ForQuest Wireless Newsletter

No. 15 August 8, 2000

International: Future of M-Commerce Keeps Bidding High

- - -Telecom companies pushed bids past the $10 billion mark Tuesday trying to the seal the right to operate next generation mobile phones in Europe's biggest telephone market - and tap a potentially huge market of consumers looking to pay with their portables. Telecom companies see such promise, they have been mercilessly outbidding each other over the past week for the exclusive right to transmit over Germany's newly opened airwaves.

Analysts expect the auction to go on for days, possibly weeks, and bring in 60 billion marks ($28.8 bil) for the German government, which is selling off the licenses. But Tuesday was a considered breakthrough day - bidding finally burst through the government's own predictions of 20 billion marks ($ 9.6 bil).

M-commerce is one of the reasons companies are salivating so for next-generation licenses. The new high-speed Universal Mobile Telecommunications System standard has a transmission speed nearly 40 times the existing GSM standard, allowing mobile-phones be used more like computers with the capacity to access the Internet

Of 50 major European Internet retailers the group surveyed, nearly 90 percent said they were already planning sites accessible by mobile phones. Various projections put m-commerce sales in the billions of dollars over the next few years and is why companies such as Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Britain's Vodafone AirTouch, Japan's NTT DoCoMo and Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa are bidding big to get in the game.

"UMTS is like adding another lane to the freeway," said John Jensen, an analyst with Chase Bank in London. "It's all about getting more capacity and more frequency. It's the raw material of the industry and a scarce resource and that's why nobody can get enough of it."

Company Spotlight: PacketVideo Brings Warner Bros Wireless

- - -Warner Bros. will become the first major Hollywood studio to wirelessly distribute video encoded in MPEG-4, thanks to an alliance with start-up PacketVideo, which is providing the key compression, embedded software, and authoring tools.

Wireless multimedia applications, including animation, trailers, promos, short video games, or video greeting cards, are also expected for delivery over the 2.5G and third-generation (3G) wireless networks.

PacketVideo offers underlying technologies to chip companies, handset vendors, wireless carriers, and content owners, including embedded software for mobile devices, technologies for delivering multimedia over wireless networks, and authoring tools to help build wireless multimedia applications. For carriers, the company also offers billing and provisioning gateway technologies.

One key technology developed by PacketVideo and deployed in the multimedia wireless access network is its "wireless edge server," which dynamically manages highly variable wireless bandwidth for streaming applications while taking advantage of MPEG-4 scalability, said Ed Knapp, PacketVideo's senior vice president of wireless distribution.

PacketVideo is involved in about a dozen trials to deliver multimedia content across different wireless networks, Brailean said. "Our technology is air-interface independent so that it can work over code-division multiple-access, GSM, time-division multiple-access, General Packet Radio System, and Universal Mobile Telephone System."

Edited by James A. Seidel provided by TechWeb

Technology View: Workers at Verizon Walk Off Jobs

- - -Workers at the nation's largest local telephone company walked off the job Sunday but negotiators continued talking, trying to resolve contract issues involving working conditions and union representation for employees in the fast-growing wireless field.

The strike against Verizon Communications by two unions representing 87,200 workers began when their contract expired at 12:01 a.m. and affected operations in 12 Eastern states from Maine to Virginia.

Much of the dispute is over the unions' desire to have better access to Verizon's burgeoning wireless division. Although a majority of the company's traditional landline workers are union members, fewer than 50 of the 32,000 wireless workers are unionized. Union leaders want assurances the company will let union workers take jobs in the wireless operation and will give the unions more opportunity to organize current wireless workers.

The company said late afternoon that a general framework had been reached with the unions, but the two parties still had serious matters to work through.

Edited by James A. Seidel provided by Star Tribune

Financial: The Wireless Gold-Rush

- - -Spectacular stock performances by wireless technology companies such as Phone.com --which soared from an offering price of $16 to $200 in less than a year-- have spurred a gold-rush mentality among individual, corporate and venture capital investors.

The success of wireless IPOs such as Phone.com in an otherwise listless market has investors in the public markets plunking down big money. Consider:

Triton Network Systems Inc., an Orlando, Fla., wireless network equipment maker that debuted on the Nasdaq in June, surged more than 150% on its first day of trading.

i3 Mobile Inc., a wireless Internet content provider based in Stamford, Conn., was offered at $16 per share in April, and closed at $25, a 56% increase for the day.

However, it's not just IPO market money fueling the wireless sector. Corporate giants and venture firms are stalking just about every wireless startup.

In June, telecommunications chip maker Broadcom Corp., for example, paid $440 million for Innovent Systems and its 60 employees, $7.3 million per employee.

Earlier this week, networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., paid $425 million for IPmobile Inc. a 1-year-old Richardson, Texas, company that makes wireless networking software. Cisco paid $5.2 million for each of IPmobile's 81 employees.

In the hunt for hard-to-find wireless engineers and their leading-edge technology that can help penetrate the wireless market, many large companies find it easier to buy a startup than build a business from scratch.

But the gold rush in this sector, with investors looking to get in quickly and exit fast, could have them taking a loss. "Infrastructure will make money, but boy, you better be patient. This is a game for really patient money." said William A. Frezza of Adams Capital Management in Sewickley, Pa.

Edited by James A. Seidel  Provided by Daily Deal

Showcase: Nokia Roadshow Spreads WAP Gospel in Asia Pacific

- - -Nokia of Finland held a regional roadshow last week to promote the use of WAP applications in Asia where WAP now faces serious competition from the Japanese iMode networks and services

The show made a stop in Bangkok, where the number of mobile phone users is estimated to be more than 2.5 million, although only about 1,500 of these are WAP-enabled Nokia handsets.

The roadshow, which also covered India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan, would encourage more Asian consumers to use WAP-enabled handsets.

Nokia also launched the WAP "hothouse competition" recently to stimulate development of new services for the region. Currently, Nokia has two partners -Media Enterprise and Technologies & Services and MWEB Thailand- that provide applications development assistance and content for the region.

Products: Palm Unveils Enhanced Wireless Palm VIIx

- - -As part of its fall product line announcements, Palm announced nationwide availability of the new Palm VIIx handheld computer.

The latest Palm product to feature built-in wireless access to Internet content and e-mail, the Palm VIIx handheld features a fourfold increase in memory to 8MB and 40 bundled web clipping applications, nearly double the wireless content bundled with the original Palm VII handheld.

With an estimated street price of $449, the dark-slate Palm VIIx product works with the Palm.Net wireless service to quickly and easily connect to the Internet and send and receive e-mail messages.

Its enhanced memory makes the Palm VIIx handheld well-suited for power users and mobile professionals, such as doctors, sales professionals, or anyone who needs quick access to information. Its ability to securely access proprietary information from corporate databases empowers users with critical decision-making information.

Palm also released a new low end m100 model priced at $150 featuring 2mb of memory, and swappable faceplates.

Edited by James A. Seidel  Provided by BusinessWire and Thinkmobile

Site of the Week: Shadowpack Wireless Environment

- - -Shadowpack's enhanced wireless environment delivers greater control and improved usability on any wireless device. By increasing personalization and ease of use, Shadowpack allows wireless users, device manufacturers, and content and commerce providers to realize the potential of the wireless Web.

ForQuest highly recommends Shadowpack to any WAP user.

Visit Shadowpack on the web or using your mobile device at wap.shadowpack.com

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