strong>of</strong> customer product<br />
ownership is an important precursor to providing<br />
proactive support and better product education,<br />
as well as a richer support experience.<br />
• The assisted support experience should be the<br />
same regardless <strong>of</strong> the support channel: It’s rare<br />
for organizations to provide true multichannel<br />
customer support that’s <strong>con</strong>sistent and based<br />
on the same information in each channel.<br />
Product support for mobile customers is provided<br />
by operators through call centers, on their<br />
Web site, and in retail or dealer stores. Access to<br />
common customer and product information is<br />
required to provide high-quality assistance and<br />
<strong>con</strong>sistent support, regardless <strong>of</strong> the channel.<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
• Use technology to enable all <strong>of</strong> the above points:<br />
In each <strong>of</strong> the above points, technology has<br />
played a part in enabling improvements to support<br />
processes. Many opportunities exist for<br />
support organizations to improve their service<br />
levels using technology. For example, call-center<br />
agents are now able to respond to a customer’s<br />
WAP-access <strong>con</strong>figuration need by<br />
sending a coded SMS to the customer’s handset.<br />
This removes the possibility <strong>of</strong> user error and<br />
reduces the need for manual <strong>con</strong>figuration by<br />
the customer.<br />
Technology should be used to improve<br />
processes and provide new ways <strong>of</strong> supporting<br />
customers using richer data to mobile devices.<br />
Numerous CRM providers are developing mobile<br />
CRM and support tools for use across all industries.<br />
It’s important that mobile operators take a<br />
lead in <strong>of</strong>fering mobile CRM to their own customers;<br />
if proven successful it will stimulate<br />
other companies with customer relationships,<br />
and that means more traffic on networks.<br />
The parallel with the computing and s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
industry has already been made. However, <strong>con</strong>sider<br />
the following analogy by way <strong>of</strong> a summary<br />
<strong>of</strong> where product support for mobile communications<br />
is headed.<br />
A user <strong>of</strong> a standard computer s<strong>of</strong>tware package<br />
is able to access the first level <strong>of</strong> product help<br />
within the s<strong>of</strong>tware program itself. By pressing F1<br />
for help, the user accesses a friendly searchable<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem, sophisticated enough that most product<br />
“help” questions can be solved using self-help.<br />
Live agent-assisted support channels are largely<br />
limited to corporate users who pay for the privilege.<br />
In the mobile future, mobile devices are computers<br />
and operators similar to s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
providers. Self-help will evolve to be a standard<br />
first-level support – to the benefit <strong>of</strong> both support<br />
organizations and customers.<br />
Accelerating the mass adoption <strong>of</strong> new mobile<br />
services demands better product education for<br />
customers and a support infrastructure that better<br />
mirrors the products and services and how<br />
the customers will use them. Mobile Internet<br />
technology will enable new ways <strong>of</strong> educating<br />
and supporting customers. This will require the<br />
digitization <strong>of</strong> product-support information,<br />
which can also provide mobile operators with<br />
efficiency gains in their businesses now.<br />
similar to s<strong>of</strong>tware providers”<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
devices are computers and operators<br />
“In the mobile future, mobile<br />
41<br />
M-COMMERCE: WIRELESS CRM
It’s interesting to see that Europe is ahead <strong>of</strong> the United States in<br />
at least one technology area – mobile telephones. Not only are they<br />
ahead, but I feel that the lead is by a few light years, although in<br />
reality it’s closer to 18 months (and hopefully shrinking).<br />
BACK IN THE AUTUMN OF 1998, WHEN I LIVED IN<br />
California, I was really proud <strong>of</strong> my analog Motorola<br />
StarTAC cell phone. Really small and very cool, it<br />
was, literally, state-<strong>of</strong>-the-art. At that time there were a few<br />
annoying issues with the level <strong>of</strong> service. The quality was<br />
generally bad (flashbacks to 300-baud modems), and<br />
roaming was not a wonderful experience. When it was possible,<br />
the local calls in the town<br />
where you were roaming were<br />
charged as two long-distance<br />
calls – one from the town you<br />
were calling from to your hometown,<br />
and another from your<br />
hometown to the town where you<br />
were roaming. But you had <strong>con</strong>nectivity, and you loved that.<br />
During the summer <strong>of</strong> 1999 I moved to Paris and became one<br />
more customer <strong>of</strong> GSM phones. I had not really given a thought as<br />
to what to expect, and aside from the fact that the transmission<br />
quality was superior, the experience as a whole didn’t make much<br />
<strong>of</strong> an impression. That is, until I made a trip to<br />
another town in France where I experienced full<br />
coverage. The best part was when I got my bill –<br />
no roaming charges.<br />
Things got even better when I traveled to<br />
other countries on this side <strong>of</strong> the pond. It was as<br />
if I had gone from one corner in San Francisco to<br />
the next. Of course when I got the bill I was not<br />
as happy, as I had been charged the leg from<br />
France to wherever I was. But it was totally transparent<br />
and that was the amazing thing. I could<br />
be in Cape Town or in Brussels and you could<br />
reach me just by ringing my French number. I<br />
had to do nothing more than turn on the phone.<br />
The other great feature that proved a lifesaver<br />
more then once was the ability to <strong>con</strong>nect my<br />
mobile phone to my laptop computer. This way I<br />
could send those urgent e-mails while in the taxi<br />
on the way to the airport.<br />
Being at a decent level within the bureaucracy<br />
<strong>of</strong> my company, I have to travel on a regular basis<br />
back to HQ in California. During what I call my<br />
quarterly inspections, it’s been interesting to see<br />
how slowly things have evolved in America. It was hilarious<br />
to witness when, a couple <strong>of</strong> years ago, AT&T announced their<br />
W-OPINION<br />
by Peter Zadrozny<br />
Light Years Ahead<br />
GSM phones in Europe<br />
Peter Zadrozny is the founding editor and editor-in-chief <strong>of</strong> WebLogic Developer’s Journal. When he is not working on the magazine,<br />
he spends his time on his real job as BEA’s chief technologist for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.<br />
new plan based on minutes anywhere in the U.S. – a really big deal,<br />
but a few years late compared to Europe.<br />
Because <strong>of</strong> my regular trips to the U.S., in spring 2000 I was<br />
entitled to a Motorola tri-band phone. Again, this was really cool.<br />
Now, not only could I be well <strong>con</strong>nected everywhere in Europe, the<br />
Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australia, but also that mecca <strong>of</strong><br />
archaic analog phones called the United States.<br />
By the way, I have yet to see a pager or beeper in<br />
Europe. Here you use SMS. This is what the kids use<br />
instead <strong>of</strong> talking on the phone, as it’s a lot cheaper to<br />
send SMS messages, well within the budget <strong>of</strong> their<br />
allowances.<br />
Europe also managed to get ahead <strong>of</strong> the game on the<br />
marketing <strong>of</strong> mobile technologies, and outmarketed the<br />
masters <strong>of</strong> marketing in the U.S. Sadly enough they did<br />
this with WAP, which was by all<br />
means inflated to the maximum<br />
by the “marketroids.” The levels<br />
<strong>of</strong> expectations set by them<br />
were totally unreasonable for a<br />
first cut <strong>of</strong> a new technology:<br />
slow <strong>con</strong>nections and not very<br />
interesting <strong>con</strong>tent that never got close to those high expectations.<br />
A case <strong>of</strong> self-inflicted wounds and, in my mind, a<br />
<strong>con</strong>tributor to the fall <strong>of</strong> the industry. But even so, I can<br />
still <strong>con</strong>nect from my phone and check the weather in<br />
Oslo and the stock market in New York, and transfer<br />
money from one account to another.<br />
The reason I say that Europe is light years ahead is that<br />
it’s not only me with my fancy tri-band WAP-enabled<br />
phone that can <strong>con</strong>sult the stock prices – anyone in<br />
Europe can. All it requires is a 60-Euros phone, which not<br />
only <strong>of</strong>fers dual band and WAP, but is also an FM radio.<br />
The penetration <strong>of</strong> mobile phones throughout Europe<br />
is amazing. From 8-year olds in the playgrounds <strong>of</strong><br />
Helsinki to taxi drivers in Athens, pretty much everybody<br />
has one. It’s not a luxury item used to show <strong>of</strong>f, as is the<br />
case with many Americans, but a true necessity <strong>of</strong> life.<br />
There is definitely a world <strong>of</strong> difference in the U.S. where<br />
the majority <strong>of</strong> mobile phones are still analog and based<br />
on various incompatible technologies. Where the owner <strong>of</strong><br />
the phone has to pay to get a call, similar to the first postal<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem started a couple <strong>of</strong> hundred years ago, when the<br />
receiver <strong>of</strong> the letter had to pay for the service. I still find it<br />
funny when people in America turn on their mobile<br />
phones to make a call.<br />
G3 might not arrive for a while, but GPRS is becoming<br />
available. This means permanent <strong>con</strong>nections and packet<br />
switching rather then circuit switching. Combine this with the<br />
push feature <strong>of</strong> WAP 1.2 and no expectations being set by the<br />
marketroids, and we might again have a technological revolution<br />
very quietly starting in Europe.<br />
z@bea.com @<br />
42 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
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43
INDUSTRY INSIGHT 1: WIRELESS TELECOMS IN AFRICA<br />
Does the much-heralded<br />
“End <strong>of</strong> Distance” necessarily<br />
mean the end <strong>of</strong> geography?<br />
Many leading <strong>wireless</strong><br />
analysts think not.<br />
In many ways,<br />
geography is coming to<br />
mean more, not less.<br />
Stagnation in one part <strong>of</strong><br />
the <strong>wireless</strong> world can well<br />
be matched by remarkable<br />
growth in another. Cultural<br />
factors play a role, as do the<br />
usual interactions <strong>of</strong> politics,<br />
e<strong>con</strong>omics, and technology.<br />
In this month’s “Industry Insight,”<br />
WBT looks at two very different<br />
regions that seem for some reason to<br />
be bucking the trend <strong>of</strong> a general<br />
technology downturn: Africa and Canada.<br />
In his early 20s, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim became fascinated<br />
by mobile phones during a cab ride in Geneva, and they<br />
gradually became his passion. After studying in the UK, he<br />
soon established himself as one <strong>of</strong> the top engineers in the<br />
industry. He now heads up one <strong>of</strong> the most influential<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> carriers in the world’s most<br />
marginalized <strong>con</strong>tinent.<br />
When Mohamed Ibrahim, the<br />
Sudanese-born chairman <strong>of</strong> MSI<br />
Cellular, first <strong>con</strong>templated setting<br />
up a mobile phone company focused on<br />
Africa, he was at least partly driven by a desire<br />
to give something back to the land that had<br />
nurtured him.<br />
But his other reason was far less sentimental.<br />
He was, and remains, <strong>con</strong>vinced<br />
that the world’s most marginalized<br />
<strong>con</strong>tinent <strong>of</strong>fers<br />
one <strong>of</strong> the best business<br />
opportunities around.<br />
For more than three years, Dr.<br />
Ibrahim has backed that belief with a<br />
frenzy <strong>of</strong> activity. When it launched<br />
in 1998, MSI Cellular had only<br />
one network – Uganda’s Celtel.<br />
Today it has operations in<br />
11 countries, with another<br />
three in prepara-<br />
The most pr<strong>of</strong>itable place on<br />
Earth for <strong>wireless</strong> carriers<br />
is also one <strong>of</strong> the least expected<br />
tion, ranging from Egypt to the<br />
Democratic Republic <strong>of</strong> Congo,<br />
and (astonishingly, the most<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>itable) Sierra Leone. From 41,000 GSM<br />
customers at the start <strong>of</strong> 2000, it had 400,000<br />
by mid-2001, as well as 150,000 on fixed lines.<br />
MSI is the largest carrier in two-thirds <strong>of</strong> its<br />
markets. Such bold growth in a poor, insecure,<br />
and disease-fraught <strong>con</strong>tinent, where political<br />
<strong>con</strong>nections <strong>of</strong>ten outweigh technical merit<br />
and currencies are s<strong>of</strong>t, may raise some eyebrows<br />
among skeptics. But Dr. Ibrahim, the<br />
son <strong>of</strong> a modest Nubian cotton <strong>of</strong>ficial who<br />
grew up in Nasser’s Egypt, is <strong>con</strong>vinced that<br />
the risks are overstated and the rewards<br />
underplayed. His instincts have served him<br />
well in the past.<br />
By the 1980s, after his Swiss cab ride had<br />
triggered his fascination, Ibrahim had become<br />
by Mark Turner<br />
44 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
technical director <strong>of</strong> Cellnet, the mobile arm (at<br />
that time) <strong>of</strong> British Telecommunications. But,<br />
frustrated by BT’s “stifling” environment, he left<br />
in 1989 to set up MSI, a telecoms <strong>con</strong>sultancy<br />
house that became a leading player in the newly<br />
burgeoning industry.<br />
Surfing the tidal wave <strong>of</strong> mobile telephony,<br />
MSI grew rapidly, creating Planet, an industrystandard<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware suite, and<br />
advising some <strong>of</strong> the biggest<br />
names across Europe, the<br />
Americas, and Asia. Last year, Mar<strong>con</strong>i bought<br />
MSI for close to $1 billion, and today Ibrahim is<br />
directing his top-level expertise to operations in<br />
a <strong>con</strong>tinent that, while still lagging severely<br />
behind in the information revolution, is seeing<br />
growth that Europe can only dream about.<br />
Unlike in the developed world, mobile networks<br />
in Africa are <strong>of</strong>ten the only means <strong>of</strong> electronic<br />
communication, and demand is immense.<br />
Last year, the African market grew by 50%, with<br />
penetration reaching 10% in some richer countries<br />
such as Gabon.<br />
While e<strong>con</strong>omies are smaller, the percentage<br />
spent on communications is bigger. Dobek Pater<br />
<strong>of</strong> South Africa’s BMI-TechKnowledge says that in<br />
Africa companies spend 5–15% <strong>of</strong> their budgets<br />
on telecoms compared with 1% in, say, Europe.<br />
MSI’s turnover in 2000 was $58 million and it<br />
predicts revenue growth <strong>of</strong> $20 million a month<br />
by the end <strong>of</strong> 2001 – bolstered by Africa’s high<br />
usage rates ($25–$50 a customer per month) and<br />
the expansion <strong>of</strong> prepaid services (now 90% <strong>of</strong><br />
the business, and an important development<br />
in a market where revenue collection is<br />
otherwise difficult).<br />
Some analysts are wary <strong>of</strong> the capital-intensive<br />
nature <strong>of</strong> the business.<br />
“Fourteen children all need feeding<br />
to make them grow (a particular<br />
<strong>con</strong>cern in the current<br />
telecoms climate),” says Adrian<br />
Robinson <strong>of</strong> CDC Capital<br />
Partners. But Ibrahim is<br />
unfazed.<br />
“There’s money willing to go<br />
to Africa,” he asserts, “as long as<br />
it is backed by creditable people.<br />
African telecoms is no place for<br />
opportunists or amateurs,” he told<br />
a recent <strong>con</strong>ference. “To survive<br />
requires a very experienced management<br />
team, a successful record,<br />
and the ability to attract finance.”<br />
Some investors clearly agree. MSI<br />
intends shortly to announce a $100million<br />
equity financing deal,<br />
adding to $300 million already<br />
raised (and invested) through<br />
shareholders such as CDC and<br />
IFC, the World Bank financing<br />
arm, but also more<br />
hard-nosed investors<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
such as Citigroup and AIG. “MSI has outperformed<br />
our expectations,” adds CDC’s Robinson,<br />
who sees a good future for smaller companies in<br />
se<strong>con</strong>d- and third-tier African markets.<br />
MSI’s chairman boasts that his networks<br />
reach operational pr<strong>of</strong>it within six months and<br />
real pr<strong>of</strong>itability within two years. Return on capital<br />
is in excess <strong>of</strong> 30% per annum. “By any yardstick<br />
these projects are more rewarding than in<br />
Europe or North America,” he says.<br />
MSI’s belief in Africa’s potential, which is shared<br />
by some other companies such as MTN and<br />
Vodacom <strong>of</strong> South Africa, and France Telecom, but<br />
is unusual in its singular focus, is also shared by<br />
Miles Morland <strong>of</strong> Blakeney<br />
Management, a specialist African<br />
fund manager. “Africa is both the<br />
most pr<strong>of</strong>itable place in the world for <strong>wireless</strong> carriers<br />
and the fastest growing. This year, Africa<br />
became the first <strong>con</strong>tinent on Earth where mobile<br />
phones outnumber fixed lines,” says Morland.<br />
“Sub-Saharan Africa is also the least competitive<br />
place,” Morland <strong>con</strong>tinues. “A small handful<br />
<strong>of</strong> first-world carriers have African operations as<br />
a tiny sideline but most stay well clear <strong>of</strong> the <strong>con</strong>tinent.<br />
This has left the coast clear for some<br />
extraordinary African entrepreneurs. Mohamed<br />
Ibrahim is in some ways the most extraordinary.<br />
In MSI he has built a company with the best<br />
management in African telecoms, the classiest<br />
list <strong>of</strong> first-world investors, the strongest board,<br />
and the highest standards <strong>of</strong> governance. If you<br />
had to pick the certain survivor in African telecoms<br />
it would be Mo [Mohamed] and MSI.”<br />
But the next few years could pose some interesting<br />
challenges. Although some attractive new<br />
licenses are coming up such as Mozambique,<br />
analysts say that the initial “land-grab” phase is<br />
coming to an end and that a new phase is<br />
approaching, one in which the <strong>wireless</strong> players<br />
try to deepen markets.<br />
At the moment, <strong>of</strong>ten only the two or three<br />
most-populated cities <strong>of</strong> each country are targeted.<br />
Whether the sector can grow at the same pace<br />
further afield remains to be seen.<br />
MSI says that it’s also looking into valueadded<br />
services, and is running a <strong>wireless</strong> Internet<br />
pilot in Congo-Brazzaville. The hope is that while<br />
Europeans have shrugged their shoulders at football<br />
scores on their handsets, in Africa it may be<br />
that mobile phones are the only way to get hold<br />
<strong>of</strong> the latest commodity prices, banking services,<br />
or health care information, making the service<br />
intrinsically more valuable. But that could take a<br />
while to happen, say more skeptical observers.<br />
Nevertheless, given the widespread doubts<br />
surrounding Africa, at a difficult time for telecoms<br />
worldwide, MSI’s rise is highly encouraging.<br />
“We have all suffered from sentiment about<br />
telecoms,” says Mohamed Ibrahim. “But it can<br />
be positive in another way: forcing people to<br />
look for the first time at the business case for<br />
Africa.”<br />
Mark Turner writes for the London-based<br />
Financial Times.<br />
@<br />
mark.turner@ft.com<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
45<br />
INDUSTRY INSIGHT 1: WIRELESS TELECOMS IN AFRICA
INDUSTRY INSIGHT 2: WIRELESS TELECOMS IN CANADA<br />
by<br />
Wireless e-mail, PKI, and even “E2B”<br />
…Canada’s at the forefront <strong>of</strong> them all<br />
Despite some <strong>of</strong> the lowest <strong>wireless</strong> pricing in the world, only<br />
about 25% <strong>of</strong> Canadians own mobile phones. Perhaps it’s this very fact<br />
that has been driving Canada’s rise to its present position as what many would<br />
argue is North America’s <strong>wireless</strong> leader – measured by the availability <strong>of</strong><br />
applications, accessibility <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> infrastructure, and affordability <strong>of</strong><br />
Marta Sandén<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> communications.<br />
Ottawa companies in the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
space raised more than $1.3 billion [all<br />
figures are in U.S. dollars] in venture capital<br />
in 2000, up from just $274 million in 1999.<br />
Zucotto Wireless, Inc., which WBT pr<strong>of</strong>iled in<br />
its <strong>wireless</strong> VC roundup in July (Vol. 1, issue 5,<br />
“Wireless VC Is Alive and Well…”) was one <strong>of</strong><br />
the companies that helped boost that figure<br />
with funding received from Sili<strong>con</strong> Valley. But<br />
it’s only one <strong>of</strong> a whole welter <strong>of</strong> Canadian<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> companies. Innovatech, the<br />
