Some background on cell phones and the Internet . . . from several recent press sources:
Dataquest estimates that there will be over 4 million Internet-enabled smart phones sold in 2000 (about 10% of the total cell phone market). Players include Motorola, Nextel, Nokia, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Qualcomm, and Neopoint. Motorola/Nextel are the 800 lb gorillas in the US digital wireless market, to the point that Nextel has been kept in check by a US antitrust lawsuit, recently eased on the grounds that entry by others is so difficult there's not much point in eliminating service to consumers by cutting down on Nextel's operations(!)
The MOT phone that evidently will be biometrics-ready (and one day, GPS-ready) soon is the i1000plus, a phone sold by Nextel at $299 list/ maybe $250 street. A "Nextel Online" version is going to be introduced later this year in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington and the Carolinas. Nationwide rollout to occur in early 2000 (that will probably include Idaho, if they have telephone service there).
My guess is that IDX unit sales to MOT in 2000 may be in the neighborhood of the low six figures. However, I don't know if MOT supplies any other cellular providers. If they do, IDX would be selling more. We aren't going to see massive sales in this market all at once. It will build, like the PC market is building. |
