Does anyone see any connection with IWM in this deal?
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Business News
Microsoft Launching Mobile Services
June 14, 1999
Business News Archives
Moving aggressively to stake a claim in the wireless Internet market, Microsoft Corp. will roll out a service
Monday that pushes stock quotes, sports reports and other information to pagers and digital phones.
Microsoft's MSN Mobile ultimately will be broadened to other wireless devices and additional data
including electronic mail, said Yusuf Mehdi, marketing director in the software giant's consumer and
commerce group.
He said the Redmond-based company, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its online
operations with only mixed success, recently acquired tiny OmniBrowse Inc. in nearby Bellevue, which
offered a similar service, allowing MSN to beat other major portal sites and claim bragging rights to what he
called the first "wireless Internet portal."
America Online Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. have announced similar efforts to capitalize on the proliferation of
wireless devices and smart consumer appliances that one day could rival personal computers as a way to
plug in to the Internet.
"It's all about a vision of providing consumers the ability to access their online information anywhere,
anytime, on any device," Mehdi said. "I believe it's a very profound change in how people will use the
Web."
While the wireless service will be extremely limited at first, Microsoft is working to add interactivity to the
system, allowing customers to respond to messages, perform simple transactions and surf the Web using
hand-held devices.
"You will see a very, very rich proliferation of services," he said.
Microsoft's new service follows the company's agreement a month ago to invest $600 million for a 4 percent
stake in wireless service provider Nextel and last year's establishment of a joint venture with cellular
telephone maker Qualcomm Inc.
Under the deals Microsoft plans to roll out wireless Internet services to some 2 million hand-held
telephones over the next year, Mehdi said.
While many analysts see the services as appealing mostly to a niche market of on-the-go business people,
Microsoft is working on expanding wireless capabilities to draw in a broader audience.
For example, the company is working on a voice-activation system to enable services that otherwise would
be difficult or impossible using the limited keypad and screen size of small devices such as cell phones,
said Rodney Vieira, a Microsoft group product manager.
Microsoft also hopes to take advantage of a federally mandated feature in future cell phones that will
pinpoint their location using satellites. That would make it possible, for example, to get information
automatically on nearby stores and restaurants.
"As long as there's a pipe there from the services side, we can pump the information to (any) device,"
Vieira said. "What were waiting on is for the hardware to develop."
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