Quebec-based, state-owned VC company<br />
specializing in financing technological innovations,<br />
took 400 business plans to the<br />
screening stage, and made one closing a week<br />
in telecom/<strong>wireless</strong> start-ups. ROI was 52%<br />
and Innovatech has a working capital <strong>of</strong> $350<br />
million and a portfolio <strong>of</strong> 120 companies.<br />
Viable Voice Applications<br />
Of all places, Montreal has turned out to be a hotbed <strong>of</strong><br />
speech technology. “The reason,” explains Claude Vachet,<br />
investment director at Innovatech, “is that more than<br />
100 nationalities with different dialects live in<br />
Montreal. To make <strong>wireless</strong> applications viable<br />
and attractive to the market, you have to<br />
customize<br />
technology<br />
for the companies<br />
and the<br />
people who are<br />
expected to use them.”<br />
Low-cost, real-time voice,<br />
fax, management, and <strong>con</strong>ferencing<br />
services based on Internet Protocol<br />
(IP) such as unified messaging and Webbased<br />
voice IP communications are the ingredients <strong>of</strong><br />
the mission <strong>of</strong> one <strong>of</strong> Innovatech’s start-ups, CESCOM.<br />
According to its president Samir Talhani, this nearly 3-yearold<br />
international carrier and application service<br />
provider “builds virtual bridges between people and<br />
companies in the <strong>wireless</strong> market.” As there are many<br />
Europeans among CESCOM’s partners and customers,<br />
they speak a wide variety <strong>of</strong> languages. CESCOM already exports<br />
its voice technology to mobile operators and traditional companies<br />
in more than 25 countries.<br />
In fact, Canadian listings, combined, make up the largest chunk<br />
<strong>of</strong> non-U.S. stock on the Nasdaq, with more than 150 companies.<br />
Since the end <strong>of</strong> 2000, a new Nasdaq stock exchange opened in<br />
Montreal, too.<br />
A strange thing about Canadian companies is that when they<br />
become big and famous they’re <strong>of</strong>ten <strong>con</strong>fused with Americans,<br />
which irritates Canadians (the Big Brother complex<br />
is deeply rooted). Cognos and Corel are two old<br />
examples, but in the <strong>wireless</strong> sector, the examples<br />
are 724 Solutions, Research in Motion Limited<br />
(RIM), and PixStream. Each <strong>of</strong> these companies, while Canadian,<br />
has seen itself headlined as if it was a U.S. success story.<br />
Wireless Banking and E-Mail<br />
724 Solutions, listed on both the Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock<br />
46 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
Exchange, delivers smart solutions that enable <strong>wireless</strong> banking and<br />
brokerage to financial institutions. They can be used from any handheld<br />
device. Customers include Bank <strong>of</strong> America, Citibank, Wachovia,<br />
Wells Fargo, and the Bank <strong>of</strong> Montreal. Canadian customers use electronic<br />
banking more than any other nation in the world.<br />
RIM is another Ontario-based “mobco” (mobile communications<br />
company), known for its innovative <strong>wireless</strong> e-mail solution for<br />
business – the BlackBerry – a device that AOL now <strong>of</strong>fers to its 30million<br />
subscribers as a <strong>wireless</strong> option within its “AOL Anywhere”<br />
program. [See the article by David Geer elsewhere in this issue <strong>of</strong><br />
WBT.]<br />
Another is PixStream, <strong>of</strong> Kitchener, near Toronto. Although purchased<br />
by Cisco in 2000, and thus strictly speaking now Americanowned,<br />
PixStream – which creates hardware and s<strong>of</strong>tware for digital<br />
video and streaming media – was <strong>con</strong>sidered a “crown jewel” in the<br />
Canadian <strong>wireless</strong> sector by Randy R. Ellis, CEO <strong>of</strong> Canada<br />
Technology Triangle, a science park near Waterloo (not far from<br />
Toronto). PixStream is now the Cisco Video Networking Division.<br />
“Brain Game”<br />
In addition to the University <strong>of</strong> Waterloo, which acts as a reservoir<br />
supplying freshly trained minds to Kitchener and Toronto,<br />
Ontario has 17 other major universities, making its population<br />
the best educated in the world (even better than the Canadian<br />
national average, which is the highest among the OECD countries).<br />
Many <strong>of</strong> the <strong>wireless</strong> companies recruit directly from universities<br />
through a co-op program fathered by the University <strong>of</strong><br />
Waterloo, and exported to as far away as Seattle. (Micros<strong>of</strong>t<br />
employs more graduates from Waterloo than from any other<br />
university in North America.)<br />
“We receive a lot <strong>of</strong> attention from Sili<strong>con</strong> Valley as well,”<br />
explains Jerry Gray, director <strong>of</strong> the University <strong>of</strong> Waterloo.<br />
“Our graduates are attractive. The Valley comes here to take<br />
people, but the companies open their development shops in<br />
Waterloo as well. It’s a kind <strong>of</strong> brain game. Who wins? Who<br />
knows? People gain,” he says.<br />
It may be warmer in California but the social climate is<br />
colder, so Cisco will not be moving its new division from<br />
Kitchener. Canadian knowledge workers are less “footloose”<br />
than others, too; in Sili<strong>con</strong> Valley labor turnover rates are<br />
15–20%, compared to just 5% in Canada.<br />
Ensuring Wireless Trust<br />
Cisco’s largest competitor, Nortel Networks, is Canada’s telecom<br />
giant. But Nortel, like all top telecom and technology companies,<br />
lets smart people with golden ideas go<br />
and start their own businesses. This happens particularly<br />
when a business goes beyond Nortel’s<br />
own business focus, as with the case <strong>of</strong> the<br />
encryption experts, Entrust Technologies.<br />
Ian Curry and Stephen Hillier left Nortel together with a small<br />
group <strong>of</strong> cryptography and security freaks in 1993 to build “a big<br />
gorilla” in public key infrastructure (PKI) s<strong>of</strong>tware.<br />
Realizing that the issue <strong>of</strong> trust was going to become paramount<br />
in a world <strong>of</strong> e-commerce, e-banking, and e-healthcare,<br />
Curry and Hillier were joined by Entrust’s president John A. Ryan<br />
and vice president Brian O’Higgins. Nearly eight years and 1,000<br />
employees later, Entrust Technologies provides worldwide solutions<br />
that make it safe to do <strong>wireless</strong> (and wired) Internet transactions<br />
and communications. The company went public on the<br />
Nasdaq in 1997, and in 2000 was the first company to deliver<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
digital certificates to enable secure <strong>wireless</strong> transactions. Last spring<br />
it launched the encryption <strong>of</strong> WAP transactions.<br />
The company even coined a new acronym, “E2B” (Entrust to<br />
Business). They work with Motorola, Sonera, 3COM, IBM, Nokia,<br />
Telenor, Schlumberger, and RIM for new <strong>wireless</strong> security solutions,<br />
and with NASA as well as American, Canadian, Japanese, and<br />
European banks. Global corporations such as Fedex and Great<br />
Britain’s Royal Mail service are also Entrust clients.<br />
Elvis+Gates = Hill<br />
Montreal is also home to Austin Hill <strong>of</strong> Zero Knowledge. Hill<br />
is a 28-year-old serial entrepreneur with a boyish face like the<br />
young Elvis and charisma like Bill Gates, and is reckoned to<br />
be among Canada’s most promising young business leaders.<br />
After dropping out <strong>of</strong> school at 17<br />
to found his first company,<br />
Cyberspace Data Securities, he,<br />
too, realized the growing importance <strong>of</strong> security, and by<br />
the late 1990s had started Zero Knowledge Systems,<br />
today one <strong>of</strong> North America’s leading developers <strong>of</strong><br />
Internet privacy s<strong>of</strong>tware and security technologies.<br />
“Just think <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> location-based services, <strong>wireless</strong><br />
health care, and tailored <strong>wireless</strong> marketing services,”<br />
explains Hill. “My focus is on defending people’s<br />
integrity and building privacy into the mobile e<strong>con</strong>omy:<br />
with <strong>wireless</strong> devices, it will be a lot to defend.”<br />
Hill attracted some <strong>of</strong> the world’s top cryptographers<br />
to come to Montreal and build Freedom (he<br />
calls it “the mother <strong>of</strong> all privacy <strong>sys</strong>tems”). Zero<br />
Knowledge sells it as a download from their Web site.<br />
Government Help<br />
Canada’s size, large distances, and extremes <strong>of</strong><br />
climate are good reasons to have reliable, cheap,<br />
and <strong>con</strong>venient communications,” says Michael<br />
Binder, assistant deputy minister <strong>of</strong> industry, spectrum,<br />
IT, and communications. “In our spacious<br />
country, <strong>wireless</strong> is a natural necessity,” he adds.<br />
That is perhaps why, even if the infrastructure for<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> technologies in Canada is being built by private<br />
enterprise, the Canadian government’s measures<br />
over recent years have been substantial, as evidenced<br />
by programs with names such as “Connecting Canadians”<br />
and “Closing the Last Mile.”<br />
3G may remain a song <strong>of</strong> the future for Canadians, but Canadian<br />
carriers are busy bridging the present network with 2.5G solutions<br />
such as GPRS. When the range <strong>of</strong> frequencies set aside for 3G is finally<br />
agreed upon by the FCC, then a next-generation device from<br />
Canada will function in the United States and vice versa. But 2.5G<br />
will have to be good enough for the time being.<br />
Marta Sandén works with BrainHeart Capital, Europe’s biggest venture capital fund devoted solely to<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> technologies. She’s editor-in-chief <strong>of</strong> BrainHeart Magazine, a Swedish quarterly, in English,<br />
about people who build <strong>wireless</strong> companies in Sweden and northern Europe.<br />
@<br />
marta.sanden@brainheart.com<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
47<br />
INDUSTRY INSIGHT 2: WIRELESS TELECOMS IN CANADA
WIRELESS VC<br />
by<br />
Tim Bresien<br />
Tim Bresien is a freelance writer covering<br />
investments in the <strong>wireless</strong> communications<br />
sector. He is a former research analyst with<br />
the telecommunications <strong>con</strong>sulting firm <strong>of</strong><br />
Bond & Pecaro, Inc., Washington, DC, and a<br />
c<strong>of</strong>ounder <strong>of</strong> the Telecom Investor Forum,<br />
held annually at SUPERCOMM.<br />
@<br />
bresien@hotmail.com<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
It’s All Fun and Games<br />
(and Data Mining) at JAMDAT Mobile<br />
d<br />
o you remember<br />
Carnac the<br />
Magnificent? One <strong>of</strong><br />
the most enduring segments <strong>of</strong><br />
the pre-Leno Tonight Show was<br />
arguably host Johnny Carson’s<br />
portrayal <strong>of</strong> the mystical<br />
Carnac. His turban and<br />
cloak–wearing character could<br />
divine the answers to yet-to-beasked<br />
questions that were “hermetically<br />
sealed” in envelopes,<br />
and presented to him by sidekick<br />
Ed McMahon. These<br />
“answers” ended up being little<br />
more than seemingly unrelated<br />
words, statements, or names. To<br />
great comedic effect in many<br />
cases, Carson’s Carnac character<br />
would tear open each envelope<br />
se<strong>con</strong>ds after stating his<br />
predicted answer, and the question<br />
would amazingly link them<br />
together.<br />
“Until he gets caught” is an<br />
example <strong>of</strong> one <strong>of</strong> Carnac’s<br />
answers, given after channeling<br />
his mysterious sixth sense. After<br />
opening the envelope and reading,<br />
“How long does a United<br />
States Congressman serve?”<br />
trusted crony McMahon would<br />
once again beat the audience to<br />
unabated laughter. Amazingly,<br />
McMahon would even laugh on<br />
cue when he was the source <strong>of</strong><br />
Multiplayer games developer attracts heavy hitters<br />
Anticipation is a key factor in figuring out what will happen in<br />
the <strong>wireless</strong> industry over the next couple <strong>of</strong> years. As entertainment<br />
migrates to the handset, it’s predicted that revenues from games on<br />
mobile phones will reach $6 billion by 2005. How? Many questions<br />
remain, but there are some strong players joining in to find the<br />
answers.<br />
the ridicule. “Name three people<br />
who sell a lot <strong>of</strong> junk” for<br />
example, preceded by Carnac’s<br />
premonition <strong>of</strong> “Sanford and<br />
Son and Ed McMahon,” referencing<br />
the latter’s ongoing<br />
career as an advertising pitchman.<br />
At this point, “nothing”<br />
might be your answer to “What<br />
the hell does this have to do<br />
with venture capital or the<br />
mobile industry?” And rightfully<br />
so. But be patient.<br />
You know you’ve stayed up<br />
too late channel surfing when<br />
you begin to notice the<br />
infomercial tide coming in.<br />
First it’s a revolutionary kitchen<br />
product or two, followed by a<br />
fortune teller and a would-be<br />
exercise guru. Soon enough, the<br />
only escape from the next turbo<br />
hair removal <strong>sys</strong>tem, weightloss<br />
miracle, pet-therapy product,<br />
hair-growth compound,<br />
greatest hits collection, tooth<br />
whitener, too-hot-for-TV<br />
exposé, or mortgage refinancing<br />
deal <strong>of</strong> the century is to<br />
quickly move on to the next<br />
channel, or to turn <strong>of</strong>f the<br />
power altogether.<br />
Worse yet, if you’re up that<br />
late, there’s a good chance that<br />
the programming options<br />
<strong>of</strong>fered opposite these infomercials<br />
aren’t much better. The<br />
principle at work in the wee<br />
hours is that the networks can<br />
sell an entire 30 minutes to an<br />
advertiser for more than they<br />
could make selling spot advertising<br />
during 30 minutes <strong>of</strong> a<br />
late night B movie or syndicated<br />
rerun. Most <strong>of</strong> the 3 a.m. nightstalkers<br />
are obviously in need <strong>of</strong><br />
lawyers, miracle cures, and psychic<br />
friends; they don’t need<br />
another dose <strong>of</strong> Johnny Carson.<br />
But I might. After seeing a<br />
pitch for his “Favorite Moments<br />
from The Tonight Show” videos,<br />
I now have a new favorite<br />
infomercial. Or to use<br />
the industry lexi<strong>con</strong>,<br />
it’s my favorite form<br />
<strong>of</strong> “paid programming.”<br />
The clips <strong>of</strong><br />
Carnac the<br />
Magnificent made me<br />
recognize just how many<br />
48 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
companies in the <strong>wireless</strong> space<br />
have seemingly come up with<br />
their “answers” before the<br />
appropriate “questions” have<br />
even been presented.<br />
JAMDAT Mobile <strong>of</strong> Los<br />
Angeles is one <strong>of</strong> these companies.<br />
But unlike most, they have<br />
a diversified bank <strong>of</strong> intellectual<br />
capital on their side that should<br />
help them anticipate the hurdles<br />
that the <strong>wireless</strong> industry<br />
will face over the next two to<br />
three years as entertainment<br />
migrates to the handset. And<br />
thus, today’s answers can be<br />
tailored to address tomorrow’s<br />
questions.<br />
Multiplayer Gaming<br />
Mobile games are likely to<br />
be a key <strong>con</strong>sumer-demand<br />
generator, propelling <strong>wireless</strong><br />
operators into the realm <strong>of</strong> revenue-generating<br />
mobile data<br />
services. Remember that short<br />
messaging and stock quotes<br />
aren’t likely to pay <strong>of</strong>f any 3G<br />
license auction debts. At face<br />
value, words such as Snake and<br />
Gladiator might more likely be<br />
the answers Carnac would give<br />
to “name two <strong>of</strong> your grandmother’s<br />
tattoos” than examples<br />
<strong>of</strong> real significance in the<br />
history <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> communication.<br />
But they may one day<br />
achieve a PONG-like stature as<br />
catalysts for the mobile entertainment<br />
industry. (I use the<br />
terms gaming and games interchangeably,<br />
with the understanding<br />
that I’m not referencing<br />
mobile gambling, which is<br />
sure to find its own market in<br />
the years to come.) Snake, an<br />
embedded game that has<br />
resided for several years in<br />
many Nokia phones is fairly<br />
well known, and Gladiator is<br />
JAMDAT’s current multiplayer<br />
hit on the Sprint PCS network.<br />
Yet the population at large<br />
probably doesn’t recognize the<br />
trailblazing importance <strong>of</strong> these<br />
games. Today, multiplayer<br />
applications are serving as the<br />
proving grounds where the bat-<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
tles over revenue sharing,<br />
billing, and handset form factors<br />
are being waged. The<br />
promise <strong>of</strong> multiplayer gaming<br />
is indeed the promise <strong>of</strong> mobile<br />
data in microcosm. “As we see<br />
greater uptake <strong>of</strong> more sophisticated<br />
gaming applications, we<br />
will, in turn, see a decline in<br />
embedded models,” according<br />
to Rupert Reid, lead author <strong>of</strong><br />
the UK-based ARC Group’s<br />
“Mobile Entertainment” report.<br />
PONG Led the Way<br />
PONG, as you’ll recall, was<br />
the Carson-era <strong>con</strong>sole game<br />
that spread like a digital plague<br />
during the mid-’70s. So much<br />
so that the Bresien family<br />
received the deluxe Sear’s version<br />
one Christmas that included<br />
not only PONG, but doubles,<br />
hockey, and soccer (all virtually<br />
indistinguishable variations <strong>of</strong><br />
blips and lines <strong>con</strong>trolled by the<br />
same rotary wheel). The PONG<br />
legacy is sometimes a punchline<br />
and a barometer for all that<br />
is overly simplistic or barren <strong>of</strong><br />
robust visual appeal. But this is<br />
unfair.<br />
PONG defined what is today<br />
a multibillion-dollar industry,<br />
and served as a stepping stone<br />
for those hardware and s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
developers who followed.<br />
Remember also that PONG utilized<br />
a form factor (the television<br />
screen) that was designed<br />
for a far different purpose and,<br />
at one time, there was surely<br />
high skepticism about whether<br />
<strong>con</strong>sumers would allow their<br />
television sets to be turned into<br />
video game terminals. But these<br />
<strong>con</strong>cerns were allayed as PONG<br />
became a hit and proved the<br />
business case for the wildly successful<br />
Atari 2600 video game<br />
<strong>con</strong>sole and the others that followed.<br />
The dynamic nature <strong>of</strong> the<br />
video game industry is not necessarily<br />
native intelligence that<br />
flows freely into allied fields <strong>of</strong><br />
endeavor though. That may be<br />
why we haven’t seen the <strong>con</strong>-<br />
sole video game developers<br />
rushing headlong into the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
space. Generally <strong>con</strong>sidered<br />
a youth-driven (and male)<br />
market, the video game industry<br />
as a whole has unique patterns<br />
<strong>of</strong> development, hardware<br />
life cycles, and hard-to-quantify<br />
x-factors. (If it didn’t, we would<br />
all likely be living in the United<br />
States <strong>of</strong> Atari by now).<br />
When the topic <strong>of</strong> mobile<br />
gaming is raised today, especially<br />
<strong>con</strong>sidering the far-out<br />
launch windows for robust 3G<br />
networks, the subject is sometimes<br />
met with apathy (or better<br />
yet, WAPathy). But this is<br />
usually due to a lack <strong>of</strong> perspective.<br />
Few VCs would be overwhelmed<br />
by thoughts <strong>of</strong> seeding<br />
a pure gaming company.<br />
In fact, even the companies<br />
that produce video games for<br />
Nintendo or Sony PlayStation<br />
<strong>con</strong>soles run from the term.<br />
They refer to themselves as<br />
“interactive entertainment s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
publishers,” and although<br />
they surely have an interest in<br />
seeing their titles running on<br />
every platform, <strong>con</strong>sole, PC,<br />
PDA, and handset in the future,<br />
they won’t wade into uncharted<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> territory without guaranteed<br />
returns.<br />
While it’s true that most <strong>of</strong><br />
today’s mobile handset game<br />
<strong>of</strong>ferings visually resemble<br />
lines, dots, and stick figures,<br />
more compelling <strong>con</strong>tent will<br />
emerge as the hardware and<br />
networks evolve. The research<br />
firm, Datamonitor, predicts that<br />
revenues from games on mobile<br />
phones will reach $6 billion by<br />
2005! Attempting to identify<br />
and solve the issues that need<br />
to be addressed in order to<br />
arrive at those figures isn’t easy,<br />
and will require a diverse<br />
skillset.<br />
Games Are Attracting<br />
Big Players<br />
Born in March <strong>of</strong> 2000, JAM-<br />
DAT Mobile is the progeny <strong>of</strong><br />
the Sprint PCS and eCompanies<br />
AT A GLANCE<br />
JAMDAT Mobile, Inc.<br />
URL: www.jamdat.com<br />
Founded: March 2000<br />
Headquarters: Los Angeles, CA<br />
Chief executive:<br />
Mitch Laskey, CEO<br />
Employees: 35<br />
Industry: Mobile entertainment<br />
services<br />
Primary markets: Wireless<br />
operators, handset, and<br />
infrastructure companies<br />
Products and services:<br />
EUREKA Wireless Data<br />
Mining, MEDiKMobile<br />
Entertainment<br />
Development Kit<br />
Games include: Gladiator,<br />
Home Run Derby, JAMDAT<br />
Golf, JAMDAT Trivia,<br />
Speakeasy, and RiddleMaster<br />
Capital raised: $14 million<br />
Investors: eCompanies<br />
Wireless, Patric<strong>of</strong> & Co.<br />
Ventures, Qualcomm<br />
Ventures, Sun Micro<strong>sys</strong>tems,<br />
Intel Communications Fund<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
49
WIRELESS VC<br />
JAMDAT GAMES<br />
JAMDAT Mobile was founded in<br />
March 2000 with the belief that<br />
next-generation mobile telephone<br />
handsets and networks<br />
will create a massive, global platform<br />
for games and entertainment.<br />
JAMDAT’S product development<br />
strategy is to create<br />
high-quality mobile-entertainment<br />
products that appeal to<br />
the broadest possible user base.<br />
SOURCE: WWW.JAMDAT.COM<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
Wireless incubator in Santa<br />
Monica, California, and has<br />
been further financed by a<br />
group <strong>of</strong> investors who will likely<br />
point the way to a lion’s share<br />
<strong>of</strong> future mobile entertainment<br />
revenues. With the increased<br />
attention paid to J2ME lately,<br />
and the momentum building<br />
behind BREW, you have to be<br />
intrigued by the fact that both<br />
Sun Micro<strong>sys</strong>tems and<br />
Qualcomm have invested in<br />
JAMDAT Mobile. JAMDAT’s first<br />
external funding round was led<br />
by private equity firm Patric<strong>of</strong> &<br />
Co., which counts GoAmerica,<br />
AirNet, and MeshNetworks<br />
among its portfolio <strong>of</strong> companies,<br />
and included the Intel<br />
Communications Fund,<br />
Qualcomm Ventures, and Sun.<br />
There are plenty <strong>of</strong> upstarts<br />
in the gaming field with names<br />
like nGame Limited,<br />
HIPnTASTY, NuvoStudios,<br />
iFone, Pic<strong>of</strong>un, Springtoys,<br />
Riot-E, Unplugged Games,<br />
Indiqu, Froghop, Inc.,<br />
Boxerjam, Digital Bridges, and<br />
FunCaster.com. And as Javaand<br />
BREW-enabled phones hit<br />
the market, the barriers to entry<br />
for new gaming entrants may<br />
actually be lowered, so many<br />
more could appear.<br />
Having trouble envisioning<br />
Hangman and tick-tack-toe generating<br />
$6 billion in the next four<br />
years? They won’t. In much the<br />
same way that PONG served as a<br />
catalyst for the video game<br />
industry, these first-generation<br />
games will create some initial<br />
interest until demand spreads<br />
beyond the early enthusiasts to<br />
the mass market. It will happen.<br />
But on which platform? On<br />
whose network? In which countries?<br />
At what price points? In<br />
which demographic? By which<br />
billing model? Billed by the gaming<br />
minute or billed by the bit?<br />
“There is no one killer application<br />
– <strong>con</strong>sumers need a wide<br />
range <strong>of</strong> compelling <strong>con</strong>tent in<br />
order to be attracted to mobile<br />
data services,” says<br />
Datamonitor analyst Panni<br />
Kanyuk. “Funky, personalized<br />
color applications, with plenty<br />
<strong>of</strong> interactive features delivered<br />
just when and where you want,<br />
it will make it a killer.”<br />
“Carriers believe games are<br />
the first killer applications,”<br />
says Laura Lilyquist, director <strong>of</strong><br />
strategic investments at Sun<br />
Micro<strong>sys</strong>tems, “and Sun wants<br />
to be at the forefront <strong>of</strong> putting<br />
those solutions together. From<br />
a technology perspective, we<br />
know that games will push the<br />
technology limits the hardest.<br />
We want to see what breaks,<br />
where new technologies are<br />
needed, and how we build business<br />
models that work for<br />
everyone.”<br />
Whenever there’s an apparent<br />
sea change within the telecom<br />
industry, a “Wild West”<br />
mentality develops among vendors<br />
who begin to jockey for<br />
positions <strong>of</strong> perceived advantage.<br />
In the <strong>wireless</strong> industry at<br />
large this is evident in many<br />
layers. Just think <strong>of</strong> the competing<br />
standards! Every standards<br />
body and market initiative must<br />
be studied carefully for its<br />
potentially subversive qualities,<br />
but since mobile entertainment<br />
has not yet crystallized into a<br />
bona fide industry, it would be<br />
premature to try and map the<br />
landscape or handicap standards<br />
efforts. Plus, it’s hard to<br />
quantify just how many games<br />
are being developed today for<br />
mobile environments, and for<br />
which platforms.<br />
J2ME and BREW are met<br />
with enthusiasm among the<br />
gaming and entertainment<br />
developer communities, and<br />
you can see that Ericsson,<br />
Motorola, and Siemens are<br />
moving along a similar path<br />
since they announced plans to<br />
define and develop a Universal<br />
Mobile Games Platform in<br />
March. “Club Nokia” was created<br />
to <strong>of</strong>fer customers a point <strong>of</strong><br />
reference for future developments.<br />
The Mobile<br />
Entertainment Forum, formed<br />
in late 2000, announced a<br />
Commercial Standards<br />
Committee this past June to<br />
address the fundamental issues<br />
<strong>of</strong> end-user billing, revenue<br />
sharing, and cross-operator<br />
gaming. They also plan to create<br />
a task force charged with<br />
pursuing standard pricing models.<br />
But make no mistake – this<br />
sector is still in its infancy. And<br />
you can never discount<br />
Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s yet-to-be-launched<br />
Stinger project. So where does<br />
that leave JAMDAT Mobile?<br />
JAMDAT’s Positioning<br />
The company has a dual<br />
approach to this nascent market.<br />
They’ll <strong>con</strong>tinue to push<br />
forward as a game publisher,<br />
capitalizing on their early success<br />
and the game publishing<br />
acumen <strong>of</strong> the company’s management<br />
team. CEO Mitch<br />
Lasky is the former vice president<br />
<strong>of</strong> worldwide studios at<br />
Activision, and numerous<br />
members <strong>of</strong> the JAMDAT crew<br />
are Activision alumni as well.<br />
They’ll also <strong>of</strong>fer private label<br />
solutions to help other traditional<br />
game developers enter<br />
the mobile entertainment business<br />
with a minimum amount<br />
<strong>of</strong> risk.<br />
Perhaps more significant to<br />
their investors is JAMDAT’s<br />
focus on data services for <strong>wireless</strong><br />
operators. Their EUREKA<br />
data-mining product provides<br />
carriers with real-time access to<br />
mobile entertainment usage<br />
data. Games from other vendors<br />
can be integrated into the<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem with very little effort. It<br />
stores data in XML format, and<br />
can be integrated into carriers’<br />
existing customer databases<br />
and CRM. Dr. Shumeet Baluja,<br />
the company’s CTO, was formerly<br />
chief scientist at Lycos,<br />
where he was responsible for<br />
the quantitative and qualitative<br />
analysis <strong>of</strong> user behavior,<br />
including data mining and<br />
trend analysis.<br />
50 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
“What drew me to JAMDAT<br />
was the combination <strong>of</strong> gaming<br />
industry experience, technology<br />
strength, and <strong>wireless</strong> carrier<br />
perspective. I didn’t see anyone<br />
else with all three angles,” says<br />
Sun’s Lilyquist “I know that<br />
they’ll be successful by harnessing<br />
all three knowledge bases.”<br />
While other companies may<br />
shop their various “platforms,”<br />
JAMDAT doesn’t even like to use<br />
the term. “The platforms are<br />
J2ME and BREW in our minds,”<br />
according to Austin Murray, the<br />
company’s VP <strong>of</strong> business development,<br />
“and we’re going to<br />
support both.” The majority <strong>of</strong><br />
JAMDAT’s employees are engineers,<br />
and they’re not particularly<br />
interested in using their<br />
resources to code games onto<br />
every new start-up platform<br />
that comes along. “It’s the businessman’s<br />
dream to get in the<br />
middle <strong>of</strong> the revenue stream,”<br />
says CFO Michael Marchetti,<br />
predicting the reasons new<br />
industry players might be<br />
tempted to push their own proprietary<br />
“platforms.”<br />
Predictions for the<br />
Mass Market<br />
When I met with the company<br />
in July, they were <strong>con</strong>tent to<br />
work with today’s <strong>wireless</strong> operators<br />
on revenue-sharing deals<br />
with an eye toward the adoption<br />
<strong>of</strong> J2ME- and BREWenabled<br />
handsets in the near<br />
future. Marchetti, a former VP<br />
<strong>of</strong> Investment Banking at<br />
Merrill Lynch, is a firm believer<br />
that subscription-based models<br />
will eventually prevail. The<br />
JAMDAT approach is to work<br />
within the “cell phone market”<br />
<strong>of</strong> today and migrate toward the<br />
more robust environments that<br />
will emerge over the next couple<br />
<strong>of</strong> years as newer handsets<br />
are deployed.<br />
They launched their WAPbased<br />
Gladiator game with seed<br />
money from eCompanies and<br />
watched it become a hit. Murray<br />
proudly says <strong>of</strong> Gladiator, “We<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
made a hard-core game for<br />
hard-core gamers – the early<br />
adopters.” The company is<br />
studying these users, which now<br />
number more than 850,000, so<br />
they can readily adapt to the<br />
next generation <strong>of</strong> entertainment<br />
<strong>con</strong>sumers when demand<br />
reaches the mass market.<br />
The management team at<br />
JAMDAT is <strong>con</strong>fident that they<br />
understand game adoption and<br />
penetration cycles, having lived<br />
through them at Activision.<br />
What’s more, they recognize<br />
that handsets are replaced<br />
much more rapidly than other<br />
devices, while the average<br />
video-game <strong>con</strong>sole life span is<br />
about five years. Things are<br />
bound to move fast for both<br />
handsets and <strong>con</strong>tent publishers<br />
over the next two years.<br />
As I was writing this article,<br />
another <strong>of</strong> the company’s<br />
games, Golf, was moved to the<br />
top position on Sprint’s game<br />
deck, a sure sign <strong>of</strong> surging<br />
popularity. Sprint PCS also<br />
recently released their first U.S.<br />
handset with a color screen (the<br />
Sanyo SCP-5000).<br />
Speeding the<br />
Development<br />
While games are important<br />
to the company, data mining<br />
and integration within carrier<br />
networks may ultimately separate<br />
JAMDAT from the rest <strong>of</strong> the<br />
pack. Multiplayer games and<br />
cross-platform games are<br />
among the most demanding<br />
types <strong>of</strong> mobile data that we’ll<br />
see in the near future.<br />
Photographs and text messaging<br />
won’t test the limits <strong>of</strong> operator<br />
networks to the same degree.<br />
“JAMDAT represents a strong<br />
player in the mobile entertainment<br />
space and features a tech-<br />
nology roadmap that can significantly<br />
benefit from our Intel<br />
Personal Internet Client<br />
Architecture – a hardware and<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware framework designed to<br />
accelerate the development <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>wireless</strong> Internet applications<br />
and devices,” says Intel<br />
spokesman Daniel Francisco. “As<br />
with all <strong>of</strong> our investment activities,<br />
our goal is to help grow<br />
eco<strong>sys</strong>tems, and with Intel PCA,<br />
our specific aim is to help grow<br />
the <strong>wireless</strong> Internet. Therefore,<br />
we invested in JAMDAT to help<br />
speed the development <strong>of</strong> applications<br />
and devices for the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
Internet.”<br />
It seems that most <strong>of</strong> the Sand<br />
Hill Road venture capitalists in<br />
Sili<strong>con</strong> Valley are still a little gunshy<br />
when it comes to investments<br />
in the “<strong>con</strong>tent” space,<br />
especially after so many dot-com<br />
flameouts. So maybe it makes<br />
perfect sense that the vendor and<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> operator communities<br />
“Compelling <strong>con</strong>tent, whether information or entertainment,<br />
will drive the demand for services, next-generation networks,<br />
handsets, chipsets, and inevitably, more <strong>con</strong>tent”<br />
would take an active, early<br />
investment role with a company<br />
like JAMDAT Mobile. I would<br />
look for this trend to <strong>con</strong>tinue.<br />
Whereas early stage venture capital<br />
firms usually take the initial<br />
risks associated with funding<br />
start-ups, this new <strong>wireless</strong> segment<br />
truly depends on a threeheaded<br />
perspective: the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
operator, the game publisher,<br />
and the infrastructure/handset<br />
manufacturer.<br />
The answer is <strong>con</strong>tent. It<br />
always has been. Compelling<br />
<strong>con</strong>tent, whether information<br />
or entertainment, will drive the<br />
demand for services, next-generation<br />
networks, handsets,<br />
chipsets, and inevitably, more<br />
<strong>con</strong>tent. JAMDAT Mobile and<br />
its impressive group <strong>of</strong><br />
investors may already know<br />
how we get there from here.<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
51
W-TRANSPORTATION<br />
What Has<br />
18 Wheels<br />
and No Wires?<br />
Wireless technology is rapidly changing<br />
the transportation industry<br />
From improving dispatch to avoiding<br />
traffic to locating on-road services to<br />
improving customer service, <strong>wireless</strong><br />
solutions are enabling even small trucking<br />
companies to compete efficiently.<br />
by<br />
Max Stevens-Guille<br />
Max Stevens-Guille is a c<strong>of</strong>ounder and SVP <strong>of</strong><br />
marketing for Maptuit Corporation, a technology<br />
company focusing on the application <strong>of</strong> mapping,<br />
routing, and optimization to both the <strong>con</strong>sumer<br />
and business markets.<br />
@<br />
max@maptuit.com<br />
52 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
While the media is rife with articles<br />
about how <strong>wireless</strong> technology<br />
will impact <strong>con</strong>sumers, little<br />
is said <strong>of</strong> the tremendous impact<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> on various industries.<br />
The transportation market, in<br />
particular, has been given short shrift from the<br />
press, yet it has pioneered all sorts <strong>of</strong> communications<br />
including two-way radios, <strong>wireless</strong> data, cell<br />
phones, and GPS-based asset tracking. This notso-sexy<br />
application <strong>of</strong> <strong>wireless</strong> technology has<br />
changed the industry from the way in which drivers<br />
are dispatched, to how information is provided<br />
in real time to drivers in their vehicles, to the way<br />
in which all members in the supply chain from<br />
suppliers to customers are able to monitor<br />
progress.<br />
Amid all the recent furor <strong>of</strong> dot-com mania<br />
and e-business, transportation company goals<br />
(encompassing long-haul trucks, courier, taxi,<br />
service, and delivery vehicles) have remained <strong>con</strong>stant:<br />
improve productivity and vehicle utilization,<br />
retain drivers, and enhance customer satisfaction<br />
while lowering costs and boosting pr<strong>of</strong>its. To<br />
achieve these fundamental goals, transportation<br />
executives are motivated to improve operating<br />
practices to realize benefits in terms <strong>of</strong> time,<br />
money, personnel, and reduced management.<br />
Wireless Internet access has made the transportation<br />
industry more efficient by improving the<br />
3 Cs: <strong>con</strong>nectivity, communication, and collaboration.<br />
At the same time, the Internet has compressed<br />
time, resulting in a sense <strong>of</strong> urgency in the<br />
industry to move quickly or lose business to savvier<br />
competitors. Large transportation companies<br />
have invested millions <strong>of</strong> dollars in well-publicized<br />
technology projects. But these large carriers<br />
make up only a small portion <strong>of</strong> the trucking companies<br />
in the transportation industry. How can<br />
small carriers compete with companies that are<br />
spending millions <strong>of</strong> dollars on technology?<br />
This article provides a brief overview <strong>of</strong> a few<br />
areas in which <strong>wireless</strong> technology is rapidly<br />
changing the transportation market. Clear examples<br />
<strong>of</strong> such changes can be found in <strong>wireless</strong>ly<br />
enabled online marketplaces where capacity is<br />
bought and sold. Wireless technology is also<br />
being used to simplify the dis-<br />
patch process. And when it<br />
comes to improving efficiencies,<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> solutions can be used to<br />
track and trace assets in motion,<br />
to increase customer service,<br />
and optimize resource utilization.<br />
Winning Business<br />
Wirelessly<br />
The primary goal <strong>of</strong> business<br />
is to do business. In the transportation<br />
market, that means<br />
finding shippers that need<br />
goods moved, whether on a<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
ePiNG'S EMERALD<br />
ePiNG's Emerald is an<br />
advanced mobile data terminal<br />
(MDT) that has an eight- line<br />
customizable graphic LCD display.<br />
It's GPS enabled, and<br />
allows drivers two-way communication<br />
with ePiNG<br />
Enterprise taxi dispatching<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware.<br />
long-term <strong>con</strong>tract or shortterm<br />
“one-<strong>of</strong>f” basis. While<br />
more than 85% <strong>of</strong> the LTLs<br />
(Less than a Truckload – multiple<br />
loads to multiple destinations)<br />
in the U.S. are covered<br />
under a <strong>con</strong>tract, (according to<br />
GoLogistics.com, a freight<br />
marketplace), trailers are<br />
empty 10–20% <strong>of</strong> the<br />
time, significantly eroding<br />
productivity and pr<strong>of</strong>itability.<br />
To solve this problem,<br />
many Internet sites<br />
have sprung up to provide<br />
forums for posting<br />
loads and spare capacity to<br />
reduce the number <strong>of</strong> these<br />
empty “deadhead” miles driven.<br />
This is where the Web works<br />
best, providing a communication<br />
environment in which<br />
many parties can participate. Using the Internet,<br />
shippers and carriers can subscribe to services<br />
such as GoLogistics.com, Link Logistics (linklogi.com),<br />
or truckstop.com, all <strong>of</strong> which <strong>con</strong>nect<br />
and foster dialogues between like-minded buyers<br />
and sellers <strong>of</strong> capacity. These sites have the<br />
potential to vastly increase efficiencies in the<br />
transportation business by creating an open<br />
market.<br />
While these freight-matching portals have<br />
changed the way in which desk-bound fleet<br />
managers work, until recently, owner-operators<br />
and others who need to access these services<br />
while on the road were out <strong>of</strong> luck. Wireless<br />
Internet access is changing that. NTE<br />
(www.nte.com), an active transportation<br />
exchange, has a new service that allows drivers to<br />
get more involved in the process <strong>of</strong> finding loads<br />
using commodity WAP phones.<br />
Drivers can use the service to find out background<br />
information such as where each delivery<br />
stop is on a route, and the hours <strong>of</strong> operation <strong>of</strong><br />
the dock. They can make procurement decisions<br />
by accessing a ranking <strong>of</strong> the most pr<strong>of</strong>itable<br />
loads and booking shipments<br />
right from their truck. While not<br />
appropriate for all types <strong>of</strong> carriers,<br />
this new service does<br />
point toward a day when <strong>wireless</strong><br />
Internet <strong>con</strong>nectivity will<br />
enable all members <strong>of</strong> a company<br />
to collaborate.<br />
Pros and Cons <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Wireless Internet<br />
The transportation industry<br />
has helped pioneer <strong>wireless</strong> data<br />
<strong>con</strong>nectivity. Early <strong>wireless</strong> data<br />
networks, used by public safety<br />
organizations, taxi fleets, and<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
53<br />
W-TRANSPORTATION
W-TRANSPORTATION<br />
MVPc IN-VEHICLE<br />
COMPUTER<br />
• Truckload Carriers can use the<br />
MVPc's in-vehicle computing<br />
power to automate Circle <strong>of</strong><br />
Service updates, improve ETA<br />
reporting and customer service,<br />
and meet industry regulations<br />
in time-efficient ways.<br />
• Private Fleets can lower operating<br />
costs with the addition<br />
<strong>of</strong> third-party MVPc applications<br />
that comply with regulatory<br />
requirements, such as<br />
driver hours <strong>of</strong> service. GPS<br />
allows private fleets to automate<br />
load status updates<br />
that improve internal customer<br />
service and monitor<br />
state line crossings for accurate<br />
IFTA fuel-tax reports.<br />
• Third-Party Logistic (3PL)<br />
Providers can differentiate<br />
their dedicated cartage services<br />
by adding custom or<br />
third-party applications that<br />
promote productivity.<br />
Adopting the MVPc as the<br />
industry standard in-vehicle<br />
platform will allow 3PLs to<br />
expand the information<br />
service they <strong>of</strong>fer shippers.<br />
• Less-than-Truckload (LTL)<br />
Carriers can use the MVPc to<br />
differentiate their fleet and<br />
the services they provide for<br />
each customer. It can collect<br />
and integrate data at pick-up<br />
and delivery points to shorten<br />
the accounts-receivable<br />
cycle. In-vehicle processing<br />
power also provides the flexibility<br />
to effectively manage a<br />
mobile workforce.<br />
overnight couriers, were built on top <strong>of</strong> private<br />
voice networks. This has evolved in the last decade<br />
to a proliferation <strong>of</strong> dedicated <strong>wireless</strong><br />
data networks using the public, unlicensed<br />
radio spectrum. Those networks,<br />
namely Mobitex, ARDIS, and<br />
CDPD, are packet-switched – the<br />
mobile computer does not have to<br />
dial in, but is always <strong>con</strong>nected to<br />
the network. The data rate <strong>of</strong> these<br />
networks varies from 9,000 to 19,000<br />
bits/s – enough to communicate a<br />
day’s schedule or a set <strong>of</strong> directions<br />
in about one-fifth <strong>of</strong> a se<strong>con</strong>d.<br />
Coverage has been steadily<br />
increasing to greater than 95% <strong>of</strong><br />
urban U.S. population areas.<br />
Unfortunately terrestrial communications<br />
simply don’t work<br />
very well outside <strong>of</strong> major urban<br />
areas. Points west <strong>of</strong> the Mississippi are particularly<br />
troublesome. Truckload companies that<br />
crisscross the nation have solved this problem<br />
through hybrid <strong>wireless</strong> networks that blend<br />
satellite- and terrestrial-based communications<br />
to achieve maximum coverage. Aether’s<br />
MobileMAX2 dual-mode <strong>sys</strong>tem operates at 300<br />
bits/s when using a satellite and at higher speeds<br />
over terrestrial networks. While satellite coverage<br />
is universal, it’s unfortunately limited to a line-<strong>of</strong>sight<br />
between the vehicle and the orbiting satellite.<br />
Thus it won’t work in urban “canyons” or<br />
from beneath loading docks with ro<strong>of</strong>s.<br />
These sophisticated hybrid communication<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems provide drivers with mobile data terminals<br />
that <strong>of</strong>fer a number <strong>of</strong> ancillary features as<br />
well, including a display, keyboard, GPS locationcapture,<br />
and usually a J1708 engine-management<br />
interface to read maintenance information.<br />
While initially proprietary, many <strong>of</strong> these new<br />
devices are being built on <strong>sys</strong>tems such as<br />
Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s WinCE. Manufacturers such as<br />
Symbol Technologies are building highly portable<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems that drivers can take with them once<br />
they reach a customer to perform such tasks as<br />
signature capture and point-<strong>of</strong>-sale.<br />
While most large carriers have <strong>wireless</strong>ly<br />
enabled their vehicles, this accounts for only<br />
about 30% <strong>of</strong> the market. Price has been a signifi-<br />
cant barrier as hybrid <strong>sys</strong>tems still cost between<br />
$1,500 and $3,000 per truck, a substantial<br />
investment for a motor carrier. Smaller fleets<br />
with fewer than 100 trucks – companies most<br />
in need <strong>of</strong> achieving operational efficiencies –<br />
have put <strong>of</strong>f taking the plunge, primarily waiting<br />
for prices to drop.<br />
Wide-scale adoption<br />
should start to take <strong>of</strong>f as<br />
regional-focused <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
such as @Road and SiGEM<br />
come to market with devices<br />
priced under $1,000.<br />
More Capable, Lower-Cost Devices<br />
Coming<br />
The <strong>con</strong>sumer market opportunity for <strong>wireless</strong><br />
communication – some 530-million handsets<br />
worldwide according to The Strategis Group<br />
– is a huge market when compared to the roughly<br />
2.6-million Class 8 heavy trucks in the U.S. Prices<br />
will drop as <strong>con</strong>sumer marketplace innovations<br />
are made available to the transportation industry.<br />
New <strong>con</strong>sumer data services based around email<br />
and chat, for instance, will drive improvements<br />
in user-interface technology, specifically<br />
the ability to enter text.<br />
Handsets are changing too, as voice telephony<br />
<strong>con</strong>verges with digital data to provide new appliances<br />
that <strong>of</strong>fer always-on text messaging, email,<br />
and document exchange. New data networks<br />
– 2.5G and 3G – that support high-speed<br />
packet switching, are being built to support these<br />
new requirements. Along with these new networks,<br />
next-generation devices feature improved<br />
ergonomics and display capabilities – all features<br />
that will be embraced by the transportation market.<br />
The E911 mandate that requires all carriers<br />
to locate the position <strong>of</strong> a handset will find ready<br />
applications in asset tracking and dispatching<br />
scenarios.<br />
Real-Time Information to Drivers<br />
A <strong>wireless</strong> data channel enables efficient communication<br />
<strong>of</strong> information on demand. Maptuit’s<br />
FleetNav services (www.maptuit.com), for example,<br />
allow drivers to request and receive door-to-door<br />
driving directions from where they are (as captured<br />
by a GPS <strong>sys</strong>tem) to where they need to go, from<br />
anywhere in North America. Using the service, drivers<br />
are also able to query for information about the<br />
location <strong>of</strong> the nearest <strong>con</strong>veniences along the way.<br />
In doing so, carriers are able to reduce the number<br />
<strong>of</strong> out-<strong>of</strong>-route miles their trucks travel. The advent<br />
<strong>of</strong> reliable and inexpensive <strong>wireless</strong> data access is<br />
also beginning to be used to provide drivers with<br />
location-aware real-time traffic and weather information,<br />
enabling them to request new routes to<br />
avoid problem areas.<br />
Knowing the location <strong>of</strong> a vehicle enables fleet<br />
managers to better deploy their mobile workforces.<br />
Local delivery and service companies are<br />
OMNITRAC’S MOBILE<br />
COMMUNICATIONS<br />
<strong>SYS</strong>TEM<br />
using services from vendors<br />
such as eDispatch<br />
(www.edispatch.com) to<br />
dynamically deploy<br />
their workforce as<br />
customer orders<br />
change. The courier<br />
market also uses <strong>wireless</strong><br />
communications to<br />
dispatch their drivers.<br />
Companies such as Datatrac<br />
(www.dtrac.com) use commodity<br />
phones running on top<br />
<strong>of</strong> the NexTel network to facilitate<br />
driver communications.<br />
54 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
“Wireless data <strong>sys</strong>tems... can track a load during its entire journey,<br />
allowing a company to know if a truck is trapped in heavy traffic,<br />
or delayed by bad weather or a vehicle breakdown”<br />
Jobs that involve uncertainty and customer<br />
communication especially benefit from <strong>wireless</strong><br />
Internet access. Service companies frequently have<br />
to deal with situations where parts are not available,<br />
service calls take longer than expected, and<br />
customers are added or cancelled as the day progresses.<br />
Moving to a centralized scheduling <strong>sys</strong>tem<br />
can provide such companies with as much as a 20%<br />
productivity improvement by enabling service personnel<br />
to update information and receive schedule<br />
changes over a <strong>wireless</strong> channel. Likewise, communication-intensive<br />
tasks, such as taxi dispatch, also<br />
benefit from using lower-cost, less distracting <strong>wireless</strong><br />
data communications. Taxi fleets in Singapore,<br />
for instance, use <strong>wireless</strong> devices from SiGEM that<br />
can be operated one-handed and quickly viewed<br />
while driving in city traffic.<br />
Automated Data Communication<br />
Wireless data communication devices don’t<br />
necessarily require operator input. Vehicle tracking<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems, for instance, can be installed on each<br />
trailer in a fleet and <strong>con</strong>figured to broadcast their<br />
location at predetermined times, or when specific<br />
situations occur, completely without human intervention.<br />
Wireless data <strong>sys</strong>tems from vendors such<br />
as QUALCOMM (www.qualcomm.com/qwbs), can<br />
track a load during its entire journey, allowing a<br />
company to know if a truck is trapped in heavy<br />
traffic, or delayed by bad weather or a vehicle<br />
breakdown. When a dispatcher knows a load is<br />
delayed, he or she can alert delivery points to the<br />
schedule change, thus improving customer service.<br />
The Web can play an important role in making<br />
this type <strong>of</strong> information “visible” to all stakeholders<br />
in a shipment. These so-called trackand-trace<br />
services, popularized by industry leaders<br />
such as FedEx, have increased customer<br />
expectations, leading many carriers to provide<br />
these services through their own Web sites.<br />
Courier and expedited freight companies use<br />
Datatrac’s dispatch s<strong>of</strong>tware and the centralized<br />
etrac.net hub to communicate information about<br />
deliveries to their customers as well as to get<br />
orders from customers to their drivers.<br />
Lower Cost <strong>of</strong> Adoption<br />
New services such as those <strong>of</strong>fered by<br />
Datatrac, Maptuit, and eDispatch are available at<br />
ever more affordable rates by virtue <strong>of</strong> their<br />
deployment using the ASP model. As centrally<br />
hosted sites communicate with customers across<br />
the country and around the world over the<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
Internet, they <strong>of</strong>fer an e<strong>con</strong>omy <strong>of</strong> scale that can’t<br />
be matched by traditional CD-ROM distributed<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware. These savings are passed on to customers,<br />
resulting in services that are frequently<br />
sold by subscription rather than expensive s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
licenses. As centrally hosted services, transportation<br />
companies do not need to invest as<br />
much in IT support, further reducing costs.<br />
The Ever-Evolving Market<br />
Wireless data <strong>con</strong>nectivity provides many new<br />
opportunities for the transportation market.<br />
Internet-based collaboration services, such as<br />
freight matching, enable carriers to do their jobs<br />
more efficiently. Wireless data communications<br />
can lower telecommunications costs while<br />
improving the accuracy and efficiency <strong>of</strong><br />
driver/fleet manager interaction. Today’s WAP<br />
devices enable even one-man owner-operators to<br />
share these benefits while on the road.<br />
Tomorrow’s innovations from the <strong>con</strong>sumer<br />
market – devices that incorporate location-capture,<br />
high-speed <strong>wireless</strong> data, and more effective<br />
operator interfaces – will accelerate adoption.<br />
Increasingly, these devices will be used to<br />
access centrally hosted ASP services, <strong>of</strong>fered on a<br />
pay-as-you-go basis, to provide even small carriers<br />
with leading-edge services.<br />
As the <strong>wireless</strong> industry wrestles with how to<br />
accelerate the adoption <strong>of</strong> new <strong>con</strong>sumer <strong>wireless</strong><br />
services, the transportation industry is worth<br />
a se<strong>con</strong>d look to see how a focus on a customer’s<br />
needs has led to rapid market adoption.<br />
AETHER'S MOBILEMAX2<br />
Aether's MobileMAX2 is an<br />
onboard information <strong>sys</strong>tem<br />
that delivers information<br />
to the driver regardless<br />
<strong>of</strong> his or her location.<br />
The <strong>sys</strong>tem<br />
eliminates the<br />
driver's need<br />
to check in by<br />
phone and<br />
assists timely delivery,<br />
accurate reporting,<br />
and resource optimization.<br />
MobileMAX2 allows companies<br />
to track their mobile investments,<br />
increase revenues, and communicate with<br />
drivers.<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
55<br />
W-TRANSPORTATION
WIRELESS SECURITY<br />
by<br />
Bill Ray<br />
Bill Ray, WBT’s security editor,<br />
is technical director <strong>of</strong> Network 23.<br />
@<br />
bill@network23.co.uk<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
Playing the Smart Card<br />
Unprecedented security from both physical and logical attack<br />
Cryptography is a wonderful thing. Long keys and well-designed<br />
algorithms mean that even the most determined government is<br />
unlikely to be able to break your encrypted messages. However, every<br />
encryption <strong>sys</strong>tem has one weak point: Where and how do you store<br />
your keys? Most encryption s<strong>of</strong>tware will store your keys on your hard<br />
disk (if your device has one) or somewhere safe in memory, carefully<br />
encrypted so no one can read it. But the problem with this approach<br />
is that it denotes trust in the operating <strong>sys</strong>tem, and secure applica-<br />
tions frequently have to live in the most hostile <strong>of</strong> environments.<br />
t<br />
ake the example <strong>of</strong> a<br />
desktop computer<br />
running Micros<strong>of</strong>t<br />
Windows; environments don’t<br />
get much more hostile than<br />
that. Imagine a virus. It scans<br />
your <strong>sys</strong>tem looking for an<br />
appropriate file (say,<br />
secring.skr), and waits for any<br />
other application to access that<br />
file. As soon as it notices such<br />
access it scans memory in the<br />
hope <strong>of</strong> finding your decrypted<br />
private keys!<br />
Of course, there’s no reason<br />
to be quite so clever. The virus<br />
can just wait for you to type in<br />
your pass phrase and catch the<br />
key presses, then collect both<br />
pass phrase and file and send<br />
them <strong>of</strong>f to its grateful author.<br />
This isn’t fiction; such virus<br />
code already exists, but where<br />
can we put our keys if we don’t<br />
trust the operating <strong>sys</strong>tem?<br />
Even more extreme is the<br />
situation where you want to<br />
issue a key to someone, but<br />
don’t trust him or her to keep it<br />
secret. A good example <strong>of</strong> this is<br />
pay TV, where you want your<br />
subscribers to have access to<br />
encoded <strong>con</strong>tent, but don’t<br />
want them to actually know the<br />
key being used to decrypt the<br />
signal. Otherwise they’ll tell<br />
their mates and your revenue<br />
stream starts falling apart.<br />
The solution to both these<br />
problems is to keep the keys,<br />
and anything else important,<br />
on another very small computer.<br />
Your main machine can pass<br />
things to be decrypted to the<br />
other computer, which can use<br />
the keys and pass back the<br />
decrypted data, so the keys are<br />
never vulnerable. Such a device<br />
can be embedded in plastic,<br />
and is called a Smart Card.<br />
Smart Cards are descended<br />
from European phone cards,<br />
which, thanks to our monopoly<br />
phone companies, were mechanical<br />
things to be slotted into a<br />
phone booth to make calls. The<br />
most basic ones actually cut<br />
grooves into the side <strong>of</strong> the card<br />
to indicate how much credit had<br />
been used (only to have them<br />
built up again with Crazy Glue!).<br />
As they got more advanced, the<br />
intelligence inside the plastic<br />
card started to attract other<br />
industries, with pay TV being an<br />
early adopter, and every<br />
European credit card company<br />
quickly following. Now Smart<br />
Cards are everywhere, providing<br />
unprecedented security from<br />
both physical and logical attack.<br />
What’s in a Card?<br />
If you dismantle a Smart Card,<br />
such as the American Express<br />
Blue Card, you’ll find something<br />
like the cross section shown in<br />
Figure 1, with chips glued to the<br />
back <strong>of</strong> the <strong>con</strong>tacts and sitting in<br />
a depression cut in the card. You’ll<br />
also annoy American Express<br />
quite a lot, so remember to use<br />
someone else’s card. Don’t be<br />
misled by the diminutive size <strong>of</strong><br />
the chips, there’s a whole computer<br />
in there, with an 8-bit<br />
processor, some ROM and RAM,<br />
and a dedicated cryptographic<br />
chip, all coated in resin to make it<br />
hard to see what’s there. The basic<br />
internal architecture is shown in<br />
Figure 2.<br />
At its most basic a Smart<br />
Card records information in its<br />
flash memory, though the<br />
amount <strong>of</strong> space is normally<br />
very limited (up to 16KB), but<br />
more complex cards can do<br />
56 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
anything a microcomputer can<br />
do. Communication with the<br />
outside world is via the <strong>con</strong>tacts<br />
on the outside <strong>of</strong> the card (see<br />
Figure 3), which include a clock<br />
signal and power for the computer<br />
on the card. Serial communication<br />
(at a maximum <strong>of</strong><br />
9600 baud) might seem basic,<br />
but it’s more than enough for<br />
cryptographic functions. You<br />
just pass in an encrypted message<br />
and it returns the decrypted<br />
version, without the keys<br />
ever leaving the safe environment<br />
<strong>of</strong> the card.<br />
To ensure interoperability<br />
between cards and readers<br />
there’s an international standard<br />
known as ISO7816, which specifies<br />
not only the physical size <strong>of</strong><br />
the card and <strong>con</strong>tacts, but also a<br />
basic set <strong>of</strong> commands for<br />
retrieving and storing information<br />
in the flash memory and<br />
performing cryptographic functions.<br />
ISO7816 also makes<br />
demands on the robustness <strong>of</strong><br />
the cards, many <strong>of</strong> which will<br />
have to survive in the back<br />
pocket <strong>of</strong> a pair <strong>of</strong> jeans for<br />
years. Flexing and twisting the<br />
card must not break it (to a<br />
point), and <strong>con</strong>tacts must be<br />
<strong>con</strong>ductive enough to work with<br />
a layer <strong>of</strong> grime on them.<br />
The Wireless Connection<br />
Putting a card into a reader<br />
doesn’t require much effort, but<br />
sometimes it’s too much. Many<br />
applications want Smart Card<br />
functionality without having to<br />
be removed from the wallet or<br />
purse, so we come to the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
Smart Card. Powered<br />
through an induction loop that<br />
also serves as an aerial (see<br />
Figure 4), <strong>wireless</strong> Smart Cards<br />
have a range <strong>of</strong> about 3 inches –<br />
not a lot, but enough for passengers<br />
boarding a bus or subway<br />
train. The sight <strong>of</strong> passengers<br />
on the Hong Kong subway<br />
wiggling as they pass through<br />
gates, to get their back pockets<br />
within 3 inches <strong>of</strong> the reader,<br />
will remain with me for years (at<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
least until the London<br />
Underground adopts the same<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem). This is one <strong>wireless</strong> link<br />
where security isn’t a problem.<br />
As the communication is used<br />
only to authenticate encrypted<br />
packets, the open nature <strong>of</strong><br />
radio communications isn’t a<br />
problem (not to mention any<br />
attacker is going to have to be<br />
snuggled up real close!).<br />
In addition to being in millions<br />
<strong>of</strong> credit cards, Smart<br />
Cards can also be found in<br />
every GSM mobile telephone.<br />
The Subscriber Identity Module<br />
(or SIM) provides the cryptographic<br />
backbone for the GSM<br />
telephone network, as well as<br />
some additional benefits. SIMs<br />
are smaller than Smart Cards<br />
(see Figure 5), but <strong>con</strong>form to<br />
much the same specifications<br />
as well as being <strong>con</strong>structed the<br />
same way.<br />
Each SIM relates to a specific<br />
phone number, and GSM<br />
users can switch phone handsets<br />
simply by moving their SIM<br />
into another device (it’s not<br />
rare, on finding that your<br />
mobile battery is dead, to borrow<br />
someone else’s and just<br />
pop your SIM in). Modern SIMs<br />
also hold your phone book, and<br />
Internet Service Provider details<br />
if you use your mobile for data<br />
access, allowing all these to be<br />
transferred to a new phone easily<br />
and simply. Not everything is<br />
stored on the SIM. WAP bookmarks<br />
and customized ringtones<br />
(very fashionable here)<br />
are lost when you change handsets,<br />
but the SIM is a secure<br />
computing environment and<br />
not limited to making phone<br />
calls.<br />
Applications developed to<br />
run on a SIM include services<br />
such as home banking, shopping,<br />
and share dealing, all <strong>of</strong><br />
which have already been ported<br />
to mobile telephones, predating<br />
and providing a better interface<br />
than WAP technology. SIM<br />
applications can send and<br />
receive SMS messages that can<br />
1 Cut your Smart Card in half and you'll see something like this.<br />
Don't expect to use it afterwards though.<br />
be encrypted by the SIM for<br />
secure service access, and are<br />
compatible with every GSM<br />
mobile handset. In the UK at<br />
least one mobile network has<br />
given up providing handsets,<br />
just selling replacement SIM<br />
chips to users who already own<br />
a handset (the cost <strong>of</strong> which<br />
was probably subsidized by<br />
another network!).<br />
Pay TV services have also<br />
been quick to see the value in<br />
Smart Cards. By providing customers<br />
with Smart Cards for<br />
decoding television, they can<br />
<strong>con</strong>trol which subscribers have<br />
access to which channels, all in<br />
a very secure manner. Early <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
relied on a single key<br />
embedded in every card, relying<br />
on the defenses in the card to<br />
protect the key from attack.<br />
This approach was flawed and,<br />
over the years, keys have been<br />
compromised, ultimately by<br />
2 A Smart Card can <strong>con</strong>tain a<br />
complete computer <strong>sys</strong>tem,<br />
very similar to a 10-year-old<br />
home computer.<br />
3 The pattern <strong>of</strong> <strong>con</strong>tacts is<br />
specified by ISO7816; you'll<br />
be seeing it everywhere in<br />
years to come.<br />
4 The induction coil/aerial wire is sandwiched in the middle <strong>of</strong> the<br />
card, and invisible from the outside.<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
57
WIRELESS SECURITY<br />
5 All GSM phones have a SIM<br />
inside; though smaller than<br />
a Smart Card they share<br />
most <strong>of</strong> the same technology.<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
dismantling the card and looking<br />
at the positions <strong>of</strong> the memory<br />
gates under an electron<br />
microscope.<br />
While this is clearly beyond<br />
the reach <strong>of</strong> most <strong>con</strong>sumers,<br />
the problem was that once the<br />
key is compromised it’s relatively<br />
easy to reproduce forged<br />
cards, with associated financial<br />
rewards. Modern <strong>sys</strong>tems are<br />
more complex in that every<br />
card has its own public/private<br />
key pair, and the video encryption<br />
key is sent to each subscriber<br />
individually encoded<br />
with their public key. Should a<br />
card become compromised, the<br />
network operator can simply<br />
turn <strong>of</strong>f that subscription as<br />
soon as they become aware that<br />
forged cards are in circulation.<br />
Credit card companies can<br />
also see the value in proper<br />
encryption for their transactions,<br />
and the vast majority <strong>of</strong><br />
European credit cards now<br />
sport the familiar pattern <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>con</strong>tacts. Credit card fraud is, <strong>of</strong><br />
course, massive and the<br />
reliance on a signature has<br />
shown itself to be ineffective<br />
(though I was shocked to see<br />
how ineffective it is in the U.S.<br />
on my last visit). By embedding<br />
a chip into the card, it becomes<br />
almost impossible to forge<br />
(depending on the technology<br />
used) and <strong>of</strong>fers much more<br />
functionality.<br />
For example, the magnetic<br />
strip on a normal credit card can<br />
hold 66 bytes <strong>of</strong> information,<br />
while a Smart Card can easily<br />
hold a photograph (though the<br />
amount <strong>of</strong> security provided by<br />
the inclusion <strong>of</strong> a photograph is<br />
very <strong>con</strong>troversial) or a record <strong>of</strong><br />
recent transactions. But it’s in<br />
online transactions where the<br />
Smart Card can really revolutionize<br />
security. By providing a<br />
link from the card to the vendor,<br />
rather than from the desktop PC<br />
to the vendor, security can be<br />
enhanced massively, especially if<br />
another Smart Card is used at<br />
the other end <strong>of</strong> the transaction.<br />
But such innovations will have<br />
to wait until every PC has a<br />
Smart Card reader, which is<br />
going to take a while.<br />
Applying the Card<br />
Developing applications to<br />
run on a Smart Card used to be<br />
an arcane affair, with applications<br />
developed in machine<br />
code and downloaded onto the<br />
card through the use <strong>of</strong> special<br />
keys, but increases in processing<br />
power and available memory<br />
have led to a plethora <strong>of</strong> development<br />
environments. Java<br />
Card <strong>of</strong>fers a very basic subset <strong>of</strong><br />
the Java programming language<br />
that can run on a Smart Card.<br />
While there’s no room for a<br />
real Java Virtual Machine on the<br />
card, companies provide cross<br />
compilers that will <strong>con</strong>vert your<br />
Java code into card-specific<br />
code before installing. MULTOS<br />
is another standard operating<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem for Smart Cards, allowing<br />
C development in a very<br />
“it’s in online transactions where the<br />
Smart Card can really revolutionize security”<br />
comfortable environment. Most<br />
surprising <strong>of</strong> all is Micros<strong>of</strong>t’s<br />
Windows for Smart Cards<br />
(Windows not being known for<br />
its small size and fast execution<br />
speed), which generates applications<br />
from a familiar<br />
Windows interface. However,<br />
most Smart Card applications<br />
are actually very simple, with<br />
the work being done by the surrounding<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem rather than on<br />
the card itself (which is restricted<br />
to cryptographic functions).<br />
Increased storage and functionality<br />
is endemic in the IT<br />
industry, though in the Smart<br />
Card industry it’s hampered by<br />
the <strong>con</strong>stant need for security,<br />
with chips embedded in resin<br />
and surrounded by detectors<br />
(to wipe the <strong>con</strong>tent should the<br />
resin be removed). There’s also<br />
a limit to how much data you<br />
can usefully store on a device<br />
whose only communications<br />
with the outside world is at<br />
9,600 bits per se<strong>con</strong>d. Smart<br />
Cards are relatively expensive,<br />
ranging in cost from 10¢ to $6<br />
for the most advanced cryptographic<br />
cards, while magnetic<br />
strip cards can still be produced<br />
for a few cents each.<br />
Chips are going to replace<br />
the magnetic strip on the back<br />
<strong>of</strong> our credit cards. The additional<br />
security and features<br />
make a <strong>con</strong>vincing case, and if<br />
fraud can be reduced by a<br />
small percentage it will more<br />
than cover the cost <strong>of</strong> the cards<br />
and readers. Credit card companies<br />
are <strong>of</strong>fering free readers<br />
to encourage their use online,<br />
and everyone will benefit from<br />
decreased fraud through<br />
reduced interest rates (except<br />
the forgers, but I’m sure they’ll<br />
find work elsewhere). But the<br />
Smart Card provides only the<br />
middle <strong>of</strong> a secure application.<br />
It’s the surrounding <strong>sys</strong>tem<br />
that’s complex and potentially<br />
vulnerable. Worldwide adoption<br />
<strong>of</strong> Smart Cards is<br />
inevitable, and as they get<br />
smarter, the range <strong>of</strong> applications<br />
will increase to ideas not<br />
yet thought <strong>of</strong>. I was recently<br />
beaten at chess by a Smart<br />
Card, and I’m not sure I like<br />
the idea that my credit card is<br />
smarter than I am.<br />
Links:<br />
www.multos.com/<br />
http://java.sun.com/products/j<br />
avacard/<br />
www.gsmworld.com/<br />
www.micros<strong>of</strong>t.com/SMART-<br />
CARD/<br />
58 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
Wireless today<br />
www.<strong>wireless</strong>today.com<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
59
Tom Dibble, a <strong>wireless</strong> entrepreneur, is c<strong>of</strong>ounder <strong>of</strong> Global Wireless Forum,<br />
a forum dedicated to dealing with commercial, strategic, and technical issues<br />
on the evolution <strong>of</strong> the <strong>wireless</strong> age in Europe and the U.S.<br />
EUROWIRELESS EDITOR<br />
What’s working, what isn’t…and where it’s all Euro-headed,<br />
from the unwired members <strong>of</strong> the Euro<strong>wireless</strong> team<br />
Revenue Sharing:<br />
A Shot in the Arm for WAP<br />
by Tom Hume<br />
WAP was first launched commercially<br />
in the UK during late 1999, by<br />
Orange. Since then, all the other<br />
UK MNOs have followed suit with their support,<br />
and despite the widespread panning<br />
WAP has taken in the press, there are now in<br />
the realm <strong>of</strong> 1-million WAP subscribers in the<br />
UK – not too bad for a <strong>con</strong>sumer technology<br />
less than two years old.<br />
Nevertheless, a <strong>con</strong>sistent criticism <strong>of</strong> WAP<br />
is the lack <strong>of</strong> useful services available through<br />
phones today. In fact this criticism itself<br />
encompasses two points: first, there are few<br />
robust and useful services out there; and se<strong>con</strong>d,<br />
WAP services are by their nature difficult<br />
to find.<br />
The latter is inevitable with today’s handset<br />
technologies. WAP browsers typically use<br />
small displays, have a home page that will<br />
default to the appropriate MNO’s portal, and<br />
sport primitive mechanisms (the phone keypad)<br />
for entering URLs <strong>of</strong> other sites. All<br />
these <strong>con</strong>siderations – and the fact that, as<br />
WAP becomes more widespread, we can<br />
assume less technical knowledge on the part<br />
<strong>of</strong> the average WAP user – make it important<br />
for <strong>con</strong>tent providers to negotiate placement<br />
for their services with the telco portals. Our<br />
experience at Future Platforms shows that a<br />
single such placement can have a massive<br />
impact on traffic. In other words, few WAP<br />
users will go out <strong>of</strong> their way to find your<br />
service.<br />
However, blame for the first criticism (the<br />
lack <strong>of</strong> useful services in the first place) can be<br />
apportioned to the telcos themselves. Since<br />
the first days <strong>of</strong> WAP, there has been no easy<br />
means for a <strong>con</strong>tent provider to realize revenues<br />
from the service, with the exception<br />
perhaps, <strong>of</strong> advertising – an ailing and distinctly<br />
unfashionable revenue stream at the<br />
moment. Operators have procrastinated over<br />
providing a revenue share <strong>of</strong> call charges<br />
(sometimes claiming that technical difficulties<br />
prevent accurate measurement), and have<br />
tdibble@<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com<br />
@<br />
repeatedly referred to a time six months in the<br />
future when this will be possible… for nearly<br />
two years. This leaves <strong>con</strong>tent providers in<br />
limbo. How can they justify spending time<br />
and money on providing WAP applications<br />
when there’s no ROI?<br />
For this reason alone, it’s easy to see why<br />
WAP portals have been historically poor. With<br />
a limited amount <strong>of</strong> <strong>con</strong>tent available (and<br />
short shrift given to providing an incentive to<br />
companies to provide more), portals have a<br />
limited menu <strong>of</strong> options to <strong>of</strong>fer mobile subscribers.<br />
Limited thought seems to have been<br />
given to their integration and arrangement as<br />
well. If I’ve indicated that I want to read about<br />
the weather, do I really care who supplies me<br />
with the information? Do I need to spend<br />
more time choosing between different<br />
providers <strong>of</strong> news stories before I ever see<br />
what those stories are?<br />
Compare this approach to that taken by<br />
NTT DoCoMo when they established their imode<br />
service. Partnerships were arranged<br />
with a number <strong>of</strong> <strong>con</strong>tent providers in a variety<br />
<strong>of</strong> sectors (e.g., health, financial, sports,<br />
etc.) with the result that by the end <strong>of</strong> 2000,<br />
there were more than 20,000 <strong>con</strong>tent sites<br />
available on i-mode – all in less than two<br />
years from the launch <strong>of</strong> the service. A quarter<br />
<strong>of</strong> these had gone through an approval<br />
process (where they are judged on service<br />
quality, utility, and robustness) with DoCoMo<br />
and, as a result, can generate revenue.<br />
DoCoMo takes a 9% cut for its trouble.<br />
The disdain that UK operators display for<br />
<strong>con</strong>tent providers can perhaps be explained<br />
by the burgeoning desire for telcos to see<br />
themselves as media companies. Shifting bits<br />
<strong>of</strong> information around isn’t glamorous,<br />
despite the fact that it pays well and, in this<br />
<strong>con</strong>text, it’s understandable (even if not justifiable)<br />
for telcos to keep third-party <strong>con</strong>tent<br />
providers (who in this <strong>con</strong>text are dependent<br />
on, or perhaps even competitive with them)<br />
at arm’s length.<br />
Yet their repositioning as media companies<br />
has never been <strong>con</strong>vincing, and telcos<br />
have yet to prove themselves capable <strong>of</strong><br />
being more than “bit shifters.” With new network<br />
technologies being deployed over the<br />
next few years, surely they’ll find it increasingly<br />
difficult to <strong>con</strong>centrate on their media<br />
60 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
aspirations without compromising the quality <strong>of</strong> their network<br />
rollouts?<br />
What’s the solution? It’s obvious. Emulate the model that has<br />
worked for i-mode, and allow anyone to realize revenue quickly<br />
and easily through their WAP services, driving production <strong>of</strong> a<br />
se<strong>con</strong>d-generation <strong>of</strong> WAP sites that can be prioritized by the<br />
<strong>con</strong>tent providers – ensuring their utility and robustness. Build<br />
customized and branded operator portals from the resulting<br />
portfolio <strong>of</strong> decent applications (ensuring that WAP sites must<br />
meet certain standards before they can get the valuable placement<br />
on operator portals). Drive WAP usage, generate revenue<br />
for the telcos, and <strong>con</strong>vince onlookers that <strong>con</strong>sumer data services<br />
can indeed be useful in everyday life.<br />
How better could the telcos persuade a skeptical public to<br />
embrace 3G?<br />
Tom Hume is c<strong>of</strong>ounder and director <strong>of</strong> Future Platforms,<br />
a technology company located in Brighton, UK, focused on<br />
developing products and services for current and next-generation<br />
handheld and <strong>con</strong>sumer devices.<br />
@<br />
tom@futureplatforms.com<br />
Multi-Access Portals<br />
by Alistair Harvey<br />
In trying to define multiple portals, the question is: How<br />
“multi” is a multiplatform? Is it mobile information (WAP),<br />
Voice (IVR), WEB, SMS, and D-iTV? If so, then there are very<br />
few about. The areas <strong>of</strong> <strong>con</strong>centration today are the first few;<br />
the true multiplatform portal has yet to evolve.<br />
The se<strong>con</strong>d question is: Do we need multiple portals? Is it<br />
best, perhaps, to have separate trusted portals, and to put up<br />
with the in<strong>con</strong>venience <strong>of</strong> swapping between them, or remembering<br />
different navigation <strong>sys</strong>tems for the sake <strong>of</strong> quality <strong>con</strong>tent?<br />
The aim <strong>of</strong> the multiplatform portal is to ensure that <strong>con</strong>sumers<br />
can access the “trusted” information they require at any<br />
time, on any device.<br />
Personalization will go a long way to aggregate all the <strong>con</strong>tent<br />
that I require to one site. For example, if I’m driving in my<br />
car and the portal I’d like to access is the iTouch portal, for<br />
safety reasons I’d like to be able to access it by voice rather<br />
than have it be a solely visual portal – a handsfree portal so to<br />
speak.<br />
The benefit <strong>of</strong> this, <strong>of</strong> course, is that each <strong>of</strong> the technologies<br />
<strong>of</strong>fers a different user experience, but we’ve seen with WAP that<br />
we have to manage these technologies with care. WAP is very<br />
good at what it does, and what it does has never really changed.<br />
If we look at SMS, it’s limited: 160 characters, no graphics, difficult<br />
input from a mobile device, and costly at (UK)10p per message,<br />
but it meets our needs and has been widely accepted. The<br />
<strong>con</strong>sumer expectation <strong>of</strong> WAP was wildly exaggerated, but with<br />
the advent <strong>of</strong> color-screen handsets and GPRS and 3G, these<br />
expectations may yet become reality.<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
There are pros and <strong>con</strong>s <strong>of</strong> multiplatform access, and these<br />
again depend on the business plans for each company. The<br />
network operators have a duty to cover the breadth <strong>of</strong> their<br />
customer base, yet the smaller portals can cherry pick which<br />
verticals to target. How can <strong>con</strong>tent be structured across all<br />
platforms? Is the right route B2B, B2B2C, or just plain B2C?<br />
The advantages <strong>of</strong> multi-access portals from a brand perspective<br />
is that you can provide stickiness – capture the customers<br />
and look after them for all their services, with the aim<br />
<strong>of</strong> reducing churn and, <strong>of</strong> course, to generate revenue.<br />
Offering the breadth <strong>of</strong> <strong>con</strong>tent that appeals to all is a<br />
difficult task; portals risk being labeled “jack-<strong>of</strong>-all-trades<br />
and master <strong>of</strong> none.” But with the chargeable services such as<br />
IVR <strong>of</strong>fsetting the costs <strong>of</strong> the new services, and/or determining<br />
which sector needs which information on which devices<br />
in which format, a multi-access portal can still be potentially<br />
rewarding.<br />
The other challenge facing businesses is that the technologies<br />
are at vastly different points in their life cycles and acceptance.<br />
WAP has come under scrutiny recently and has suffered<br />
from negative public perception, while SMS is the darling service<br />
<strong>of</strong> the day.<br />
So can a brand be successfully associated with the “good”<br />
and the “bad?” I would say so. There are two common routes to<br />
market: the “innovator/leader” and “se<strong>con</strong>d entrant/me too.”<br />
Both <strong>of</strong> course have their merits and the associated marketing<br />
costs <strong>of</strong> building a market for the brand to be known in. Those<br />
who have a strong brand can reach more customers, but the<br />
risk <strong>of</strong> the early market is, <strong>of</strong> course, damaging the brand by<br />
failure. The high-tech world is an exciting, innovative, and risky<br />
one. All our jobs are to maximize the potential and return, and<br />
minimize the risks.<br />
The idea <strong>of</strong> accessing one source <strong>of</strong> information on any<br />
device is appealing, but we are not yet in a position to evaluate<br />
portals, particularly multiple portals, in terms <strong>of</strong> success or<br />
failure. They need to <strong>of</strong>fer the <strong>con</strong>tent that the customer<br />
requires in the format they require on the device they’re using<br />
at a given point in time. This is not an easy task to deliver, and<br />
returns us to the question first asked: Is this what’s being<br />
<strong>of</strong>fered today? The answer would therefore be that no one is<br />
currently <strong>of</strong>fering a true multiplatform/access portal. But we<br />
are getting closer.<br />
Whatever we do in this business, it’s going to be a risk.<br />
Technology almost by definition is risky, but there’s one – and<br />
only one – important factor in the equation, and that’s the customer.<br />
Look to the customer and forget the technology, and<br />
look for the revenue stream associated with the services. This<br />
is key for any company. Let’s learn from our successes (SMS)<br />
and from the less successful services, which may still be valuable,<br />
but their use to the customer needs to be reevaluated and<br />
tested.<br />
Alistair Harvey is in charge <strong>of</strong> the creation, development,<br />
and management <strong>of</strong> both the B2C and B2B portals at iTouch UK.<br />
@<br />
alistair.harvey@itouch.co.uk<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
61
WIRELESS IN ACTION<br />
by<br />
Kevin Rachel<br />
Kevin Rachel is director <strong>of</strong> field operations for Emrys<br />
Technologies. Founded in 1998, and located in<br />
Richardson, Texas (“The Telecom Corridor”), the<br />
company develops and markets s<strong>of</strong>tware for the<br />
rapid creation and deployment <strong>of</strong> enterprise mobile<br />
applications. Their patent-pending technology<br />
eliminates bandwidth <strong>con</strong>straints and provides<br />
application functionality, performance,<br />
and security for mobile users.<br />
@<br />
kevin.rachel@emrys.com<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
Mobilizing the Insurance Industry<br />
c<br />
onventional wisdom<br />
holds that you can’t<br />
teach an old dog<br />
new tricks. This analogy<br />
extends, more or less, to the<br />
insurance industry and its use<br />
<strong>of</strong> technology. Overall, insurers,<br />
especially property-and-casualty<br />
insurers, have been slow<br />
adopters <strong>of</strong> information technology.<br />
While the integration <strong>of</strong><br />
mountains <strong>of</strong> customer information<br />
and the <strong>con</strong>version <strong>of</strong><br />
batch-based legacy <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
into real-time e-commerce <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
has been underway for<br />
some time, industry pundits<br />
agree that the pace <strong>of</strong> change,<br />
compared to other sectors <strong>of</strong><br />
financial services such as banking<br />
and brokerage, has been<br />
torturously slow.<br />
Today, however, large geographically<br />
dispersed workforces,<br />
increasing competition,<br />
and mounting pressure to<br />
reduce costs and improve<br />
services are forcing insurers to<br />
embrace mobile and <strong>wireless</strong><br />
technology in order to succeed<br />
in today’s fast-paced, hypercompetitive<br />
market. To this<br />
end, the ubiquity <strong>of</strong> PCs, the<br />
proliferation <strong>of</strong> laptops and<br />
mobile devices, and advancements<br />
in mobile computing<br />
technology are driving an<br />
industry-wide transformation.<br />
By enticing this old dog with<br />
a juicy morsel <strong>of</strong> meat (pr<strong>of</strong>its)<br />
and adding another hungry dog<br />
or two into the mix (competi-<br />
Transforming a technology laggard<br />
In an industry that’s always been known for being <strong>con</strong>servative,<br />
a bold move to adopt state-<strong>of</strong>-the-art technology has resulted in one<br />
company projecting an overall 17–21% increase in annual revenue<br />
as a result <strong>of</strong> its m-business initiative.<br />
tion), it appears that he can be<br />
transformed into a rejuvenated<br />
canine eager to perform.<br />
Bearing this out, a growing<br />
number <strong>of</strong> insurers, once<br />
thought <strong>of</strong> as technology laggards,<br />
are baring their technology<br />
teeth, developing and<br />
deploying anywhere, anytime<br />
computing solutions.<br />
Producers Lloyds<br />
Insurance Company...<br />
Mobile Computing for<br />
Crop Insurers<br />
THE CHALLENGE<br />
Of all the segments <strong>of</strong> the<br />
property-and-casualty insur-<br />
ance industry, perhaps none is<br />
more steeped in tradition and<br />
staid business practices than<br />
crop insurance. Producers<br />
Lloyds Insurance Company was<br />
formed in 1975 to specifically<br />
address the crop-insurance<br />
needs <strong>of</strong> the agricultural community.<br />
They sell and service<br />
several different crop-insurance<br />
products to farmers in Texas,<br />
New Mexico, and Oklahoma,<br />
including Multiple Peril Crop<br />
Insurance (MPCI), Crop<br />
Revenue Coverage (CRC), and<br />
Crop Hail Insurance.<br />
With a growing army <strong>of</strong> field<br />
agents serving a geographically<br />
dispersed base <strong>of</strong> customers,<br />
Producers was expending a<br />
<strong>con</strong>siderable amount <strong>of</strong><br />
resources – time, money, and<br />
personnel – maintaining their<br />
policy-management <strong>sys</strong>tem.<br />
Keeping application logic and<br />
data that was spread out over<br />
multiple locations in synch and<br />
up to date was becoming<br />
increasingly arduous. Losing<br />
customers to monolithic<br />
national insurers, as well as formidable<br />
regional players, was<br />
becoming an increasingly real<br />
threat. In addition, if Producers<br />
wanted to <strong>of</strong>fer access to policy<br />
information over the Internet –<br />
a key element <strong>of</strong> the company’s<br />
growth strategy – it had to meet<br />
the 2002 crop year deadline<br />
established by government regulations.<br />
“In-the-field quoting and<br />
support from decision-making<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware could close a sale that<br />
might otherwise slip away,” says<br />
Larry Latham, treasurer and<br />
chief information <strong>of</strong>ficer for<br />
Producers Lloyds. “Having<br />
direct remote access to loss<br />
claim adjustment and payment<br />
62 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
status would give our agents a<br />
distinct competitive advantage.<br />
We also wanted to strengthen<br />
our relationship with customers<br />
by making it easier to do business<br />
with us. We felt strongly<br />
that providing Internet access<br />
to policy and useful agricultural<br />
information would help accomplish<br />
this.”<br />
THE SOLUTION<br />
In September 2000,<br />
Producers Lloyds teamed with<br />
Emrys Technologies to develop<br />
and deploy a scalable and flexible<br />
mobile-computing solution<br />
that allows field agents and policyholders<br />
to use PCs, laptops,<br />
and a host <strong>of</strong> mobile devices to<br />
access the company’s Policy<br />
Administration & Services<br />
System (PASS) and Online<br />
Policy Update System (OPUS) –<br />
a central data repository and<br />
grouping <strong>of</strong> server-based applications.<br />
The Emrys Visions platform<br />
provided Producers with a visual<br />
development environment<br />
and a runtime application server<br />
that enabled the rapid development<br />
<strong>of</strong> real-time <strong>con</strong>nected<br />
applications as well as applications<br />
that can run on mobile<br />
devices running Windows<br />
95/98//NT/ME/2000, Windows<br />
CE, Pocket PC, and the Palm<br />
operating <strong>sys</strong>tems.<br />
The platform’s sophisticated<br />
n-tiered architecture ensures<br />
full GUI functionality and high<br />
performance regardless <strong>of</strong><br />
device or bandwidth <strong>con</strong>straints.<br />
In addition, an<br />
“always-on” mode allows<br />
remote access to key applications<br />
even when end users are<br />
working in a dis<strong>con</strong>nected environment.<br />
All client-side applications<br />
are self-updating from<br />
the enterprise server, ensuring<br />
that all policy-management<br />
information is <strong>con</strong>sistent, accurate,<br />
and up to date.<br />
After downloading the<br />
Emrys-enabled mobile-computing<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware from the<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
Producers Lloyds Web site, field<br />
agents can securely access PASS<br />
via their home PC, laptop, or<br />
mobile device. These most frequently<br />
used applications<br />
include quoting, policy creation,<br />
forms preparation, and<br />
claims status.<br />
Producers’ OPUS will be<br />
available to policyholders in<br />
time for the spring 2001 crop<br />
year. It will allow farmers to<br />
establish a secure <strong>con</strong>nection<br />
with Producers for online management<br />
<strong>of</strong> crop-insurance<br />
information such as initial<br />
quotes, policy information, and<br />
claims status.<br />
SURMOUNTING THE<br />
BANDWIDTH BARRIER<br />
A prevailing myth in today’s<br />
information-driven e<strong>con</strong>omy<br />
holds that data-intensive business<br />
applications require T1or<br />
DSL-grade bandwidth to<br />
work properly, and that such<br />
applications cannot be effectively<br />
accessed via dial-up<br />
modems or <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>con</strong>nections.<br />
While evaluating the<br />
Emrys mobile solution,<br />
Latham focused on a core, fundamental<br />
question: “Will this<br />
more immediate and direct<br />
access to policy information<br />
help field agents and policyholders<br />
make more timely<br />
decisions in an environment<br />
that is secure and, most important,<br />
fast enough to be<br />
usable?”<br />
While it’s true that today’s<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> networks have limited<br />
bandwidth – typically 19.2Kbps<br />
or less, and that 56K modems<br />
have difficulty receiving and<br />
transmitting data-heavy files,<br />
techniques and technologies<br />
exist to mitigate these issues.<br />
Through the use <strong>of</strong> advanced<br />
caching and intelligent event<br />
management, the Emrys Vision<br />
mobile-computing platform<br />
distributes components <strong>of</strong> an<br />
application in a manner that<br />
enables both high performance<br />
and speed regardless <strong>of</strong> band-<br />
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63
WIRELESS IN ACTION<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
Eighty percent <strong>of</strong> leading-edge insurance carriers will deploy internal<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> applications for agents or claims pr<strong>of</strong>essionals by 2003<br />
IN THE FIELD<br />
Wireless<br />
Deployment<br />
in Insurance<br />
An insurance agent and a<br />
farmer in a field <strong>of</strong> rye look at a<br />
crop insurance–quote program<br />
running on a subnotebook<br />
<strong>con</strong>nected to the Internet with<br />
an air card. They can run various<br />
coverage and cost scenarios<br />
for the rye crop, and even<br />
place a binder for coverage<br />
with Producers Lloyds<br />
Insurance Company...on the<br />
spot. Since they’re <strong>con</strong>nected<br />
to the company’s enterprise<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tem, the binder is being<br />
established directly with the<br />
company in real time. This<br />
mobile capability enables<br />
agents to close a sale with a<br />
farmer in his field, right then<br />
and there.<br />
width <strong>con</strong>straints. Whether<br />
using a PC, laptop, or <strong>wireless</strong><br />
device, end users <strong>of</strong> Producers’<br />
PASS or OPUS <strong>sys</strong>tems generally<br />
experience subse<strong>con</strong>d<br />
response times.<br />
Satisfying Security<br />
Requirements<br />
While the ultimate goal was<br />
to provide agents and policyholders<br />
with anytime, anywhere<br />
access to Producers Lloyds’<br />
PASS and OPUS <strong>sys</strong>tems, it was<br />
equally critical that the solution<br />
incorporate bulletpro<strong>of</strong> security<br />
measures, ensuring that only<br />
approved end users could<br />
access the <strong>sys</strong>tems, and that<br />
only the appropriate information<br />
was made available to each<br />
end user. Using a standard Web<br />
browser to access information<br />
being pushed out from a server<br />
affords little security.<br />
Instead, Producers relies on<br />
the Emrys View Manager, a<br />
secure application browser<br />
downloaded to the client, to<br />
bring the login user to the server-based<br />
application site where<br />
the link to back-end databases<br />
is established. In addition to<br />
being user-name and password<br />
protected, the <strong>con</strong>nection is<br />
also IP-address specific and, as<br />
an extra measure <strong>of</strong> security, all<br />
data transfers between the<br />
remote user and application<br />
server are encrypted.<br />
SUPPORTING THE<br />
DIS<strong>CON</strong>NECTED USER<br />
The vast majority <strong>of</strong><br />
Producers Lloyds customers are<br />
located in remote, rural areas<br />
where <strong>wireless</strong> coverage can be<br />
spotty, if not completely<br />
unavailable. And we’ve all<br />
experienced the notorious<br />
unreliability <strong>of</strong> dial-up <strong>con</strong>nections.<br />
At the outset <strong>of</strong><br />
Producers’ mobile initiative,<br />
one point was abundantly<br />
clear: nothing would be more<br />
aggravating and counterproductive<br />
than to spend 15 minutes<br />
entering critical information<br />
in the field via a laptop or<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> device only to have it<br />
lost because <strong>of</strong> a dropped <strong>con</strong>nection.<br />
Remedying this situation,<br />
the Emrys Vision platform<br />
incorporates advanced peer-topeer<br />
technology to provide<br />
always-on capability. If perchance<br />
an end user can’t establish<br />
a <strong>con</strong>nection, or if an<br />
established <strong>con</strong>nection is lost,<br />
he or she can access information<br />
and queue up transactions<br />
<strong>of</strong>fline. The solution incorporates<br />
data synchronization and<br />
messaging technologies to<br />
enable the exchange <strong>of</strong> new<br />
information as soon as a <strong>con</strong>nection<br />
is reestablished.<br />
MEASURABLE BOTTOM-LINE<br />
RESULTS<br />
With all IT investments,<br />
there comes a moment <strong>of</strong><br />
truth where the gee-whiz factor<br />
must give way to measurable<br />
bottom-line results. The<br />
desire to remain competitive<br />
can drive companies to hastily<br />
invest in the latest technology<br />
while losing sight <strong>of</strong> real-world<br />
business objectives. In Emrys<br />
Technologies, Producers<br />
Lloyds Insurance found a technology<br />
vendor committed to<br />
their partnership and capable<br />
<strong>of</strong> delivering a complete solution.<br />
Successful beta testing <strong>of</strong><br />
the Emrys-enabled mobile<br />
solution was completed in April<br />
2001, and full rollout to agents<br />
began in August 2001.<br />
Producers’ policyholders will<br />
be able to interact with OPUS<br />
in time for the 2001 harvest<br />
season.<br />
A Partnership That<br />
Works<br />
“Clear communications and<br />
an unflinching focus on business-meaningful<br />
results<br />
ensured that our mobile computing<br />
initiative stayed on<br />
schedule, on budget, and on<br />
strategy,” says Latham. “From<br />
<strong>con</strong>ception to beta testing to<br />
full implementation, Emrys<br />
worked with us every step <strong>of</strong><br />
the way.”<br />
Today, Producers Lloyds<br />
manages more than $200 million<br />
in assets, processes $25<br />
million in annual premiums,<br />
and administers more than<br />
20,000 policies. The Emrysenabled<br />
mobile computing<br />
solution provides data and<br />
application interaction to<br />
more than 400 agents, and has<br />
been approved by the United<br />
States Department <strong>of</strong><br />
Agriculture as a secure means<br />
for selling and administering<br />
agricultural insurance via the<br />
Internet.<br />
Through the efficiencies<br />
gained by the Emrys-enabled<br />
mobile solution, Latham estimates<br />
a 20% increase in agent<br />
productivity and a 60% reduction<br />
in the costs associated<br />
with supporting the company’s<br />
mobile workforce. The ability<br />
to access accurate, on-the-spot<br />
information has had a tremendous<br />
positive impact on customer<br />
service.<br />
Leveraging the competitive<br />
advantage afforded by the<br />
mobile solution, Latham anticipates<br />
a significant improvement<br />
in the company’s ability<br />
to attract and retain qualified<br />
agents. Looking forward,<br />
Latham projects an overall<br />
17–21% increase in annual revenue<br />
as a result <strong>of</strong> its m-business<br />
initiative.<br />
64 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
WBT ADVERTISERINDEX<br />
ADVERTISER URL PHONE PAGE<br />
Apriva www.apriva.com/x57 877-233-9702 9<br />
Beam Seminars www.beamseminars.com 21<br />
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<strong>SYS</strong>-<strong>CON</strong> Custom Media www.<strong>sys</strong>-<strong>con</strong>.com 925-244-9109 63<br />
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www.WBT2.com<br />
65
WIRELESS FUTURES<br />
by<br />
Frank Zammataro<br />
Frank Zammataro is chief marketing and strategy<br />
<strong>of</strong>ficer <strong>of</strong> w-Technologies, Inc., overseeing the<br />
company’s global market strategy, product<br />
management, and business development activities.<br />
Previously, Frank spent more than 20 years with<br />
Merrill Lynch, most recently as head <strong>of</strong> its<br />
e-Investments and e-Alliances, where he maintained<br />
overall responsibility for the organization’s<br />
Internet-related strategic alliances, investments,<br />
and portal relationships.<br />
@<br />
frankz@w-technologies.com<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
From Mobile Computing<br />
to Holistic Computing<br />
Smart mobile devices serve as life-management <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
What do former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, Toronto Blue Jays’<br />
first baseman Carlos Delgado, and radio personality Howard Stern<br />
have in common? They’re all addicted to their PDAs. The ever-growing<br />
need to manage more and more information in less and less time, both<br />
workwise and socially, could have you depending on yours, too.<br />
i<br />
n June, a private day<br />
school outside<br />
Winston-Salem,<br />
North Carolina, became the<br />
first K–12 school in the United<br />
States to require the use <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>wireless</strong> PDAs by its high school<br />
students. In January, Santa<br />
Clara, California’s, police<br />
department became the first to<br />
use <strong>wireless</strong> PDAs out on the<br />
beat to cut down on the time<br />
and paper involved in writing<br />
and filing tickets, accident<br />
reports, and other routine matters.<br />
In May, New York City<br />
police <strong>of</strong>ficers followed suit,<br />
adopting <strong>wireless</strong> PDAs to<br />
check for outstanding warrants<br />
and stolen cars. In a recent USA<br />
Today article, the BlackBerry<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> PDA was described as<br />
the “CrackBerry” in reference to<br />
its addictive qualities, which<br />
have reportedly hooked such<br />
users as former Baywatch star<br />
Pamela Anderson, Toronto Blue<br />
Jays’ first baseman Carlos<br />
Delgado, and radio personality<br />
Howard Stern.<br />
Predicting the Future<br />
with Pants?<br />
Clearly, handheld <strong>wireless</strong><br />
devices have begun to outgrow<br />
their monikers. No longer just<br />
organizational assistants to<br />
techno-geeks and harried executives,<br />
today’s devices are<br />
becoming critical life- and<br />
work-management tools<br />
for a wide variety <strong>of</strong> users.<br />
In helping students to<br />
manage their education, or<br />
law enforcement to manage<br />
their pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
activities, handheld<br />
mobile devices are<br />
graduating from<br />
indulgent gadgetry to<br />
essential appliances.<br />
This evolution can<br />
be underscored by<br />
Levi Strauss &<br />
Co.’s recent<br />
launch <strong>of</strong> a new<br />
line <strong>of</strong> Dockers<br />
pants specially<br />
outfitted with a<br />
“mobile device”<br />
pocket. While a pair <strong>of</strong><br />
pants might seem an odd harbinger<br />
<strong>of</strong> a new lifestyle trend,<br />
the simple fact that Levi’s has<br />
taken the pants designed for<br />
“everyman,” and tailored them<br />
to accommodate a mobile<br />
device, indicates that they<br />
expect these tools to become as<br />
essential to everyday life as the<br />
wallet.<br />
The Emergence <strong>of</strong><br />
Holistic Computing<br />
Though PDAs, cell phones,<br />
and other portable <strong>wireless</strong><br />
tools have been around for<br />
years, their transformation into<br />
true life-management <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
has only just begun, enabled by<br />
a combination <strong>of</strong> business,<br />
social, and technological forces<br />
that are <strong>con</strong>verging to push the<br />
demand for, and development<br />
<strong>of</strong>, smart mobile devices, networks,<br />
and enterprises.<br />
Ultimately, these market drivers<br />
will foster the emergence <strong>of</strong> a<br />
new, personalized, ubiquitous<br />
mobile computing model that<br />
can only be described as<br />
holistic computing.<br />
The two primary business<br />
market forces that<br />
are pushing holistic<br />
computing forward<br />
are: the ever-present<br />
need to increase productivity<br />
in the workplace<br />
and the need to<br />
accommodate an<br />
increasingly global,<br />
mobile, and temporary<br />
workforce.<br />
Social and cultural<br />
forces are more subtle,<br />
but include the<br />
necessity <strong>of</strong> managing<br />
greater amounts <strong>of</strong><br />
information in shorter<br />
spells <strong>of</strong> time, the desire to<br />
streamline personal and work<br />
activities, and – most significant<br />
– the need to stay in <strong>con</strong>stant<br />
<strong>con</strong>tact with family members<br />
and loved ones throughout the<br />
hectic workday.<br />
It’s LANs, WANs and,<br />
Man Oh Man, GANs<br />
While the business and<br />
social forces are certainly having<br />
a significant impact, it’s the<br />
technological drivers that are<br />
really pushing the mobile computing<br />
revolution into high gear.<br />
The proliferation <strong>of</strong> broadband<br />
networks, the development <strong>of</strong><br />
WAP, the introduction <strong>of</strong> the<br />
short-distance <strong>wireless</strong> technol-<br />
66 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
ogy, 802.11, and the march<br />
toward General Packet Radio<br />
Service (GPRS) and next-generation<br />
3G <strong>wireless</strong> technologies<br />
are just a few <strong>of</strong> the technological<br />
factors facilitating the move<br />
toward holistic computing.<br />
How? The communications<br />
environment is progressing from<br />
Local Area Networks (LANs) to<br />
Wide Area Networks (WANs) to<br />
Mobile Area Networks (MANs)<br />
to the latest iteration, Global<br />
Area Networks (GANs). GANs<br />
allow individuals to always be<br />
<strong>con</strong>nected regardless <strong>of</strong> their<br />
location. The GAN is made up <strong>of</strong><br />
a combination <strong>of</strong> land-based<br />
and <strong>wireless</strong> networks, in addition<br />
to short-range personal<br />
area network technologies such<br />
as Bluetooth. GANs include a<br />
new class <strong>of</strong> Global Enterprise<br />
Server technologies that aggregate<br />
multiple, disparate <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
from various entities, and collectively<br />
create a real-time communications<br />
environment for global<br />
customers and employees.<br />
We’re creating a world in which<br />
personalized “always-on” <strong>con</strong>nectivity<br />
is not only possible,<br />
but is a standard.<br />
As mobile penetration increases,<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> devices will overtake<br />
PCs as the primary means <strong>of</strong><br />
Internet access. According to IDC<br />
research, the number <strong>of</strong> wired<br />
Internet subscribers worldwide<br />
will reach an estimated 540 million<br />
by 2003, whereas the number<br />
<strong>of</strong> cellular/PCS subscribers could<br />
reach more than 740 million in<br />
the same period.<br />
Of course, holistic computing<br />
and the new life-management<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems are about more than<br />
bringing the Web to a mobile<br />
device. The movement involves a<br />
whole new computing paradigm,<br />
one that’s designed not just to<br />
make people more efficient, but<br />
to make them more effective<br />
through 24/7 information access<br />
and <strong>con</strong>stant collaboration with<br />
people and institutions, ultimately<br />
giving a new, holistic dimension<br />
to real-time computing.<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
Not About Saving Time,<br />
but Maximizing It<br />
Mobile life management is<br />
more about maximizing time<br />
than compressing it. When the<br />
Internet first emerged, the main<br />
value proposition it <strong>of</strong>fered to<br />
businesses and <strong>con</strong>sumers was its<br />
ability to decrease the time spent<br />
performing a wide range <strong>of</strong> functions<br />
and eliminating the distances<br />
between people, <strong>of</strong>fices,<br />
and institutions. In popular tech<br />
culture, the difference between<br />
<strong>of</strong>fline and online timelines was<br />
anecdotally likened to “dog years.”<br />
While mobile devices, networks,<br />
and enterprises preserve<br />
the time efficiencies made possible<br />
by the Internet, they also<br />
promise to improve upon simple<br />
efficiencies by giving users the<br />
power to be more effective as<br />
well. With mobile time, we’re talking<br />
about <strong>con</strong>tinually providing<br />
users – regardless <strong>of</strong> where they<br />
are – with real-time information<br />
flows and live links to other people<br />
and institutions. Such <strong>con</strong>nectivity<br />
ultimately allows them<br />
to make smarter, timelier, and<br />
better-informed decisions around<br />
not only business and shopping<br />
functions, but also a vast range <strong>of</strong><br />
life-management activities.<br />
What will life-management<br />
devices look like and what functions<br />
will they encompass? They’ll<br />
take the form <strong>of</strong> a relatively ubiquitous<br />
smart device with a broadband<br />
<strong>con</strong>nection. Users can<br />
in<strong>con</strong>spicuously wear or carry<br />
these devices on their person (or<br />
in their Dockers). The devices will<br />
be highly customized to their<br />
individual owners, meaning that<br />
users’ personal pr<strong>of</strong>iles will be<br />
“alive” within the devices, networks,<br />
and enterprises they interact<br />
with. All data inputs and transactions,<br />
information accesses, and<br />
communications will be <strong>con</strong>tinually<br />
synchronized so that the end<br />
result will be a true <strong>con</strong>vergence<br />
<strong>of</strong> real-time mobile computing<br />
and <strong>con</strong>stant collaboration with<br />
other people, computing <strong>sys</strong>tems,<br />
organizations, and institutions.<br />
1 Technology <strong>con</strong>vergence will drive desktop and mobile computing<br />
to a holistic computing environment in the future.<br />
2 The natural evolution <strong>of</strong> core-networking components will lead to<br />
global computing standards.<br />
Perhaps a more illustrative<br />
explanation <strong>of</strong> the life-management<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems <strong>of</strong> the future lies in<br />
an analogy to holistic medicine.<br />
Holistic medicine involves viewing<br />
an individual’s health as part<br />
<strong>of</strong> a functioning whole, as well as<br />
creating health regimens tailored<br />
to an individual’s unique physical<br />
and psychological makeup.<br />
People who adhere to holistic<br />
practices might allow their natural<br />
body rhythms to dictate<br />
sleeping patterns or allow their<br />
blood type to influence their<br />
diets. They follow routines developed<br />
to match their own physical<br />
and spiritual pr<strong>of</strong>iles.<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
67
WIRELESS FUTURES<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
This principle <strong>of</strong> developing<br />
a personalized pr<strong>of</strong>ile in order<br />
to optimize health in the functioning,<br />
ever-moving whole is<br />
the same that underlies holistic<br />
computing. Holistic computing,<br />
like holistic medicine, promises<br />
personalized experience<br />
through a “live” pr<strong>of</strong>ile that <strong>con</strong>tinually<br />
collaborates on a realtime<br />
basis with people, databases,<br />
institutions or, in other<br />
words, the functioning whole.<br />
A recent report from<br />
Accenture’s Institute for Strategic<br />
Change provides a similar, albeit<br />
less poetic, description <strong>of</strong> future<br />
mobile devices. According to the<br />
report, we’ll see mobile devices<br />
that will not only enable the kinds<br />
<strong>of</strong> transactions we make today<br />
from phone and desktop, but<br />
many that will replace work we<br />
don’t currently regard as computing-<br />
or communications-related.<br />
For example, mobile lifemanagement<br />
device users <strong>of</strong><br />
the future might automatically<br />
send receipts to an <strong>of</strong>fice<br />
expense account while completing<br />
a purchase in another<br />
city. Or, a user will get step-bystep<br />
technical instructions on<br />
how to install a light fixture and<br />
simultaneously order and have<br />
delivered the part he or she<br />
neglected to buy. With voice<br />
recognition and other biometrics<br />
built in for better security,<br />
mobile devices will augment<br />
passports and wallets. Such<br />
devices have the potential to<br />
replace pagers, PCs, handheld<br />
organizers, debit cards, telephones,<br />
and a great deal <strong>of</strong><br />
labor. As the Accenture report<br />
stated, “In this vision, the<br />
mobile device becomes the one<br />
thing we cannot do without,<br />
whether we leave home or not.”<br />
Many <strong>wireless</strong> PDAs, mobile<br />
phones, and palmtop computers<br />
currently perform these<br />
functions, but there’s not yet<br />
one device that does it all.<br />
Moreover, many <strong>of</strong> the individual<br />
functions are compromised<br />
by such technical limitations as<br />
small display size, cumbersome<br />
data entry, clunky networks, or<br />
tiny monochrome interfaces. Yet<br />
today we can witness PDA makers<br />
adding phone-like features<br />
to their products, and mobile<br />
phone makers adding PDA features<br />
to theirs. This <strong>con</strong>vergence<br />
will <strong>con</strong>tinue until individual<br />
mobile devices <strong>of</strong>fer a whole<br />
range <strong>of</strong> life-management activities<br />
that allow users to dispense<br />
with separate mobile phones,<br />
organizers, and minicomputers,<br />
in favor <strong>of</strong> one smart device.<br />
Trying to foretell the definitive<br />
form these smart devices will take<br />
would be a futile exercise. After<br />
all, two years ago few would have<br />
guessed that people today would<br />
use pens to carry on live, <strong>wireless</strong><br />
chats, or use their cell phones to<br />
transmit messages to cash registers<br />
at fast-food restaurants (making<br />
fast food even faster). Though<br />
few could have envisioned the<br />
details or specifics, these innovations<br />
are realities. Ericsson<br />
recently introduced the world’s<br />
first digital pen, which uses<br />
Bluetooth <strong>wireless</strong> technology<br />
and the GPRS network to transfer<br />
handwritten text and interact<br />
with mobile phones.<br />
Opportunity Knocking<br />
The long-term benefits <strong>of</strong><br />
smart mobile devices promise<br />
to be even more significant<br />
than just better-<strong>con</strong>nected<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional communities<br />
and better-informed,<br />
less-harried <strong>con</strong>sumers.<br />
Stamford,<br />
Connecticut-based<br />
GartnerGroup<br />
recently released<br />
a study titled<br />
“Wearing<br />
IT<br />
Out: The Growth <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Wireless, Wearable World.” The<br />
report outlines business opportunities<br />
that will result from the<br />
widespread use <strong>of</strong> life-management<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems, including:<br />
• Redistribution <strong>of</strong> revenue<br />
from payments as users adopt<br />
alternatives to traditional<br />
credit cards, cash, and checks.<br />
• The growth in prevalence<br />
and importance <strong>of</strong> virtual<br />
communities, which will<br />
include a higher percentage<br />
<strong>of</strong> the population and be<br />
available for more hours<br />
than has been the case with<br />
the wired Web. Marketers,<br />
employers, and others who<br />
understand how to leverage<br />
the power <strong>of</strong> the communities<br />
where users are spending<br />
increasing amounts <strong>of</strong><br />
time will win the users’ precious<br />
attention.<br />
• Retaining high-value customers<br />
through highly personalized<br />
services such as<br />
automatic check-in at airports<br />
and hotels based on<br />
physical location (e.g., as the<br />
user enters the<br />
3 w-Technologies’ Mobilero platform <strong>of</strong>fers corporations a growth<br />
path towards a global enterprise server environment.<br />
68 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
lobby, the hotel beams a<br />
message to the user that<br />
indicates the guest’s room<br />
number and personal identification<br />
number to open the<br />
door).<br />
• A growing need for privacy<br />
protection while maintaining<br />
the <strong>con</strong>venience <strong>of</strong> personalization.<br />
Trusted third<br />
parties will act as guardians<br />
<strong>of</strong> users’ pr<strong>of</strong>iles, histories,<br />
and authentication information<br />
so that users don’t have<br />
to register with every institution<br />
with which they have a<br />
business relationship.<br />
When will it happen? When<br />
will mobile devices make the full<br />
transition to smart, life-management<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems? At present, we are<br />
still in a space where key components<br />
<strong>of</strong> device, network, s<strong>of</strong>tware,<br />
and hardware technologies<br />
have not yet been fleshed out. It<br />
will take three to five years<br />
before these components are in<br />
place. While this may seem like<br />
an eternity to those <strong>of</strong> us in the<br />
front lines, most technology<br />
developments <strong>of</strong> this magnitude<br />
have taken much longer.<br />
For perspective, let’s turn to<br />
the evolution <strong>of</strong> the PC. The<br />
personal computer emerged in<br />
1979. It took another five to 10<br />
years for TCPIP to emerge as a<br />
standard and then another five<br />
to 10 years after that for the<br />
Internet to fully embrace that<br />
standard and usher in the complete<br />
maturity <strong>of</strong> the desktop<br />
computer. Today, because we<br />
already have mature storage,<br />
processing, network, routing,<br />
and enterprise information<br />
channeling technologies, the<br />
emergence <strong>of</strong> a mature mobilecomputing<br />
marketplace will<br />
develop in a much shorter time<br />
frame. Much <strong>of</strong> the groundwork<br />
has already been laid; the task<br />
at hand is to harness it.<br />
What’s It Going to<br />
Take?<br />
Holistic computing is in its<br />
formative stages. Corporations<br />
must now focus on how to log-<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
ically and incrementally start<br />
to adopt holistic computing<br />
and life-management activities<br />
on behalf <strong>of</strong> customers and<br />
employees, while waiting for<br />
the standards and components<br />
<strong>of</strong> a true end-to-end environment<br />
to emerge. This situation<br />
is similar to that which<br />
occurred before the TCPIP<br />
standard emerged for the<br />
Internet. And, as before, it will<br />
be the technology companies<br />
that target the different components<br />
<strong>of</strong> the mobile computing<br />
value chain and work<br />
together in <strong>con</strong>sortia that will<br />
accelerate progress and allow<br />
holistic computing to come to<br />
fruition much more quickly.<br />
What’s required is a <strong>con</strong>solidating<br />
event – resulting in a widely<br />
accepted structure that<br />
allows us to really rev up this<br />
new sector <strong>of</strong> the e<strong>con</strong>omy and<br />
accelerate the value that these<br />
life-management <strong>sys</strong>tems will<br />
<strong>of</strong>fer.<br />
Always-On Future<br />
Sociocultural <strong>sys</strong>tems are<br />
forever re<strong>con</strong>figured by technological<br />
advances. The last technological<br />
watershed – the<br />
Internet – forever changed our<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>essional and <strong>con</strong>sumeristic<br />
<strong>con</strong>siderations <strong>of</strong> time.<br />
Business sped up to accommodate<br />
Internet-powered time<br />
lines and cycles that had taken<br />
years or months to play out,<br />
and can now be measured in<br />
months or days. The architects<br />
<strong>of</strong> the mobile e<strong>con</strong>omy are laying<br />
the foundation required for<br />
a similar groundbreaking transformation<br />
that promises to forever<br />
change the ways we manage<br />
our personal and pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
activities, buy and sell<br />
products and services, and<br />
communicate with everyone<br />
and everything around us.<br />
Basically, the holistic computing<br />
revolution is all about making<br />
good on promises unfulfilled<br />
by the wired Net: anytime/anywhere<br />
access to information,<br />
service, and transactions.<br />
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OCTOBER 31, 2001<br />
69
FOCUS ON<br />
TECHNOLOGY<br />
Mobile E-Mail<br />
Access and More<br />
with Gopher King<br />
A next-generation messaging service<br />
by Jim Milbery<br />
E-mail has become such an absolute necessity for <strong>con</strong>ducting<br />
business that it’s almost impossible for the modern<br />
road warrior to work without it. In fact, the problem with email<br />
is that you need access to your inbox throughout the day –<br />
not just when you have a <strong>con</strong>venient network <strong>con</strong>nection.<br />
Ideally, we’d all like the ability to access our e-mail (and other<br />
services) using the variety <strong>of</strong> mobile devices that we’ve got<br />
stuffed into our pockets and briefcases.<br />
One solution that does just that is a clever product from a<br />
tiny Bay area start-up called Gopher King. The developers <strong>of</strong><br />
Gopher King are truly the embodiment <strong>of</strong> the expression “necessity<br />
is the mother <strong>of</strong> invention.” While working for a business-tobusiness<br />
start-up, the team at Gopher King was “on the road” on<br />
a daily basis. They had no way to check their corporate e-mail<br />
while traveling – but they all had ready access to their trusty<br />
PDAs.<br />
When financing for the B2B venture went south, they decided<br />
to pool their efforts and create an application that would allow<br />
users to access a variety <strong>of</strong> corporate services – including e-mail<br />
– from remote devices. Their first application was launched as a<br />
Palm “Web clipping” application in May <strong>of</strong> this year, and they<br />
have quickly added support for a variety <strong>of</strong> other platforms and<br />
devices.<br />
Gopher King was developed in PHP on the Red Hat Linux<br />
platform and Bob Huang (Gopher King’s chief developer) has<br />
plans to release the s<strong>of</strong>tware under GNU public licensing.<br />
I downloaded the Gopher King Web clipping application from<br />
the Web site and installed the PQA file on my Palm VII. Once<br />
Gopher King was installed on my Palm, I <strong>con</strong>nected to the application<br />
and registered for an account. Gopher King acts like a<br />
portal on the mobile device, giving you access to a variety <strong>of</strong><br />
services from a simple, linear text menu. The portal (see Figure<br />
1) <strong>of</strong>fers a wealth <strong>of</strong> links to the Internet including:<br />
PRODUCT REVIEW<br />
• E-mail: AOL, POP, IMAP, Hotmail, GSSI/CRAM-MD5<br />
• NNTP newsgroup accounts (read, send, and reply)<br />
• Headline news, stock quotes, maps, and directions<br />
• Send ICQ messages<br />
• Send message to cell phone/pager<br />
• Browse/search Internet<br />
• Find Starbucks<br />
• Whois/domain name lookup<br />
• Weather information<br />
Gopher King gives you complete <strong>con</strong>trol over the items that<br />
appear in your own personal portal. You can <strong>con</strong>figure the application<br />
using the mobile interface, or you can access the very<br />
same portal site using a standard Web browser as shown in<br />
Figure 2.<br />
I turned <strong>of</strong>f some <strong>of</strong> the options from my personal portal<br />
page using Internet Explorer, and then <strong>con</strong>figured Gopher King<br />
to access my POP-based e-mail server. I logged onto the portal<br />
and successfully <strong>con</strong>nected to my e-mail using the Palm VII. The<br />
e-mail interface is extremely well laid out and provides quick<br />
access to your inbox as shown in Figure 3.<br />
E-mail messages appear in order <strong>of</strong> receipt along with a simple<br />
description, the e-mail address <strong>of</strong> the sender, time-<strong>of</strong>-receipt,<br />
and the size <strong>of</strong> the message. Obviously, the network speed on my<br />
Palm VII does not match the speed <strong>of</strong> a PC-modem, so it’s important<br />
to limit the amount <strong>of</strong> traffic to the mobile device.Gopher<br />
King adds a check-box<br />
object to each inbound<br />
message, so you can delete<br />
groups <strong>of</strong> spam without<br />
having to view the individual<br />
message text.<br />
The application makes it<br />
easy to step forward and<br />
backward from message to<br />
message (without having<br />
to view the inbox repeatedly).<br />
I was able to reply to<br />
messages and send new<br />
messages as I made my<br />
way across the country on<br />
a recent trip. The Palm.net<br />
service and Gopher King<br />
allowed me to respond<br />
quickly to messages during<br />
brief respites between <strong>con</strong>-<br />
1 The Gopher King portal on a<br />
Palm IIIc<br />
ference sessions (and<br />
between flight <strong>con</strong>nections).<br />
70 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
2 Accessing the Gopher King portal using Internet Explorer<br />
Summary<br />
Gopher King is a tiny s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
company, but they embody<br />
the spirit <strong>of</strong> this new mobilecomputing<br />
revolution. By leveraging<br />
industry standards they’ve<br />
been able to create an application<br />
that solves a real business<br />
problem – quickly and effectively.<br />
Gopher King <strong>of</strong>fers a wealth <strong>of</strong><br />
nifty services – and I would<br />
encourage you to try it.<br />
Jim Milbery is the applications editor for Wireless<br />
Business & Technology. He is a s<strong>of</strong>tware <strong>con</strong>sultant<br />
based in Easton, Pennsylvania with Kuromaku<br />
Partners LLC, and has more than 17 years <strong>of</strong><br />
experience in application development and relational<br />
databases. Jim is also the applications editor <strong>of</strong><br />
Java Developer’s Journal and the author <strong>of</strong><br />
Making the Technical Sale. He can be reached at<br />
the company Web site at: www.kuromaku.com.<br />
@<br />
jmilbery@kuromaku.com<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
3 Gopher King inbox<br />
Gopher King, Inc.<br />
33929 Tybalt Ct.<br />
Fremont, CA 94555<br />
Phone: (510)745-0793<br />
Fax: (510)745-8970<br />
Web Site: www.gopherking.com<br />
Pricing: Service is free<br />
Server s<strong>of</strong>tware: $1,250 per<br />
license (if you want to host your<br />
own server)<br />
Platform: S<strong>of</strong>tware was developed<br />
on Linux (Red Hat 7.1) in<br />
PHP and MySQL, compatible<br />
with all major UNIX flavors,<br />
Solaris, and Linux<br />
alook ahead...<br />
What you’ll<br />
see Next Month<br />
in WBT...<br />
BREW vs J2ME<br />
Just when you thought that Sun had won the battle<br />
for the handset, get set for BREW and a rush <strong>of</strong> applications<br />
that could change mobile communications,<br />
business, and entertainment. ROBERT McGARVEY<br />
takes a close look at both sides <strong>of</strong> the rivalry.<br />
Wireless Entertainment in the U.S.<br />
Outside <strong>of</strong> North America, mobile entertainment is<br />
commonplace...but why do Europe and Japan lead<br />
the way? Is it lagging technology or a combination <strong>of</strong><br />
cultural and geographical marketplace disparities?<br />
WBT’s DAVID GEER investigates, and speaks to<br />
sundry U.S. s<strong>of</strong>tware developers who are jumping on<br />
the m-entertainment bandwagon.<br />
The Impact <strong>of</strong> Privacy on Wireless<br />
WBT’s SMS editor DAN LUBAR says there’s no doubt<br />
that <strong>wireless</strong> advertising is coming to the U.S. market,<br />
but how will <strong>con</strong>sumers feel about the privacy<br />
issues surrounding it?<br />
Beyond the PDA: Managing<br />
Electronic Call Reports<br />
Paper-based call reports are becoming a thing <strong>of</strong> the<br />
past, with significant savings in time and money to<br />
boot. ANDREW FAY tells how an increasing number<br />
<strong>of</strong> field reps are now going beyond handhelds alone,<br />
and using solution providers for data synchronization<br />
and management via the Internet.<br />
Online Travel<br />
Will mobile travel do for <strong>wireless</strong> what Amazon.com<br />
did for e-business? WBT’s KEN SMITH thinks all the<br />
signs are there.<br />
“Wireless 101”<br />
DAVE MOCK helps expand your mind and see new<br />
dimensions in the path to 3G with his comprehensive<br />
“Beginner’s Guide to All Things Wireless,” from the standards<br />
<strong>con</strong>sortia through the competing technologies.<br />
Telematics<br />
What do Nobel Laureate Gerd Binnig and <strong>wireless</strong><br />
car-to-car communications have in common? DOUG<br />
LAMONT interviews the CEO <strong>of</strong> the company founded<br />
by Binnig– Definiens – and hears how they’re further<br />
along than any other developers in helping to shape<br />
the future <strong>of</strong> car-to-car communications in the U.S.<br />
Wireless Design<br />
BARBARA BALLARD <strong>con</strong>tinues WBT’s occasional series <strong>of</strong><br />
discussions regarding UI design for mobile devices for<br />
the immediate use <strong>of</strong> the developer community, but<br />
also aimed at the business community, so they have an<br />
understanding <strong>of</strong> what things ought to look like.<br />
www.WBT2.com 71
MOBILE INTERNET<br />
by<br />
Moshe Sheps<br />
Moshe Sheps is the CEO <strong>of</strong> Speedwise, Inc.,<br />
a provider <strong>of</strong> rapid-deployment solutions that<br />
accelerate Internet access over existing <strong>wireless</strong><br />
and landline infrastructures.<br />
@<br />
msheps@speedwise.com<br />
WU MC WP WE CRM WO II WVC WR WS WA WF MI DJ<br />
The Wireless Internet Industry:<br />
Serving the Information Superhighway<br />
t<br />
o date, developments<br />
in <strong>wireless</strong><br />
technology and<br />
related infrastructure have<br />
been in<strong>con</strong>sistent and problematic,<br />
leaving gaps in the<br />
road that allow for people to go<br />
flat on the idea <strong>of</strong> a satisfying<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> Internet ride. Mobile<br />
Web surfers are plagued by<br />
painfully slow Web browsing<br />
speeds that are anywhere from<br />
9.6–19.2Kbps.<br />
Wireless carriers face the<br />
challenge <strong>of</strong> delivering a desktop-quality<br />
Web-browsing experience<br />
along with faster delivery<br />
<strong>of</strong> rich <strong>con</strong>tent (that’s getting<br />
richer by the day) to the everexpanding<br />
audiences <strong>of</strong> mobile<br />
Internet users. These solutions<br />
must be affordable and able to<br />
deliver <strong>con</strong>tent to the end user<br />
over existing and next-generation<br />
networks.<br />
Aside from upgrading to<br />
2.5G and 3G packet-switched<br />
networks, which only partially<br />
solve the bandwidth problem,<br />
there are further solutions for<br />
speeding up mobile browsing.<br />
Most <strong>of</strong> them, however, require<br />
the end user to install additional<br />
hardware or s<strong>of</strong>tware. In<br />
addition, the solutions that<br />
require client s<strong>of</strong>tware are costly<br />
and time <strong>con</strong>suming for ser-<br />
Fast download times are key<br />
The newest type <strong>of</strong> road rage is one that doesn’t involve cars. It’s<br />
the aggravating World Wide Wait now moving onto the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
devices <strong>of</strong> road warriors traveling the information superhighway.<br />
Within three years, about 1.3-billion people worldwide are expected<br />
to access the Internet via <strong>wireless</strong> technology. Wireless carriers must<br />
deliver faster download times to ensure a healthy future.<br />
vice providers to deploy and<br />
implement.<br />
Currently, <strong>wireless</strong> carriers<br />
are making heavy investments<br />
in next-generation 2.5 and 3G<br />
technologies to increase bandwidth.<br />
However, early adopters<br />
have learned that theoretical<br />
bandwidths <strong>of</strong> 115Kbps are not<br />
attainable. In fact, the reality is<br />
closer to 20–30Kbps. With such<br />
large capital outlays, <strong>wireless</strong><br />
carriers are facing the probability<br />
that their next-generation<br />
networks won’t be able to deliver<br />
promised download speeds.<br />
Bandwidth, therefore, is, and<br />
will remain for the foreseeable<br />
future, a pressing problem for<br />
full mobile Internet access.<br />
Aside from WAP – which fills<br />
a market space for immediate<br />
access to pure data (stock<br />
quotes, location-based services,<br />
etc.) – what solutions will<br />
enable <strong>wireless</strong> carriers to capture<br />
an early share <strong>of</strong> the <strong>wireless</strong><br />
Internet market? To be successful,<br />
solutions must <strong>of</strong>fer<br />
access to the whole World Wide<br />
Web over existing infrastructures,<br />
and must also help carriers<br />
extend their market share by<br />
creating a smooth transition to<br />
next-generation services.<br />
Trends – Surf<br />
the Net Freely<br />
Internet optimization solutions<br />
designed to access the<br />
Web via <strong>wireless</strong> networks are<br />
gaining favor as the newest and<br />
best way to provide a more<br />
acceptable Web-browsing experience<br />
for both business and<br />
<strong>con</strong>sumer users. By delivering<br />
extremely fast download times,<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> carriers can differentiate<br />
their services through virtual<br />
bandwidth, which provides<br />
accelerated full Internet browsing<br />
without major infrastructure<br />
upgrades on either the<br />
service provider side or enduser<br />
side. They also help to<br />
ensure the future direction <strong>of</strong><br />
the <strong>wireless</strong> industry as a key<br />
method <strong>of</strong> Internet access.<br />
Traffic <strong>con</strong>gestion on the<br />
Web stems in large part from<br />
the number <strong>of</strong> users, and the<br />
amount <strong>of</strong> data being transmitted<br />
simultaneously directly<br />
affects bandwidth. The more<br />
users online at one time, the<br />
lower the bandwidth available<br />
to each. Internet acceleration<br />
72 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
technologies create virtual<br />
bandwidth by reducing the volume<br />
<strong>of</strong> data transported over<br />
the <strong>wireless</strong> network to the end<br />
users. While <strong>wireless</strong> Internet<br />
users are able to use the Web<br />
efficiently, without waiting for<br />
information to squeeze through<br />
the limited bandwidth, network<br />
optimization benefits <strong>wireless</strong><br />
carriers as well by allowing<br />
more subscribers to use their<br />
networks, resulting in more efficient<br />
network utilization.<br />
Images, text, and graphics<br />
can also be optimized to create<br />
much lighter HTML pages while<br />
still retaining all the <strong>con</strong>tent.<br />
The data volume per user can<br />
thus be reduced, improving<br />
network utilization and<br />
enabling more users to be<br />
served within the same bandwidth.<br />
These acceleration solutions<br />
work by compressing and/or<br />
optimizing HTML <strong>con</strong>tent,<br />
making browsing faster and<br />
reducing the number <strong>of</strong> data<br />
packets on the carrier’s network.<br />
This increases bandwidth<br />
without compromising <strong>con</strong>tent.<br />
However, most <strong>of</strong> these<br />
types <strong>of</strong> solutions require not<br />
only server s<strong>of</strong>tware, but also<br />
client s<strong>of</strong>tware to be installed<br />
on end-user devices. In order to<br />
keep up with the competitive<br />
marketplace and <strong>of</strong>fer their customers<br />
the best possible solution<br />
(and to cut down on<br />
churn), <strong>wireless</strong> carriers should<br />
look for the following features<br />
in their Web acceleration solutions:<br />
• Client-free operation: It’s<br />
important to keep it simple<br />
for the end user.<br />
Deployment that involves<br />
only the server-side and is<br />
transparent to the end user<br />
will reap significant benefits<br />
for existing and potential<br />
business. This allows the<br />
<strong>con</strong>sumer optimized access<br />
without installing additional<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware or hardware.<br />
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1<br />
• Support for a wide variety <strong>of</strong><br />
HTML-based terminals and<br />
Web browsers: Carriers want<br />
a solution that all their subscribers<br />
can use, which can<br />
be seamlessly integrated<br />
into next-generation (2.5G<br />
and 3G) networks and various<br />
operating <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
(Windows, Pocket PC, EPOC,<br />
Palm OS, etc.). A client-free<br />
solution supports any device<br />
running on various operating<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems since all that’s<br />
required is a standard HTML<br />
browser such as Explorer,<br />
Netscape, or Opera.<br />
• Carrier-class features:<br />
Carriers need a flexible solution<br />
that’s truly scalable and<br />
compatible with standard<br />
external equipment such as<br />
load balancers, Layer 4<br />
switches, or others. SNMP<br />
management for remote<br />
monitoring and standard<br />
billing interface are also<br />
important <strong>con</strong>siderations.<br />
This allows carriers to <strong>con</strong>trol<br />
and manage valueadded<br />
services based on<br />
individual customer needs.<br />
• Easy deployment: Wireless<br />
carriers must seek a Web<br />
acceleration solution that<br />
can be quickly and easily<br />
deployed on a standard LAN<br />
server, without requiring<br />
client-side s<strong>of</strong>tware. This<br />
will shorten the time-tomarket<br />
for carriers and provide<br />
mobile customers with<br />
the value-added benefit <strong>of</strong><br />
faster browsing speeds.<br />
The mobile handset, <strong>wireless</strong><br />
PDA, and laptop are becoming<br />
essential all-purpose business<br />
appliances serving telecommuters<br />
and road warriors on the<br />
information superhighway. By<br />
delivering extremely fast download<br />
times, <strong>wireless</strong> carriers can<br />
not only differentiate their services<br />
and reduce customer churn,<br />
but also help to ensure the future<br />
vitality and future growth <strong>of</strong> the<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> Internet industry.<br />
Just some <strong>of</strong> the many distinguished <strong>wireless</strong><br />
movers and shakers we’re honored to have sitting on WBT’s<br />
International Advisory Board or Technical Advisory Board<br />
Simon Phipps Chief S<strong>of</strong>tware Evangelist, Sun<br />
Micro<strong>sys</strong>tems, responsible for expounding and<br />
explaining the “big picture” <strong>of</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware development.<br />
(www.Sun.com)<br />
Anita Osterhaug Director <strong>of</strong> Knowledge Products<br />
for Brokat AG, headquartered in Stuttgart,<br />
Germany, and San Jose, California.<br />
(www.brokat.com)<br />
James Pearce Director <strong>of</strong> Encerca, the new name<br />
for AnywhereYouGo.<strong>com's</strong> Wireless Internet Lab,<br />
which now has its own Web site – an expansion<br />
<strong>of</strong> AYG's WAP testing, monitoring, and <strong>con</strong>sultancy<br />
services. (www.encerca.com)<br />
James Gosling Cocreator <strong>of</strong> the Java programming<br />
language, currently Vice President and Fellow at Sun<br />
Micro<strong>sys</strong>tems working at Sun Labs where his primary<br />
interest is s<strong>of</strong>tware development tools. (www.sun.com)<br />
Peter Roxburgh A Mobile Solutions developer<br />
with Secure Trading Ltd., the foremost service for<br />
processing Internet-based credit card payments in<br />
the United Kingdom. (www.securetrading.com)<br />
Larry Mittag VP and Chief Technologist <strong>of</strong> Stellcom,<br />
Inc., he has more than 25 years <strong>of</strong> technical and<br />
strategic expertise with <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>sys</strong>tems<br />
integration and embedded <strong>sys</strong>tems design and<br />
development. (www.stellcom.com)<br />
Rajiv Gupta Worldwide champion <strong>of</strong> “E-Speak”<br />
and Hewlett Packard’s Chief Architect <strong>of</strong><br />
E-services. (www.hp.com)<br />
Douglas Lamont Visiting pr<strong>of</strong>essor <strong>of</strong> marketing at DePaul University<br />
in Chicago, Illinois. The author <strong>of</strong> Conquering the Wireless World: The<br />
Age <strong>of</strong> M-Commerce, and six other international marketing books, he<br />
holds a PhD in business administration with a major in marketing.<br />
Ron Dennis C<strong>of</strong>ounded Livemind, Inc., led the thridparty<br />
developers group at AOL, and created AOL’s Web<br />
Hosting Service and S<strong>of</strong>tware Greenhouse. Ron has<br />
guided several Internet start-ups. (www.livemind.com)<br />
Andrea H<strong>of</strong>fman Editor-in-Chief<br />
and Technical Director <strong>of</strong> Mobile Media Japan, an<br />
Internet portal for information on the Japanese<br />
<strong>wireless</strong> industry. (www.MobileMediaJapan.com)<br />
www.WBT2.com<br />
73
The early days <strong>of</strong> NTT DoCoMo’s pioneering third-gen-<br />
eration mobile phone service are proving to be a trial in<br />
more than one sense <strong>of</strong> the word.<br />
THE 3G WCDMA (WIDEBAND CDMA) SERVICE,<br />
called FOMA, was supposed<br />
to <strong>of</strong>fer a dramatic leap in<br />
technology and “stress-free communications,”<br />
as the Japanese<br />
operator claimed in an advertisement<br />
placed earlier this year.<br />
They had promised a state-<strong>of</strong>the-art<br />
mobile phone service, with<br />
dramatically faster transmission<br />
speeds and effortless downloading <strong>of</strong> video and music on the go.<br />
Instead, FOMA has been greeted with a barrage <strong>of</strong> criticism over<br />
reported bugs and what some believe are even more serious problems.<br />
A survey by DoCoMo <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> the 4,500 users <strong>of</strong> FOMA for the two<br />
months since trial services began at the end <strong>of</strong> May has shown disappointing<br />
results. The main problems have been a low <strong>con</strong>nection rate,<br />
screen freezing, overheated batteries, short battery life, difficulty accessing<br />
i-mode (DoCoMo’s mobile Internet service), and lack <strong>of</strong> <strong>con</strong>tent.<br />
The big question is whether these problems are simply teething<br />
troubles to be expected in any new <strong>sys</strong>tem, or whether they stem from<br />
a fundamental flaw either in the WCDMA standard or in the way<br />
DoCoMo has built their <strong>sys</strong>tem. For example Yasumasa Goda, telecoms<br />
analyst at Merrill Lynch in Tokyo, claims that FOMA’s problems – such<br />
as overheating batteries – “are much more basic than s<strong>of</strong>tware bugs.”<br />
DoCoMo’s failure to fix some <strong>of</strong> these basic problems before<br />
they launched their trial service stems from the fact that they’re<br />
inherent to the WCDMA standard, and that, according to Goda,<br />
means they will not be able to fix it in a few months.<br />
Yoshitake Matsuo, senior general manager <strong>of</strong> NEC’s mobile <strong>wireless</strong><br />
business unit, notes that some <strong>of</strong> the problems with FOMA arise from<br />
the use <strong>of</strong> GSM for the core network. (NEC, along with Fujitsu, is a key<br />
supplier <strong>of</strong> 3G network equipment to DoCoMo.) For example, he says<br />
the slower <strong>con</strong>nection to i-mode compared with a 2G phone stems<br />
from the fact that the specifications for the 3G core network, where the<br />
base station communicates with the switches, is based on GSM.<br />
The same can be said about the need to recharge the batteries<br />
almost daily. For Japanese mobile phone users accustomed to PDC<br />
phones, this is unacceptable. Whereas PDC phones are energy efficient,<br />
reducing the need to recharge the battery, GSM phones <strong>con</strong>sume<br />
energy even when they’re not in use, hence the need to<br />
recharge FOMA batteries more <strong>of</strong>ten than with existing PDC<br />
phones. But the WCDMA protocol is based on GSM.<br />
DATELINE JAPAN<br />
by Michiyo Nakamoto<br />
Getting Ahead<br />
<strong>of</strong> the 3G Pack<br />
Michiyo Nakamoto is Tokyo Correspondent <strong>of</strong> the Financial Times, and has watched NTT DoCoMo tumble from third place<br />
in the FT’s Global 500 rankings <strong>of</strong> the world’s largest companies (in 2000), to sixteenth in 2001, as it wrestles with the strategic problems<br />
<strong>of</strong> evolving in-line with <strong>wireless</strong> technologies. Her fact-filled commentaries direct from Tokyo appear in WBT each month.<br />
Industry <strong>of</strong>ficials also suspect that DoCoMo’s problems<br />
with 3G stem in part from their attempt to <strong>con</strong>trol the<br />
entire <strong>sys</strong>tem on their own, rather than open it up to<br />
manufacturers. As Chris Gent, chief executive <strong>of</strong><br />
Vodafone, points out: “Japan has had a proprietary <strong>sys</strong>tem<br />
– PDC – which has enabled an end-to-end Internet<br />
experience to be developed for customers, with the operators<br />
defining every aspect <strong>of</strong> it,<br />
including what the manufacturer<br />
should do. That isn’t the case<br />
when you start going into the<br />
open <strong>sys</strong>tems world <strong>of</strong> WCDMA<br />
or GSM, where you have to work<br />
to an international standard,<br />
and no one is allowed to have a<br />
proprietary right to define<br />
things. So it’s a very different world we’re moving into with WCDMA,<br />
different than that which DoCoMo has experienced with PDC.<br />
DoCoMo brushes aside these <strong>con</strong>cerns, believing that the problems<br />
they’ve faced with FOMA stem from a need to fine-tune the s<strong>of</strong>tware,<br />
rather than from any basic problem with the WCDMA standard<br />
or their implementation <strong>of</strong> it. The operator reminds their critics – and<br />
many <strong>of</strong> those familiar with the introduction <strong>of</strong> new telecoms technologies<br />
agree – that a completely new <strong>sys</strong>tem such as WCDMA is<br />
bound to have bugs in it, and claims they’re on track to clear the bugs.<br />
Although DoCoMo has identified as many as 328 problems – <strong>of</strong><br />
which 235 have been resolved – this is not a surprisingly large number,<br />
says Eisuke Iwabuchi, general manager <strong>of</strong> Fujitsu’s mobile communication<br />
and <strong>wireless</strong> <strong>sys</strong>tems division. The initially low <strong>con</strong>nection rate,<br />
for example, was something that could be tackled only after trial services<br />
were started, he claims. This is because there are so many combinations<br />
<strong>of</strong> potential problems that could arise when the <strong>sys</strong>tem is actually<br />
used, which cannot be anticipated in the lab, Iwabuchi explains.<br />
Connection rates have now gone up from an initial 50% to 90%<br />
and are headed toward 98%, and the problems <strong>of</strong> screen freezing<br />
and poor <strong>con</strong>nection have also been resolved. Two months after trial<br />
services began, Keiji Tachikawa, DoCoMo’s president,<br />
expressed <strong>con</strong>fidence that the operator was on track<br />
to start <strong>of</strong>fering commercial services in October.<br />
Whether his <strong>con</strong>fidence is misplaced remains to<br />
be seen, but there’s one thing on which both optimists<br />
and pessimists alike seem to agree: DoCoMo<br />
and their suppliers may face problems with FOMA,<br />
but if and when WCDMA services take <strong>of</strong>f, the trials<br />
and tribulations will provide DoCoMo and their key<br />
suppliers with vital expertise that will place<br />
them firmly ahead <strong>of</strong> the pack in <strong>of</strong>fering a<br />
stress-free and attractive 3G experience.<br />
“It’s a very different world we’re moving into with WCDMA,<br />
different than that which DoCoMo has experienced with PDC”<br />
–Chris Gent,<br />
chief executive, Vodaphone<br />
michiyo.nakamoto@ft.com<br />
@<br />
74 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
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Loaded with features, the DC4800 3.1megapixel<br />
resolution gives you outstanding<br />
prints up to 11" x 14". A 3X-optical<br />
zoom (28 x 84 mm) and 2X digital zoom<br />
lens let you choose wide-angle or telephoto<br />
to capture precious details. All in a<br />
compact design with a neck strap that makes it more comfortable to use<br />
and easier to carry, and especially <strong>con</strong>venient when traveling.<br />
Receive a $100 rebate by mail when you purchase the KODAK DC4800<br />
Zoom Digital Camera! ($498.99 After Mfg. Rebate. US only <strong>of</strong>fer)<br />
DC-4800 Camera 16MB / 3.1 MegaPixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 598 99<br />
The Compaq iPAQ H3650<br />
Series Pocket PC is not<br />
your typical handheld<br />
organizer. Compaq has<br />
designed the iPAQ Pocket<br />
PC from the ground up to<br />
give customers the<br />
Internet, information, <strong>con</strong>tent,<br />
and access to their<br />
business and personal<br />
lives at any given time, in<br />
any given place.<br />
JDJStore.com ...... $ 502 99<br />
D-LINK<br />
DMP-CD100 CD/MP3 CD Player<br />
The D-Link DMP-CD100 CD/MP3 CD<br />
Player is a portable Compact Disc<br />
player that reads ordinary audio<br />
CDs (CD-DA) and MP3 CDs made<br />
from MP3 files burnt to a CD-<br />
Recordable Disc(CD-R). The player is cutting<br />
edge technology that provides over 10<br />
hours <strong>of</strong> non-stop music on a single disc.<br />
DMP-CD100 CD/MP3 CD Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 109 99<br />
eHELP<br />
HP<br />
JORNADA 457 HANDHELD<br />
As a busy pr<strong>of</strong>essional, you<br />
know every day can be a challenge.<br />
Meetings, appointments,<br />
projects, and deadlines—<br />
sometimes it’s hard keeping it<br />
all together. But now there’s<br />
something that can help you<br />
handle it all with ease—the HP<br />
Jornada 547 Color Pocket PC.<br />
It has everything you need to<br />
gracefully juggle the details—<br />
and have fun while you’re doing<br />
it. All in a slim, lightweight PC<br />
companion that’s a perfect fit<br />
for your lifestyle.<br />
JDJStore.com ...... $ 469 99<br />
RoboHELP Office 2000<br />
RoboHELP Office provides a user-friendly<br />
WYSIWYG authoring environment for<br />
creating JavaHelp. RoboHELP guides<br />
you through the process so you can<br />
create a great JavaHelp <strong>sys</strong>tem with<br />
point-and-click and drag-and-drop<br />
ease. Now you can create JavaHelp<br />
<strong>sys</strong>tems as easily as you create WinHelp, Micros<strong>of</strong>t HTML Help and<br />
WebHelp (cross-platform Help) from the same source product – all with<br />
RoboHELP Office.<br />
RoboHELP Office 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 898 99<br />
888-303-JAVA
Unplugin<br />
www.unplugin.com<br />
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